300 THE AGARICACEAE OF MICHIGAN 



viscid when moist, adorned with terete, erect, pointed, tawny scales, 

 more dense on disk, on a whitish ground-color. FLESH white, 

 thick. GILLS rather narrow, adnate or arcuate subdecurrent, 

 often becoming sinuate in age, close or crowded, whitish becoming 

 brownish-ferruginous. STEM 5-10 cm. long, 5-10 mm. thick, equal, 

 firm, stuffed, rough with numerous, thick, floceose, tawny scales, 

 which terminate above in a lacerated, floceose ANNULUS, glabrous 

 and white above the annulus. SPOEES oblong, short-elliptical to 

 ovoid, 5-5.5x2.5-3.5 micr., smooth, rusty-brown. CYSTIDIA scat- 

 tered, about 30 micr. long, obtuse at apex. 



(Dried: Ochraceous, with tawny scales.) 



Very caespitose, up to 50 in a cluster. On trunks of living 

 maple, birch and beech, also on dead wood: logs, stumps, etc., of 

 deciduous trees. Northern Peninsula, frequent; not found else- 

 where. August-September. Edible. 



The "sharp scale" Pholiota is closely related to the European 

 P. squarrrosa. It is said (N. Y. State Mus. Kep. 54, p. 183) to differ 

 in the viscid pileus, emarginate gills and smaller spores. The gills, 

 however, are not constant, and frequently I have seen our plant with 

 arcuate-decurrent gills, without a sign of emargination. In 1908 in 

 company of C. G. Lloyd, I came across a tuft of a Pholiota in the 

 grounds of Upsala University, Sweden, which had all the macros- 

 copic characters of our plant; it was slightly viscid (moist), and 

 the colors were the same as in the specimens collected in northern 

 Michigan. Unfortunately, I was unable to get the spore-measure- 

 ments. Fries in Epicrisis, p. 166, says the color of P. squarrosa is 

 croceo-ferruginous, and it is thus figured by Michael, Vol. II, No. 76, 

 and Cooke, 111., Plate 367. On the other hand, Patouillard in Tab. 

 Analyt, p. 154 and No. 340, paints it like our species and unites with 

 it P. verruculosa Lasch. which Cooke in Illust, Plate 614, figures in 

 such a way as to remind us strongly of P. squarrosoides. Either the 

 American plant occurs in Europe also, or there is great variation 

 in the color of P. squarrosa, both of cap and gills. The gills of the 

 latter are said by all the European authors, to be pale olivaceous 

 at first, and the spore measurements are given as 8 x 4. Maire (Soc. 

 Myc. France Bull., Vol. 27, p. 437) says the spores are smooth. Fur- 

 ther, the odor of P. squarrosa is said to be strong, disagreeable. 

 Patouillard, Gillet and Michael describe the flesh as yellow. P. 

 squarrosa may then be said to differ from P. squarrosoides, in the 

 color of the young gills, the disagreeable odor, the yellow flesh, the 

 crocus-yellow or tawny color, and the larger, smooth spores. It has 

 been reported from the United States by various authors, and it 



