Order Hymenomycetes. Tribe Pileati. 



Plate XXXIX. 



[Agarics liable to be confounded with J. oreades.'] 



AGARICUS SEMI-GLOBATUS, ^«/.c/. 



Hemispherical Affaric. 

 Series Pratella.' Sub-genus Psaliota.- 



Sper. Char. A. semi-globatus. Pileus from half an inch to an inch or more broad, perfectly hemispherical, 

 yellow, viscid when moist, when cby shining as if varnished, smooth, fleshy ; flesh white beneath the epidermis, 

 umber near the gills. Gills very broad, aduate with a little tooth, minutely serrulate, plane, with a cinereous 

 tinge, mottled with the dark spores. Stem from two to three inches high, from one to one and a half line 

 thick, very viscid, shining when dry with a closely glued silkiness, fistulose, sometimes sub-bulbous, by the expansion 

 of the channel, at the root. Ring deflexed, more or less perfect, sometimes fragments remaining attached to the edge 

 of the pileus. Spores deep brown, frequently scattered on th^npex of the stem and the fragments of the ring. 

 Agaeicus semi-globatus, Batsch., Fries, Berkeley, Persoon, Greville, Withering. 

 virosus, Soicerhy. 



Hah. Uich meadows, especially on horse-dung, on lawns, &c. ; from May to November. Dispersed ; never in 



That this Agaric sliould ever have been mistaken for the Champignon seems incredible, and yet 

 Sovi'erby quotes it as most deadly, from several persons having been poisoned by its use. The ignorant 

 presuniptiou that could venture to collect for food, articles evidently so ill understood, cannot be too severely 

 censured, but it appears probable that it was not as Sowerby supposed with our A. oreades, the '■'' Mousseron 

 Godaille" that these dark spored Agarics were confounded; they were probably mistaken for the "Mous- 

 seron d'eau," which Paulet describes "from an inch and a half to two inches high, growing by thousands 

 one over the other without touching, in low damp places near woods ; pileus about one inch wide, at first 

 very white, but soon growing brown from the change of tint the giUs undergo, subject fi-om its tenderness 

 to crack ; gills at first flesh-colour, covered with a veil Kke a fine spider's web, growing dark brown, without 

 any vestige of the veil, unequal, not adnesed ; stalked about a line tliick, wliite, straight, cyhndric, nourished 

 by a small bulb, fistulose in age ; plant watery but dries well, and acquires a flavour of mushroom it had 



' "Emva pratum, pasture ground. Veil not arachnoid. GiUs changing colour, clouded, at length dissolving. 

 Spores brown-purple, or nearly black. 



^ From >|/'dXioi/, 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 

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

 universal veil. 



