Order Hymenomycetes. Tribe Pileati. 



Plate LXXX. 



AGARICUS PUDENS, Per 



soon. 



Series Leucosporus. 



Sub-genus Clitocybe. Sub-division Rhizopodes. 



Spec. Char. A. pudens. Pileus from an inch to three inches broad, umbonate, conico-convex, never 

 expanding so as to become plane ; fleshy, tough, eListic, wi-inkled, dry, villous-velvety, pale umber or tawny-gTey. 

 Flesh wliite. GUIs rather distant, free, broad, thick, rigid, opake creamy-white. Stem often eighteen inches in 

 length, but only about four inches of it appearing above ground ; half an. inch thick near the surface of the soil, 

 gradually attenuated upwards and downwards, continuing nearly equal (about a quarter of an inch in diameter) 

 below ; not fusiform ; small, solid, much twisted, rigid vQlous, rich tawny-brown. Scentless, insipid. 

 Agaricus pudens, Persoon, Berkeley, MSS. 

 longipes. Fries, BidUard. 



Hab. On the borders of woods, not common. September. 



The difficulty of extracting so deeply rooting a plant has led to ambiguity in the usual descriptions of 

 it. The commoner radicatus, which has a smooth, viscid, ultimately plane pileus, a long glassy piped 

 stem above ground, and a distinct fusiform root below, is confounded by both Eelhan and Withering, with 

 this, the longij)es of Bulliard and Fries, having a perfectly dry pileus, resembling chamois leather, and a 

 stem covered with stiff velvety pubescence, running down to an immense length below the soil, but not 

 fusiform, being nearly equal throughout, merely swollen just where it leaves the earth. 



Had our present subject grown far away in some forest haunt, we should never have ascertained its 

 true mode of growth, but have given up in despair after our tools had done as much as tliey are capable of; 

 but it was fortunately discovered near home, and a stout laboui'er with pick and spade, worked two feet 

 deep, tlirough a bed of the closest virgin gravel, to lay bare the point from which it started ; this point was 

 the living root of an oak ; two younger Agarics also proceeded from the same base as the mature one, which 

 had made its way up to the day, the fresh air and the pleasant showers. "We read with wonder of the 

 solitary prisoner boring through the stones and mortar of liis cell with some old knife blade or rusty nail, 

 but that the soft substance of an Agaric should thus have been able to pierce through the dense stratum of 

 gravel is much more wonderful. If we examine the younger plant we shall see that the most important 

 organ, the head, is not endangered in the operation, but is sunk down on the breast, protected by the 

 upraised shoulders which are employed to force the passage ; these are in fact part of the stem, and are 

 screwed upwards by the twists of the strong and woody yet elastic and yielding portion below, which can 

 bend aside on encountering a larger pebble than usual. The whole stem is covered by a thick strong 

 velvet coat to guard it from injury, and never grows so directly upwards as to form one straight piece, as 

 Bulliard represents it, but pursues an angular direction, then returns to the perpendicular again, and 

 variously accommodates itself to the difficulties it encounters. 



