698 



THE AGARICACEAE OF MICHIGAN 



subdistant and broader gills. Our plant is not frequent, bar- 

 ing been collected only tbrice. Tbe separable gills ally it to tbose 

 species which W. G. Smith placed under the genus Lepista. 



734. Tricholoma fuligineum Pk. 



N. Y. State Rep. 41, 1888. 



Illustration : Plate CXLIX of this Report. 



PILEUS 3-7 cm. broad, convex, then expanded-subdepressed, or 

 obtuse, often irregular, sometimes with sinus on one side, sooty- 

 brown to dark grayish-brown, becoming blackish on handliug, dry, 

 minutely innately scaly or fibrillose, even. FLESH white at first, 

 cinerascent, scissile. GILLS adnate or adnexed, then emarginate, 

 subarid, very tough when dry, close to subdistant, moderately 

 broad, whitish or cinereous, becoming black when bruised. STEM 

 3-6 cm. long, 6-10 mm. thick, short, rarely elongated, solid or spongy- 

 stuffed, equal or subequal, innately fibrillose, pruinose at apex, 

 whitish or cinereous, blackish when handled. SPORES narrow, 

 elliptical-fusiform, 7-9x4-5 micr., smooth, white. CYSTIDIA and 

 sterile cells lacking. BASIDIA about 30 x 6-7 micr. ODOR and 

 TASTE more or less farinaceous. 



Gregarious or caespitose. On the ground among mosses, leaves, 

 etc., frondose woods of oak and maple. Jackson, Detroit, Ann 

 Arbor. September-October. Infrequent. 



Somewhat variable in size and shape, etc., under different condi- 

 tions of weather and situation. It differs from T. fumescens in 

 that the entire plant becomes sooty wben dried, and it has larger 

 spores and gills. The gills often assume a reddish hue when bruised, 

 then become black, as in Russnla nigricans. The stem is sometimes 

 slightly fioccose at first, as if frosted, and occasionally becomes 

 cavernous. Small forms of T. cinerascens have a more watery pileus 

 and the gills do not turn sooty-black. Dr. O. E. Fisher report * 

 that it has appeared abundantly in his back yard on discarded mush- 

 room beds. 



