Order Hymenomtcetes. Tribe Pilcati. 



Plate XLV. 



AGARICUS REEDII, Berkeley,, mss. 



Series Cortinaria.' Subgenus Hygroctbe.^ 



Subdivision Tenuiores.^ 



Spec. Char. Agaricus Eeedii. Pileus at first conic, lobed, when fully expanded one inch across, strongly 

 umbonate, at length depressed round the umbo ; smooth, shining brown, not becoming pallid, the apex with areo- 

 late scales ; margin splitting. Stem from one-and-a-half to two iiiches high, white, solid, fibrillose, striate, 

 bulbous ; veil fibrillose, disappearing. Gills broad, ventricose, ascending, free, though in young specimens appearing 

 adnate from the compression of the pileus, pallid, then cinnamon from the reddish-ochre spores. Flesh pallid, 

 tasteless, scentless. 

 Agaricus Reedii, BerJceley, MSS. 



Hah. Among moss and decaying beech-mast under very aged trees. Hayes Common. End of May. 



So closely do these pretty little specimens of the family Cortinaria assimilate in colour, and the 

 youtliful ones even in shape, with the beech-mast, that as the brown conic pileus, with its scaly umbo, 

 peeps from among the bright green moss, it is scarcely to be discerned by any but truly skilful fungus- 

 hunting eyes from the debris of husks surroimding the spot : twice we have found it on the same site, 

 about the end of May. Although nearly allied to A. leucopus and A. Krombholzii, it differs in essential 

 points fi-om botli ; Mr. Berkeley therefore, considering it a new species, has named it after the sister whose 

 drawings, signed F. E., so liberally grace Mrs. Hussey's First Series of British Mycology. Recently Miss 

 r. Reed has joined a party of her family going to reside at Valparaiso, and if her skill is employed in 

 depicting novel objects there, the results cannot faO to be highly interesting to students in tins branch of 

 botany, which few travellers either know or care anything about. Whether South America generally is 

 rich in the fungus tribes can scarcely be said to have been inquired into ; but in Terra del Fuego, with its 

 sombre forests and dripping skies, odc species is so abundant as to furnish the natives with a valuable 

 supply of food. 



' Spores red-ochre. 



2 Pileus smooth or covered only with superficial fibrils, not viscous, but when in fuU vigour moist, when dry 

 losing its colour. Flesh very thin, splitting, the disc seldom compact. Stem sUghtly rigid, not peronate. Veil 

 simple, fibrillose. 



* Pileus sub-membranaceous, from conic becoming e.xpanded, umbonate, umbo generaUy acute at first, rarely 

 obtuse, and disappearing, which is not the case with the former. Stem sub-equal. The thinness of the pileus is 

 onlv relative to its width. 



