COLLYBIA VELUTIPES 489 



water, the fruit-body doubtless shed spores throughout its long- 

 continued spore-discharge period continuously, both day and night. 

 It is interesting to note that the fruit-body continued to liberate 

 spores, although feebly, at a temperature so low as 34° F., at a time 

 when hoar-frost was forming on a near-by lawn ; and it is probable 

 that clouds of spores coming from the pileus mingled with the snow 

 that was falling on December 28. Evidently Pleurotus ostreatus, 

 during a mild Enghsh winter, may shed spores even on Christmas 

 Day and New Year's Day. Very rightly, therefore, it is described 

 by English mycologists as " a fungus of the late autumn or winter." 

 Collybia velutipes and its Activity in Mid-winter.— CoZ^ySm 

 velutipes, the Velvet-stemmed Collybia, with its viscid tawny pileus 

 and dark velvety stipe, is one of the most beautiful of British 

 Agaricineae (Fig. 202, also Vol. II, Fig. 15, p. 47). It usually 

 occurs in dense clusters on logs and trunks of deciduous trees and 

 IS remarkable in that it has considerable powers of resisting frost. 

 Par excellence it is a fungus of the winter months, but it also*occurs 

 in summer. Berkeley ' has thus described it : " Pileus thin, fleshy, 

 convex then plane, obtuse, smooth, viscid; stem stuffed, velvety! 

 rooting, dark bay ; gills adnexed, distant, yellowish." 



Collybia velutipes also occurs in North America and I have often 

 seen it at Winnipeg growing from the bark of dead or dying elms. 

 Stewart,- who has made a special study of it as it occurs in New 

 York State, remarks that it has been called the Winter Mushroom 

 because of its ability to endure low temperatures. In his locality its 

 principal seasons are October-November and May, but it may also 

 be found in spells of mild weather throughout the winter. Stewart 

 observed the fungus on Elm, Willow, Beech, Basswood, and Sugar 

 Maple, but never on Conifers, and he considers that it shows a 

 preference for Elm and Willow. ^ Among Stewart's other remarks 

 on the biology of C. velutipes are the following : 



"The favourite place of growth is on stumps at or near the soil 

 line ; but clusters are found emerging from cracks at a considerable 



2 ^' 'n ^^'^^^""y- Outlines of British Fungology, London, 1860, p. 116. 

 b. C. Stewart, The Velvet-stemmed Collybia~a Wild Winter Mushroom, 

 New York Agricultural Experiment Station, Bull. no. 448, 1918 p 86 

 ^ Ibid., p. 85. ^' 



