Order Hymexomycetes. . Tribe Pileati. 



Plate LXXXIV. 



AGARICUS HETEROPHYLLUS, Fries. 



ForTied gilled Agaric . 



Series Leucospouus. Subgenus Russul.^:. 



Section Firm^ {Fries, in Epicrisis.) 



Spec. Cliar. A. heterophyllus. Pileus at first covered -nitli a strictly adnate pellicle, viscid in wet weather, 

 (inuch slighter in this species than in others of the section it belongs to,) disappearing in age, when the pileus 

 becomes perfectly dry, not shining ; of various mixed hues, partaking of mixed yellow and gi'een, pallid towards 

 the margin, from two to four inches broad, smooth (not virgato-ruyulose) fleshy, firm, convex (not umhilicate) then 

 plane, at length sub-depressed in the centre Cnot infimdibuliform) ; margin thin at first, somewhat inflexed, then 

 expanded, acute, slightly striate (not tuherculoso-driate) ; flesh white, (not reddish beneath the epidermis), vesicu- 

 lose in texture, consisting entirely of cells. GUIs white, then cream-coloured, thin, rather rigid, brittle, very close, 

 much forked dimidiately, anastomosing or united at the stem, adnate, attenuated behind, lanceolate in front, alto- 

 gether extremely narrow and nearly equal in age. Stem solid, white, firm, but cellular in texture, nearly equal, 

 dilated at the insertion of the gills, obtuse at the base, from one to two inches high, half an inch or more thick. 

 Spores white. Odoiu' none, taste mild, like pure hog's lard, never acrid ; an extremely excellent article of food. 

 Agakicus heterophyllus. Trki (in Epicrisii). 



Hab. Li old woodland, never where the land has been cultivated, generally under oaks, on sloping gromid, 

 where the herbage is very poor and mossy. August to October. 



The sub- genus Russula, consists of above forty members, of which only a tenth are safely esculent, the 

 remainder being either doubtful, or decidedly deleterious. Of the four exceptions it would be impossible 

 to speak too higlily, but we are sorry to say they generally keep bad company, and as so many of their 

 relations are decidedly to be shunned, it is necessary to be more wary in choosing a dish among them, than 

 in most cases of selection ; indeed, we should advise none but experienced mycologists to provide Russulas 

 for the table at any time, and even they wdU sometimes be obliged to taste in order to be perfectly sure ; 

 fortunately all the noxious individuals are more or less acrid, some of them, as Agaricus ruber, to such an 

 intense degree, that the smallest piece of one, raw, will not only cause its certain condemnation, but imprint 

 the fact in burning characters on the tongue and memory. 



Not only are the Eussulas, as a class, extremely difficult to define individually, and to understand from 

 descriptions, but this difficulty has increased itself by causing innumerable errors in their synonymes ; thus 

 occasioning the characters given by one author to any particular member of the family, to be totally dis- 

 crepant from Agarics similarly named by another authority. In tliis confusion we think it better to 

 adhere to the nomenclature we have used throughout (unless in one or two cases, where the original 



