190 THE AGARICACEAE OF MICHIGAN 



168. Hygrophorus pratensis Fr. (Edible) 



Syst. Myc, 1821. 



Illustrations : Cooke, 111:, PL 917 and 932. 

 Ricken, Blatterpilze, PL 7, Fig. 2. 

 Gillet, Champignons de France, No. 345. 

 Swanton, Fungi, PL 9, Fig. 11-12, 1909. 

 Murrill, Mycologia, Vol. 2, PL 27, Fig. 1. 

 Peek, X. Y. State Mus. Rep. IS. Bot. ed., PL 28, Fig. 11-17, 



1896. 



PILEUS 2-7 em. broad, disk compact, convex, subexpanded, often 

 turbinate, obtuse or uinbonate, glabrous, even, reddish-fulvous or 

 pale tawny, moist when fresh, not viscid, margin thin. FLESH 

 white or tinged like pileus. GILLS decurrent, distant, thick, whit- 

 ish, yellowish or tinged like pileus, intervenose, very broad in the 

 middle, trama of interwoven hyphae. STEM short, 4-7 cm. long, 

 7-12 mm. thick, equal or narrowed downwards, glabrous, even, per- 

 sistently stuffed, white or tinged like the pileus. SPORES 6-8 x 

 1 :,..-» micr., broadly elliptical or elliptic-ovate, smooth, white. 

 BASIDIA slender, 40-42x5-6 micr. ODOR and TASTKmild. ^ 



Solitary, gregarious or caespitose. On the ground, woods, thick- 

 ets, grassy places, etc. Marquette, Houghton, Bay View, New Rich- 

 mond, Ann Arbor, etc. Most common apparently in the northern 

 part of the State; mostly in frondose woods. July-October. Fre- 

 quent. 



Var. pallidus. Plant whitish (Detroit). 



Var. cinereus. Plant cinereous or stem whitish. Otherwise like 



the typical form. 



The dry surface of the pileus often becomes rimulose in expanded 

 plants from the cracking of the cuticle. Such a condition is shown 

 in Hard's Fig. 163, Plate 24, op. page 204; in other respects that 

 illustration does not show the characteristic top-shaped pileus of 

 the plant, nor the short stubby stem. It is distinguishable by its 

 glabrous cap and stem, its top-shaped pileus and the compact flesh 

 of the center of the cap. It grows more often in exposed, grassy 

 places than our other Hygrophori. 



