REPORT OF THE STATE BOTANIST 75 



mature they assume a ferruginous or rusty color like that of the spores 

 The stem is similar in color to the cap but paler or nearly white at the 

 top and usually reddish-brown or rusty-brown at the base. The collar is 

 slight and often scarcely noticeable in mature specimens. 



The cap is 2 to 4 inches broad, the stem 2 to 4 inches long and 4 to 6 

 lines thick. The plants commonly grow in tufts on stumps or dead trunks 

 of deciduous trees in or near woods. They may be found from Septem- 

 ber to November. It is well to peel the caps before cooking. This 

 species is not classed as edible by European authors, but I find its flavor 

 agreeable and its substance digestible and harmless. The most closely 

 related species is the Lemon-yellow pholiota, Pholiota Ihnotiella. It is a 

 smaller plant with a thinner more expanded cap and with the gills of the 

 young plant whitish instead of yellow. The color of the cap and stem 

 is also a paler yellow. Its habitat and mode of growth are the same as 

 those of the Fat pholiota, but the plant is rare. 



Hypholoma perplexum Peck. 

 Perplexing Hypholoma. 



(Plate 47. Figs. 11-18.) 



Pileus convex or nearly plane, glabrous, sometimes broadly and 

 slightly umbonate, reddish or brownish-red fading to yellow on the mar- 

 gin, the flesh white or whitish ; lamellae thin, close, slightly rounded at 

 the inner extremity, at first pale-yellow, then tinged with green, finally 

 purplish-brown; stem nearly equal, firm, hollow, slightly fibrillose, whit- 

 ish or yellowish above, ferruginous reddish or reddish-brown below; 

 spores eUiptical, purplish-brown, .0003 inch long, .00016 broad. 



The Perplexing hypholoma has received this name because it is one 

 of a group of five or six very closely allied species, whose separation 

 from each other is somewhat. difficult and perplexing. Of these six spe- 

 cies three have a decidedly bitter, unpleasant flavor, and three are mild, 

 or not decidedly bitter, if we may rely on the published descriptions of 

 them. The three bitter ones, also, have no purplish tints to the mature 

 gills ; but two of the mild ones have. By using these and other distin- 

 guishing characters, the six species may be tabulated and their several 

 peculiarities more clearly shown. 



Taste bitter i 



Taste mild or not clearly bitter 3 



I Stem solid or stuffed, flesh whitish, gills whitish, then sooty-olive sublateritium. 



I Stem hollow, flesh yellow 2 



