Order Hymenomycetes. Tribe Pileati. 



Plate XXXV. 



AGARICUS ^RUGINOSUS, c«r^.. 



Verdigris Agaric. 

 Series Pratella.' Sub-genus Psaliota.^ 



Spec. Char. A. jiecginosus. Pileus one to four inches broad ; yellowish, smeared with blue, more or less 

 persistent, gluten which gives it a green tint ; fleshy but thin, convex, expanded ; when young sometimes covered 

 above the gluten with pure white scales, the remains of the veil. Gills umber, or purplish-umber, plane or very 

 slightly ventricose, adnate with a small tooth ; margin white, pulverulent, or with the remains of the veO attached 

 in fragments. Stem two or three inches high, from a quarter to half an inch thick ; rooting by a few branched 

 white fibres, straight or flexuous, sometimes sub-bulbous ; at first scaly, scales reflesed, then more or less smooth with 

 various tints of blue, green, or yellow ; at first stuffed, then hollow ; mottled with blue within, the centre white. 

 Ring in general fugacious ; smell rancid. 



Agaeicus eeruginosus, Curtis, Fries, Berkeley, Greville, Sotcerby, Withering. 

 cyaneus, Bolton, Withering. 



Hab. Among grass and sticks, near hay-stacks ; in woods and fields ; late summer and autumn, very common. 



Prom the stout handsome Agaric of a bright verdigris tiat, with pure white fragments of the veil in rehef 

 upon stem and pileus, to the slender, dull-straw-coloured, sticky, insignificant specimens (turned disdain- 

 fully out of the collector's basket, with "only that tiresome Mruginosus again !") the varieties are numerous. 

 And why is the poor Fungus " tiresome ? " Because, when Agarics are scarce and anxiously hunted for, it 

 wiU present itself, not only in proper garb, but in all states of undress, seducing the unwary by resem- 

 blances to other Agarics, or to notliing seen before, holding out the hope of " novelty," a hope strong in 

 the breast of every Mycologist. With its face washed clean by the rain, a small one puts on the yellowish 

 face of A. semi-globatiis ; a large one, that of A.pracox; but while the blue veil continues to envelope it, 

 our Agaric is a very distinct and characteristic species. The green hue is given by the intrinsically yellow 

 pileus shewing through the blue gluten. In spite of the said gluten being a repulsive feature in itselfj 

 rendering the touch unpleasant, A. aruginosm is, when in full and fresh perfection, a very elegant and 

 striking member of the Fungus family, particularly wlule the wliite fragments of the veil, and its debris 



' From pratum, pasture ground. VeU not arachnoid. GUIs changing colour, clouded, at length dissolving. 

 Spores dark, brown-purple, or nearly black. 



2 From -^akiov, a ring or collar. Veil forming a ring, sub-persistent, really partial. Stem firm, sub-equal, 

 distinct from the pileus. Pileus more or less fleshy, convex, then campanulato-expanded, viscid or clothed with 

 squamules or fibrUlEe. GiUs fixed or free, broad, becoming brown. In some species there are the rudiments of a 

 universal veil. 



