168 STUDIES OF AMERICAN FUNGI. 



not evident without the use of a hand lens. The surface of the gills 

 as well as the edges is provided with clavate cystidia which are filled 

 with a yellow pigment, giving to the gills the bright yellow color so 

 characteristic. These cystidia extend above the basidia, and the 

 ends are rounded so that sometimes they appear capitate. The 

 yellow color is not confined to the cystidia, for the sub-hymenium is 

 also colored in a similar way. The spores are yellowish, oblong to 

 elliptical or spindle-shaped, and measure 8-12 x 3-5 //. The stem 

 is the same color as the pileus, but paler, and more yellow at the base. 

 It is marked with numerous minute dots of a darker color than the 

 ground color, formed of numerous small erect tufts of mycelium. 



Figure 156 is from plants (No. 3977 C. U. herbarium) collected 

 at Blowing Rock, N. C, during September, 1899. As stated above, 

 the plant was first described by de Schweinitz as Agariciis rhodoxan- 

 ihus in 1822. in 1834 (Synop. fung. Am. Bor. p. 151, 1834) he 

 listed it under the genus Gomplius Fries (Syst. Mycolog. 319, 1821). 

 Since Fries changed Gomphus to Gomphidius (Epicrisis, 319, 1836- 

 1838) the species has usually been written Gomphidius rhodoxjnthus 

 Schweinitz. The species lacks one very important characteristic of 

 the genus Gomphidius, namely, the slimy veil which envelopes the 

 entire plant. Its relationship seems rather to be with the genus 

 Paxillus, though the gills do not readily separate from the pileus, one 

 of the characters ascribed to this genus, and possessed by certain 

 species of Gomphidius in even a better degree, (in Paxillus involu- 

 tus the gills do not separate so readily as they do in certain species 

 of Gomphidius.) Berkeley (Decades N. A. Fungi, 1 16) has described 

 a plant from Ohio under the name Paxillus flavidus. It has been 

 suggested by some (see Peck, 29th Report, p. 36 ; Lloyd, Mycolog. 

 Notes, where he writes it as Flammula rhodoxaiithus !) that 

 Paxillus flavidus Berk., is identical with Agaricus rhodoxanthus 

 Schw. 



Paxillus rhodoxanthus seems also to be very near if not identical 

 with Clitocybe pelletieri Lev. (Gillet, Hymenomycetes 1: 170), and 

 Schroeter (Cohn's Krypt, Flora Schlesien, 3, i: 516, 1889) trans- 

 fers this species to Paxillus as Paxillus pelletieri. He is followed by 

 Hennings. who, under the same section of the genus, lists P. flavidus 

 Berk., from N. A. The figure of Clitocybe pelletieri in Gillet Hyme- 

 nomycetes, etc., resembles our plant very closely, and Saccardo 

 (Syll. Fung. S: 192) says that it has the aspect of Boletus subtomento- 

 sus, a remark similar to the one made by de Schweinitz in the original 

 description of Agaricus rhodoxanthus. Flammula paradoxa Kalch. 

 (Fung. Hung. Tab. XVII, Fig. i) seems to be the same plant, as 



