ARMILLARIA MELLEA 91 



pilei, and gills, whilst a primary mycelium grown by itself appears 

 to have such weak fruiting powers that it gives rise not to normal 

 massive fruit-bodies but simply to isolated scattered basidia. 



When fruit-bodies of Armillaria mellea occur in large clusters, 

 collectively they -may give off such vast numbers of basidiospores 

 that the escaping spore-clouds, under favourable conditions of 

 diffuse daylight, may be perceived even with the naked eye.^ 



The fruit-bodies of Armillaria mellea are edible, but mycophag- 

 ists dislike their flavour and do not highly recommend them. 

 Squirrels 2 and certain slugs ^ eat them with avidity. 



In the United States of America there is an agaric known as 

 Clitocyhe monadelpha Morg. which resembles Armillaria mellea in 

 its honey colour and scaliness, etc., but is distinguished from it by 

 the absence of the annulus, by the more decurrent gills, and by the 

 solidity of its stipe.* Miss C. A. Richards ^ has recently discovered 

 that Clitocyhe monadelpha, in its rhizomorphs, in its mycelial sheets, 

 in its mode of rotting wood, and in cultures obtained from its rhizo- 

 morphs, very closely resembles Annillaria mellea. Particularly 

 on account of the striking similarity of the rhizomorphs I am 

 inclined to regard Clitocyhe monadelpha as merely a ringless form 

 of Armillaria mellea. In Europe Clitocyhe tahescens, beautifully 

 illustrated in colours by Boudier,^ appears to be merely another 

 ringless form of Armillaria mellea and it is so regarded by Rea.' 

 Kauffman states that Clitocyhe ynonadelpha " is apparently the 

 American form of C. tahescens.''''^ 



The Gills and the Hymenium. — The gills of Armillaria mellea 

 in cross-section have the usual wedge shape so characteristic of 

 the Aequi-hymeniiferae and are positively geotropic, so that their 



1 Vide these Researches, vol. ii, 1922, pp. 100-103. 



2 Ibid., pp. 197-199. 



^ Slugs, probably Limax maximus, so voraciously attacked the A. mellea fruit- 

 bodies used for determining the length of the spore-fall period that my observations 

 were brought to a premature end. 



* G. Mcllvaine and R. K. Macadam, One Thousand American Fungi, Indiana- 

 polis, 1902, p. 89, Plate XXVII. 



^ C. Audrey Richards, in litt. 



« E. Boudier, Icones Mycologicae, Paris, 1905-1910, T. I, Plate LXI. 



' C. Rea, British Basidiomycetae, Cambridge, 1922, p. 110. 



8 C. H. Kauifman, The Agaricaceae of Michigan, Lansing, vol. i, 1918, p. 72.3. 



