Order Hymenomycetes. Tribe Pileati 



Plate LX. 



AGARICUS LATERITIUS, sck^ffer. 



Var. SUB-SOLITARIUS. 



Bed-brick Agaric. 



Series Pratella.^ Sub-geuus Hypholoma.^ 



Spec. Cliar. A. lateritius. Gregarious. Ctespitose, but not densely tufted. Pileus from two to three inches 

 or more broad, fleshy, plano-convex, always very obtuse, at length expanded, diy, neai-ly smooth, ochi-aceous, tawny 

 in the centre inclining to brick-red, paler at the margin where it is slightly silky ; when young it is silky all over, 

 and in proportion as it becomes smooth, it is more deeply coloured. Flesh compact, white, bitter. Veil stained 

 with the spores, adhering in fragments to the margin. Gills rounded behmd, adnate \\'ith a tooth, from pallid 

 nearly white, becoming dusky olive when clouded by the spores ; spores pale brown-pm-ple not with a feiTUginous tint. 

 Stem three mches or more high, from two to three lines thick; often thickest below, stuffed, firm, at length 

 fistulose, but the walls are as thick or tivice as thick as the diameter of the canal ; yellow with a more or less 

 rufescent tinge. 



The variety siib-soUtarius is often very handsome, the centre of the brightest brick-red with superficial patches 

 of down, cracking, turning black where bruised or pressed against other substances ; the stem is much thicker, 

 stouter, and in young specimens the canal can scarcely be perceived, nearly of a uniform hue with the pileus, equal, 

 but thickened at the base. Smell agi-eeable ; flavour less bitter than that of the csespitose variety, but not " sweet." 

 Agaricus lateritius, Schaffer, Fries, Berkeley, Persoon, G-reville. 



amarus, Bulliard. 



pomposus, Bolton. 



Hah. At the foot of stumps, or where decaying roots are beneath the soil. From May to October. 



There is a yellow Agaric witlr orange shades on the centre of the pileus, and green gills, which may be 

 found at the bottom of nearly every old post and stump durmg a great part of the year ; it is often so 

 densely tufted as to have gained it the name "fascicularis " or " bundled-up " Agaric ; between this and 

 our present subject, the sub-solitary Lateritius so great a difference exists that they can never be mistaken 

 for each other, but then these are two extremes. The more usual growth of A. lateritius is also fasciculated, 

 although not so densely as that of its congener, the proper owner of the name, and weak, pale, specimens 



' From ^rafew, pasture ground. Veil not arachnoid. GiUs changing colour, clouded, at length dissolving. 

 Spores bro\vn, purple, or in the Coprinarii nearly black. 



2 From vc^^, a weh, and Xafxa, a fringe. Veil fugacious, woven, fixed to the margin of the pileus and stem. 

 Stem firm, sub-solid, distmct from the pileus. Pileus fleshy, convex, then plane. GDIs adnate, close, subdeli- 

 quescent. Caespitose, growing on wood. 



