HYGROPHOREAE 



Frail body soft, fleshy. Stem central, confluenl with the pileus. 

 Gills with a waxy consistency, more <>r Less distant, thick, well- 

 developed, with acute edge. 



This subfamily is well defined and set off from the others. The 

 characteristics are no1 easily described In words, but the habit of 

 the plants and the nature of the gills are sunn learned by field study. 

 The gills, although acute <>u the edge, thicken toward the pileus, 

 and are built up of a thick central layer (the trama), coated on 

 both surfaces by a thick, waxy, hymenial layer of long basidia, 

 which is more or less removable. 



Our species are included under two genera : 

 Spores white. Hygrophorus. 

 Spores blackish. GompMdius. 



Gomphidius Fr. 



(From the Greek, gomphos, a wooden boll or peg, referring t<» 



the shape of the young plants.) 



Black-spored to smoky-olive-spored; gills of a waxy or subgela- 

 tinous consistency, decurrent, subdistanl to distant, forked, e 

 acute: stem central, confluenl with the pileus; pileus fleshy, viscid; 

 partial veil when present membranous glutinous; spores elongated- 

 Bubfusiform ; cyst [dia abundant. 



Terrestrial and putrescent fungi, very infrequenl in thi> region, 

 sharply distinct by the nature of its gills and spores. The genus 

 appears to have some relationship with Hygrophorus on the one 

 hand and with Pa xi II us on the other. In Europe, G. viscidus Vv. and 

 G. glutinosis Pr. are a prominenl pari of the mushroom flora, al- 

 though with us these two species seem to be entirely lacking, and 



no species can be saiil to be frequent. Peck has described five 

 species from the United States: four of these came from tl era 



states and are smaller than the two common European Bpecies 

 mentioned above. Nothing is known of the edibility of our spe< 



The genus is besl recognized by the smoky, decurrenl and usually 

 distant gills, the viscid or glutinous cap, and the Bpotted stem, 

 the young stage a viscid veil connects the margin of the pileus with 



