REPORT ON EDIBLE FUNGI 1 895-99 '35 



The gills are white or whitish, free from the stem and broader as they 

 approach the margin of the cap. The intervening short ones are truncated 

 at the inner extremity. 



The stem is neither bulbous nor distinctly annulate. It is white or 

 whitish and more or less mealy or scurfy. It is rather slender and sometimes 

 slightly tapering upward. Near the base it is often adorned with a few 

 transverse fragments of the wrapper, which are often so arranged as to 

 resemble an incomplete ring or collar. Occasionally two or even three of 

 these imperfect collars are formed. Fries represents the base of the stem of 

 the European plant as sheathed by a membranaceous wrapper, but such a 

 character is not well shown in the American plant. Neither does it show 

 the one or two swollen nodes near the base of the stem, as represented in 

 the figure in hones. I suspect these discrepancies are due to the failure of 

 the artist to represent these characters accurately, for Berkeley's figure 

 of Agaricus ceciliae B. and Br., which Fries, in Hymenomycetes 

 Europaet, places as a synonym of Agaricus strangulatus, well 

 represents our plant. It is also well represented in one figure of Agaricus 

 strangulatus as given by Saunders and Smith. They also represent 

 the spores as globose, but at the same time they quote the presumably incor- 

 rect description of them, which says that they are oval, .0006 inch long, 

 .00034 broad. Saccardo has also admitted this description of the spores in 

 Sylloge. We must either suppose this description is incorrect or else we 

 must suppose that all recent mycologic authors, including the illustrious 

 Fries himself, have confused two distinct species. The former supposition 

 seems to us to be the more reasonable. If, however, it should ever be 

 shown that Agaricus ceciliae B. and Br. is not the same as Agaricus 

 strangulatus Fr., then our American plant must bear the name 

 Amanitopsis ceciliae (B. and Br. ) instead of the name we have used. 



The cap is 1.5 to 4 inches broad, the stem is 3 to 5 inches long and 3 

 to 6 lines thick. 



The plants grow singly or in groups in or near the borders of woods. 

 They appear in July. The species is rare with us. It was first found by 

 me in 1869, near Greenport, Suffolk co. The second locality known to me 

 is near Gansevoort, Saratoga co., where it was found growing in a field but 

 near the borders of a piece of woods. Its edible character was tested, and 



