246 THE AGARICACEAE OF MICHIGAN 



pointed scales, not striate, sometimes rimose in age. FLESH 

 whitish at first, then reddish, thin. GILLS free, thin, narrow, 

 crowded, bright pink to old rose-color, finally dark purplish-red. 

 STEM 2-3 cm. long, 1-3 mm. thick, equal, stuffed with loose white fib- 

 rils then tubular, elsewhere soon blood-red within, surface floccosely- 

 pulverulent with a smoky bloom below the annulus, often mycelioid- 

 swollen at base. VEIL floccose-submembranaceus, easily lacerated, 

 concolor, forming an imperfect ANNULUS. Spores minute, ellip- 

 tical, 4-5x2-2.5 micr., smooth, with a tinge of purple-brown under 

 microscope, many immature and hyaline, cinnabar-purple brown in 

 mass. CYSTIDIA none. Trama of gills composed of large cells, 

 about 20 micr. in diameter. ODOR and TASTE slight, not of cu- 

 cumber, even after crushing. 



Subcaespitose or gregarious, in a green-house of the Michigan 

 Agricultural College, East Lansing. September. Rare. 



As shown by the references, this plant has been placed in three 

 different genera. It is therefore difficult of identification, the more 

 so because of its rarity. It seems that the spores mature slowly, 

 or perhaps in some regions or under hothouse conditions do not 

 take on a purplish tinge. Under the microscope some of the spores 

 of our specimens showed the usual delicate tint in the exospore 

 which is characteristic of many of this group. Fries (in Hymen. 

 Europ.) says he never saw them rosy. Patouillard says they are 

 hyaline under the microscope but that on a white background they 

 appear tawny ("fauve"). Ricken applies the word "erdfarbig." 

 All the illustrations picture our plant well, which, to quote Berkeley, 

 "is a most curious species." In Europe it occurs in hot-houses al- 

 most exclusively. 



Stropharia Fr. 

 (From the Greek, strophos, a sword-belt, referring to the annulus.) 



Purple-brown-spored. Stem fleshy, confluent with the pileus; an- 

 nulus membranous or fibrillose-floccose. Gills attached. SPORES 

 purple-brown or violet. Pileus usually viscid. 



Putrescent, terrestrial or coprinophilous, of medium size, in 

 fields, barnyards, dung hills or forest. They correspond to Armil- 

 laria of the white-spored, and Pholiota of the oehre-brown-spored 

 groups in the adnate gills and annulate stem; differing from 

 Hypholoma in that the veil collapses on the stem to form an annulus, 

 instead of remaining as a fringe on the margin of the pileus. 



It would be preferable, in my judgment, to limit the genus to 



