BEPOET OF THE STATE BOTANIST. 153 



The gills are at first nearly white but they assume a pale-pink 

 or salmon color with age. They run down on the stem. 



The stem is solid, smooth and white. 



Cap two to three inches broad, stem one to two inches long, one- 

 fourth to one-half an inch thick. This plant is found in woods 

 in warm wet weather in July and August. It is solitary or there 

 are but few^ individuals in a place. English writers speak highly 

 of it as an esculent, and class it among the most delicious of edible 

 species. Gillet says that it is one of the best mushrooms that 

 can be found. 



Clitopilus orcella Bull. 



Sweetbread MnsHROOM. 



Plate 14. Figs. 7 to 11. 



Pileus fleshy, soft, broidly convex or nearly plane, generally 

 irregular and wavy on the margin, silky, white or yellowish- 

 white; lamellte close, decurrent ; stem short, solid, flocculose, 

 sometimes eccentric ; spores oblong-elliptical, pointed at each 

 end, .00035 to .0004 in. long. 



The Sweetbread mushroom is so much like the Plum mushrocm 

 that it is not surprising that they have been regarded as forms of 

 one species. The differences indicated in the descriptions would 

 make the Sweetbread mushroom generally a little smaller and 

 less regular, the flesh softer, the cap slightly viscid in wet 

 weather and a clearer white, and the gills a little closer together. 

 Intermediate forms seem to connect the two supposed species, 

 and however interesting the differences may be to botanists, the 

 mushroom eater will scarcely' try to keep the two forms separate. 

 Both have the farinaceous odor and are not verv different in taste 

 Some have considered the Sweetbread mushroom as slightly 

 superior in the delicacy of its flavor. Both are good enough. 

 The Sweetbread mushroom sometimes grows in pastures and open 

 places. Miss Banning sometimes finds it growing in rings after 

 the manner of the Fairy-ring mushroom. She finds some plants 

 with the usual strong new- meal odor, others with but little odor 

 and all with a flavor suggestive of cucumbers. 



Leucosporse. 



The Leucosporae or white-spored agarics are distributed among 

 many genera. The species are more numerous than in any other 



20 



