;;,,; THE AGARICACEAE OF MICHIGAN 



species correctly, and in the following pages the subgenera are 

 divided into subsections on this basis. The mature gills often show 

 1 races of the original color, especially if the spores are removed, 

 and this makes it possible at times to determine even a fully ma- 

 tured plant especially when other characteristic marks are still 

 present. The attachment of the gills varies somewhat but in nearly 

 all species they are at length emarginate- actuate or ernarginate-ad- 

 iiexed: a lew species have the gills obscurely subdecurrent. Many 

 species are well marked by crowded, subdistant or distant gills and 

 frequently their width can be used to discriminate between them. 

 The edge is scarcely ever sufficiently constant for use in diagnosis; 

 sometimes it is very entire, sometimes much eroded or minutely 

 serratulate, but only a few species show well developed projecting 

 sterile cells. The trama is of the "parallel" type. The STEM is 

 used as u means of distinguishing some of the subgenera. When 

 it is at first covered by the glutinous veil, the plant is referable to 

 i he subgenus Myxacium. When it has a sharply defined marginate 

 bulb, the subgenus Bulbopodium is indicated. In the larger forms 

 of i lie subgenera Phlegmacium, Inoloma and Telamonia the stem 

 is often clavate-bulbous. The veil-remnants on the stem of the sub- 

 genus Telamonia separates that hygrophanous group from Hydro- 

 cybe. Its texture is most often spongy -fleshy in the large forms, 

 while in the smaller ones, especially of the subgenus Hydrocybe the 

 external layer is rigid and subcartilaginous. The tissue of the 

 stem is continuous with that of the pileus, and hence the stem is 

 not separable from it as in Lepiota, etc. 



The COKTINA is composed of loose silky hyphae, almost from 

 the time it is discernible, and forms a "cobwebby" curtain in front 

 of. i. e.. below the gills. The threads of this curtain are inserted 

 for some distance vertically along the stem and converge in a wedge- 

 shaped manner toward the edge of the pileus and then coalesce with 

 th«- tissue of the upper surface of the pileus. In some species it is 

 very copious and as the pileus expands the cortina collapses on the 

 upper portion of the stem forming a loose, fringe-like spurious ring 

 which often becomes discolored by the falling spores. Sometimes 

 ii is more scanty and disappears early or is noticeable in the ex- 

 panded plant only as a slight annular stain on the stem. In other 

 cases, the margin of the pileus as it spreads carries with it. the 

 silky threads which remain as decorative shreds near its edge; in 

 this case the margin is at first definitely incurved and the cortina 

 is attached at a little distance from the incurved edge. Although 

 the very young plant shows that the hyphae of the cortina and the 



