AgaricHs.] 



FUNGI. 107 



Pastures, dunghills, &c. ISIay— Oct. Very common.— P?7«??/s 2—5 

 inches broad, at first convex, then plano-convex, white, silky or clothed 

 with reddish-brown adpressed fibrillar collected into little fascicles ; 

 epidermis easily separating from the flesh, projecting beyond the gills 

 and often curled back, fleshy ; Jhsh firm, thick, white, more or less 

 stained with reddish-brown especially when bruised. Gills very unequal, 

 at first of a beautiful pink, free, obtuse and sometimes forked behind, 

 broad in the middle ; at length dark, mottled with the brownish-purple 

 minute subelliptic sporules ; the edge white and minutely denticulate. 



Stem 2 3 inches or more high, ^ — ^ of an inch thick, nearly equal or 



subbulbous, white, beautifully but "minutely silky, furnished with a thick 

 8')ongy ring generally above the middle, firm, consisting of fibres, those 

 in the centre lower. Boot consisting of a few branched white fibres, 

 which are often beset with little knobs, which are the infant state 

 of the plant. When quite young, there is a fine silky universal veil. 

 — A most extraordinary and beautiful state of this species occurred at 

 Margate, on a heap of horse-dung covered with soil, close to the angle 

 of a white brick wall with a northern aspect, July 31, 1832. A portion 

 of the pileus was occupied by what at first appeared to be a parasitic 

 Sistotremn, but, on closer inspection, proved to be a pulvinate excres- 

 cence of the mushroom itself, \'^ of an inch broad, f of an inch thick, 

 occupied by sjuu-ious gills in the guise of subporiform jagged plates 

 about 1 line deep, and producing sporules like those of the perfect gills 

 beneath, but as it appeared to me rather more minute. The margin 

 was vellowish and minutely downy. — The most generally used perhaps 

 of all Agarics and the safest. It is extensively cultivated, on which 

 point ]M- Roques has some excellent information. The artificial pro- 

 duction of this species without the aid of spawu has been frequently 

 l)rought forward as an argument for the equivocal generation of Fungi. 

 But when it is considered how many millions of the sporules must be 

 devoured together with the herbage by the animals whose dung is a 

 principal material in the compost, much of the force of this argument 

 vanishes. And the circumstance that other species, whose sporules 

 are equally extensively diffused, so seldom occur on nuishroom-beds, 

 does not invalidate this, because fairy-rings generally contain one species 

 onlv and the peculiar conditions necessary for the development of the 

 common nmshroom may cither not be favourable at all to the growth 

 of other species, or they may affect the sporules of the mushroom much 

 more rapidly and certainly', which therefore take the lead and prevent 

 the growth of other species. 



287. A. prdrox, Pors. (carh/ Agaric) ; pilous flosliy even 

 yollowish-tan, gills adiioxed witli a subdecurrent tooth j)al(' 

 fuscous, stem sul)S(di(l ^vliito. Pirs. Sijti. p. 4 20. Fr. Sj/st. 

 Mifc. V. 1. p. 283. — A, ciwdicnns, Schir(f\ t. 217.— . I. ccrcolus, 

 S'chaiff\t.b\.—A. flurus, Holt. t. 07./. \. 



Hedge-sides, grassy plticcs, gardens, c"l-c. Spring and autunm. 

 Common. — Solitary or gregarious. Pilms \\ — 2 inclics across, very 

 fleshy ; Jfcs/i firm, white or pale-buff", watery near the gills; qtiihrmts 

 in (lamp weather moist subviscid, \\lien dry resembling white kid leather, 

 retaining the impression of the fingers, soiiu'times tcssellatoil, yillowisli 

 or pale tawny. (iill^ adnexed or suhadnate, moderately broad, not 

 ventricose, slightly hollowed out brhiml with n sididnurrcnt tooth, 

 l)alc brownish-purple ; the edge white or yellowish. A.^ri conspicuous ; 



