18 



species has been recorded as found in Ceylon, the West Indies, or Africa, 

 but one tropical species is found in Brazil. Nearly four hundred species 

 have been described, and over three hundred and seventy of these belong- 

 to the United States and Europe. A few are found in the extreme 

 southern or temperate portion of South America, and several are 

 reported from a temperate elevation among the Himalayas. Sweden and 

 Great Britain, with their temperate climates, claim a large proportion of 

 the Earopean species. Not many of the Cortinarii have been recorded 

 as edible, and none as dangerous. The Kev. M. J. Berkeley records, how- 

 ever, a case of poisoning by one of the species, C. (Inoloma) bolaris 

 Pers., which though not fatal was somewhat alarming, the symptoms 

 being great oppression of the chest, profuse perspiration, and the en- 

 largement for two days of the salivary glands of the patient. I have 

 seen no other statements relating to the poisonous properties of this 

 species, and the results alluded to may have been owing to some indi- 

 vidual idiosyncrasy. 



Berkeley, in his " Outlines,'' gives the following description of this 

 mushroom : " Pileus fleshy, obsoletely umbonate, growing pale, variegated 

 with saffron-red, adpressed, innate scales ; stem stuffed, then hollow, 

 nearly equal, squamose, of the same color as the cap ; gills subdecurrent, 

 crowded, watery, cinnamon color. Cap 1 to 2 inches broad. Stem 2 to 8 

 inches long." In beech woods in September and October. 



The genus Cortinarius has been divided by some authors into the follow- 

 ing six groujDS : (1) Fhlegmacium, in which the cap is fleshy and viscid, the 

 veil partial, and the stem firm and dry ; (2) Myxac'mm, in which the veil is 

 universal and glutinous, hence the cap and stem both viscid ; cap thin ^ 

 and the gills adnate or decurrent ; (3) Inoloma, in which the cap is fleshj', 

 dry, and at first silky wdth innate fibrils ; veil simple and stem slightly 

 bulbous ; (tt) Dermocybe, in which the pileus is thinly fleshy, dry, and 

 at first downy, becoming smooth : the veil single and fibrillose ; flesh 

 watery, colored when moist, stem equal or attenuated downwards ; (5) 

 Telamonia, in which the cap is moist, at first smooth or dotted with the 

 superficial fragments of the veil, the stem ringed below, or peronately 

 scaly from the remains of the universal veil ; (6) Hydrocybe, in which the 

 cap is thin and moist, not viscid, smooth, or covered with superficial white 

 fibrils ; stem rigid, not scaly, veil thin, occasionally collapsed in an irreg- 

 ular ring. These subdivisions have been designated as tribes by some 

 botanists and subgenera by others, etc. To the divisions Inoloma and 

 Phlegmacium, respectively, belong the two species illustrated in Plate XII. 



Plate XII. 



Figs. 1 to 4. — Cortinarius rinoloma) violaceus Fr. " Violet Coi'tinarrmsy 



Edible. 



Cap fleshy, at first convex, then nearly plane, dotted with hairy tufts or 

 scales, margin at first involute, color purple or dark violet, flesh soft, J 



