Order Hymenomtcetes. Tribe Pileati. 



Plate LXXXV. 



AGARICUS VITTADINI, Morem. 



Vittadinis Agaric. 

 Series Leucosporus. Sub-genus Lepiota. 



spec. CJiar. A. Vittadini. Pileus from four to six inches across, at first convex, then expanded, at length 

 plane, obtusely umbonate, squarrose, or covered \vith irregularly, pyramidal, spinous warts, united at their base ; 

 white, as well as the pileus ; margin smooth, acute, naked, and with no vestiges of the ring attached to it. Gills 

 free, ventricose, rounded in front, in-egular with many shorter ones interspersed, always waved and notched, often 

 in age variously emarginate, greenish cream-colour. Spores white. Flesh thick, juicy, pure white (slightly 

 changing to greenish yellow when bruised or cut, Krombliok). Stem from six to ten inches high, solid, firm, one 

 inch or more thick, nearly equal (never bidbous nor inserted into a collar at the apex) ; covered below the ring, 

 with concentric squarrose reflexcd scales. Ring superior, pendulous, scarcely wider than the stem, except just at 

 the margin, subpersistent, double, the inner membrane very tender, smooth, the outer scaly, floccose. Taste insipid. 

 Smell "like log-wood," Kfomb. Poisonous. 

 Agaricus Vittadiui, Moretti, Fries, Krombholz. 



Hob. Bare, in woods, &c. At Wymondham, Norfolk. Eev. Dr. Badham, July, 1847. 



The showy Agaric we now present has rarity as well as beauty to recommend it to attention. It has 

 only once been found iu England, that has been, ascertained tvith certainty, for ahhough Mr. Berkeley many 

 years ago found a white warty Agaric, which he believes to have beeu A. Vittadini, he had no opportunity 

 of making a drawing of it, and of course does not speak with positive conviction on the subject. Dr. 

 Badham's specimen grew in a hedge-bank enclosing a small ash spinney on the Norwich road, from 

 Wymondham ; probably they will not recur on the same spot, as the ground has been carefully cleared 

 and ploughed ; it is besides at aU times and in all localities a rare species. 



There are exellent drawings, and very full particulars of this Agaric in the great work of Corda which 

 bears the name of Krombholz ; one point proved is, that it does not belong to the Amanites, among which 

 it was placed by the Italian Mycologists. Yittadini believed the young Agaric to have a scaly bulb, but 

 " afterwards doubted his own observation," and Corda adds, " my examples selected in considerable 

 number and at different spots do not support his account; it agrees with the true forms of the 

 Lepiotes, of which none has the shghtest trace of a volva, and the loose remains of a universal veil, 

 upon the pileus, by no means imply its existence." The Norfolk Agarics had the stem as Corda describes, 

 nearly cyUndrical, but tapering below, ovately obtuse, and smooth for that portion, the floccose sheathing 

 not commencing till an inch and a half above the base ; in other characters also they agreed so precisely 

 with the spinous forms given in his plate, that the portraits are identical. We did not observe any charge 

 in colour on cutting our Agarics : " the beautiful white colour turns greenish yellow " must apply to more 



