- 1() THE AGARICACEAE OP MICHIGAN 



The PILEUS may be glabrous, pruinose, silky or fibrillose, hard- 

 ly ever strongly scaly; it is either hygrophanous, viscid or dry, in 

 the List case abrillose or somewhat scaly. The cuticle varies in 

 structure, the viscid species being provided with a pellicle composed 

 of gelatinous hyphae while in many cases the surface has a gelatin- 

 ous feel but is not truly differentiated and does not become viscid ex- 

 cept in very prolonged wet weather. In one section the surface is 

 distinctly librillose, the fibrils sometimes forming definite scales 

 on the disk. In only a few species is the margin striate or striat- 

 ulate. Many become water-soaked in rainy weather, and it is then 

 often difficult to determine whether they are hygrophanous. The 

 colors vary from white, watery-whitish, grayish, grayish-brown to 

 dark brown; more rarely tinged violet, reddish' or yellowish and 

 always with only the soft shades of these colors. The colors are 

 hard to describe in terms which are sufficiently clear, and this has 

 caused considerable confusion; hence other characters must be 

 used as much as possible. Nearly all the species are somewhat 

 fragile, but may become tougher in dry weather. 



The GILLS are adnate-sinuate as in Tricholoma, sometimes ad- 

 nexed. often seceding from the stem in age. It is important to note 

 their color before they become pink from the spores; this is either 

 white, yellowish or ashy. They are rat 1km- broad, even in the small 

 species rarely narrow. In distinction from Pluteus. there are no 

 cvstidia except in a very few species, the edge is therefore usually 

 entire. The STEM is central, fleshy or with the outer rind fibrous 

 and spongy within, sometimes loosely stuffed and then hollow, not 

 cartilaginous except under peculiar weather conditions. In the 

 larger species the stem is stout as in Tricholoma. It is intimately 

 connected with the pileus, the traina of the stem extending un- 

 altered into that of the pileus as in all the genera with adnate 

 gills; it is therefore not separable as in Pluteus and Yolvaria. 



The SPORES are irregularly-angular, the general outline varying 

 from spherical to elliptical, often with a prominent, oblique apic- 

 iilus al the angle where it was attached to the basidium; a few 

 species have rounded spores, i. e., not angled. Their color in mass 

 varies from pale to deep flesh color, to rosy or salmon. Tricholoma 

 personatum Fr., Tricholoma nudum Fr. and Tricholoma panoeolum 

 \ar. caespitosa Bres. have flesh-colored spores in mass and will be 

 looked lor here. 



A number of the species are known to be very poisonous; E. 

 liridum Fr. has been proved so by both Romell and Worthington 

 Smith; /:. grande Pk. is suspected by its author. The species are 



