Order Hymenomycetes. Tribe Pileati. 



Plate LVI. 



AGARICUS VELUTIPES, curus. 



Velvet-stemmed Agaric. 



Series Leccosporus. 



Sub-genus Clitocybe.' Sub-division Rhizopodes.^ 



Spec. Char. A. velutipes. Csespitose. Pfleus from an inch to three inches broad, smooth, shiny, of a 

 beautiful tawny colour, unequal, convex, expanded, fleshy, margin tliiu subtransparent. Gills ventricose, broad, 

 scarcely adnate. The colour vaiying from pale straw-colour to buif-yeUow. Stem from two to nine inches high, 

 three eighths of an inch thick, incurved, velvety, rich tawny brown, paler above, often compressed and striate, fistiUose. 

 Agaricus velutipes, Cm-iis, Fries, Berkeley, Withering, Sowerby. 

 nigripes, Bidliard. 



Hah. On decaying wood, underwood cut down, stumps of trees &o. ; through the whole year ; extremely 

 common. 



Among the Agarics which defy the painter's skill, we must number Vehdipes, and this with the more 

 regret, because, if the dra\Aing could have been half as pretty as the plant, it would have excited everybody's 

 admiration. Queen Elizabeth objected strongly to shadows besmircliing the fair beauty of her face, and 

 what would the gills of A. Velutipes tliink of the black marks wliich defUe as well as define them, under 

 artistic treatment ? they are so clear, so pure in hue — and that hue the most difficult of all to treat with 

 purity, a pallid buff yellow, frosted with the wliite spores which give them delicate elegance, like shot-silk, 

 yet totally devoid of gloss. To relieve this the stem is rich velvet, of a warm reddish-tawny coloui', and 

 the pileus, wliile compounded of both hues, differs in material from both, shining in satin array. We may 

 suggest that this costume evidently requires powder, for no pileus is without it when the mass is imbricated, 

 those above shedding their wliite spores on those beneath. At any rate, the painter who combines these 

 given hues and materials in his next drapery will find a harmony of the quiet kind, matching yet varied — 

 aU suitable (the pun was involuntary) : and if he relieves the draperies by cold greys, such as the bark 

 which forms the background to our agaric, it wiU, in colour at least, be a very chaste and beautiful picture. 

 On commons, among furze bushes that have been cut off for firing, and similiar gipsey haunts A. velutipes 

 is correctly stated to be " everywhere plentiful ; " but there are wide cultivated tracts of England where it 



' From xXiVot, a steep or declivity, and Kv^r\, a head, pointing to the shape of the pileus when young. Veil 

 none. Pileus convex when young, not umbQicate, at length often depressed or infundibuliform. Gills unequal, 

 juiceless, unchangeable, tough, variously fixed or free. 



- From (ii(fl, a root, and ixovi, afoot. Pileus fleshy, viscid. Gills sub-adfixed. Stem rooting. 



