38 Journal of the Mitchell Society [October 



1. Cantharellus retirugus (Bull.) Fr. 



Dictyolus retirugus in I^. Am. Fl. 9 : 166. 



Plates 1 and 16. 



Cap up to 1 cm. broad (said to reach 2 cm.) quite sessile by the 

 dorsal surface, often hanging from center, but usually eccentric or 

 almost laterally seated at times, bell or shell-shaped when young, 

 then more expanded to saucer-shaped or broadly petalloid ; very thin 

 and delicate, nearly pure white and finely downy when young, so that 

 the incurved margin is delicately fimbriate, at maturity the down 

 collapses and the surface fibers split and separate like the surface of 

 a cocoon. 



Gills very rudimentary, composed of irregular folds or veins in 

 center which may branch and deliquesce quite irregularly, fading 

 away before the margin is reached, or the surface may seem merely 

 pitted (as in Auricularia) rather than veined, and often is almost 

 smooth ; when young the hymenium is nearly white, then pale ashy 

 straw, the upper surface making the same change or remaining more 

 whitish. 



Spores (of ISTo. 3224) pure white, smooth, subelliptic to pip-shaped, 

 4-4.5 X 6.6-8.5it>t. 



The place of attachment is usually a mm. or niore wide, the sur- 

 face fibers disappearing into the moss. So exceedingly delicate is 

 the plant that it dries up to an earth gray or darker crumpled particle 

 so inconspicuous as to be found with difficulty even on preserved ma- 

 terial where it is known to be plentiful. It breaks easily from the 

 moss when dry and revives very little when moistened. 



This is certainly C. retirugus and not C. muscigenus. Bulliard's 

 figure (PL 498, fig. 1) represent our plants exactly. It has not 

 been reported heretofore south of our most northern states and ranges 

 northward to Alaska and Greenland. Schweinitz reports C. musci- 

 genus from ]Srorth Carolina, but not this species. We have not found 

 the former. 



3224. Parasitic on a moss, bank by road east of campus. Jan. 27, 1919. 

 Photo. Plentiful. 



