279 



collect all the specimens possible during a whole day, until they numbered at 

 least one hundred good sound specimens, as we have done in this current year, it 

 is doubtful if their mind would ever be troubled with scepticism again in respect 

 of this species. With a pileus from l^in. to near 6in. in size, from the faintest 

 blush of colour to the deepest tints, and yet unity in all such seeming variety. 

 Intrinsically a margin with a rosy tone, more or less sobered with purple, a pale 

 disc, and between the two a dark zone of dull indefinable mixture of neutral 

 green with purple, and that is the type for all the specimens we can meet with of 

 S. cyanoxantha. The infinite variety being made up, not of any change of 

 colours or their position, but simply of their greater or less intensity, the part 

 occupied by the median zone being streaked in a radiate manner by darker lines, 

 either quite smooth or palpably rugose. 



Some may remark that there is no difficulty in that species, but it is other- 

 wise with R. hcterophylla. And here it may only be individual opinion, and so 

 must be rated just at what it is worth, but we think two forms of R. hcterophylla 

 may be recognized, keeping in mind the strict limit imposed by Fries of 

 "Lamellis angustissimis, confertissimis." These two forms, both of which are 

 uncommon, correspond to the Rusiula hcterophylla, Fries, for the greenish forms, 

 and Russula hcterophylla, Bulliard (t. 509, f. 0.), for the brown forms, each 

 characterized by very much crowded and very narrow white gills. 



We presume that there always will be, with the most carefully arranged 

 classification of species, instances occurring in the experience of all, of isolated 

 individuals which it is difficult to place. It is a common occurrence, perhaps, 

 with the most experienced, but, even in such cases, wherever careful drawings 

 have been kept, time may provide the missing link. As a rule, it is doubtful 

 whether these isolated individuals are worth the labour they entail, because they 

 are mostly isolated, and the result of some accidental variation. Whereas it is 

 with constantly recurring, and reasonably permanent, types that our best time 

 wiU be spent. 



The only other species to which we shall now allude is R. xerampeliiut, not 

 at all a common one, and perhaps sometimes carelessly referred to R. Integra. 

 As to the colour of the pileus, all the variability seems to be in the intensity of 

 the marginal colour ; the disc holds its character of tawny yellow, verging on 

 reddish brown, broken up into little punctiform scales. The marginal tint is 

 purple, with more or less admixture of red or brown, but differing, as in other 

 species, more in the intensity of the colour than in any variation in the elemental 

 colours. There need be no hesitation with such a well defined species, when 

 sufficiently mature to see the characteristic features of the disc, combined with the 

 form and tint of the gills. 



Of the coloration of the stem little can be said of any of the species in which 

 it occurs. It is rarely constant, especially where the colour is red ; species, such 

 as R. Queletii, in which it is purple, are more invariable, and those in which the 

 stem becomes grey, R. depallens, R. ochroleuca, etc., the stem is at first white, 

 and the grey colour is acquired by age, and is always faint, but indisputable. 



Before leaving the stem, it may be pertinent to observe that in the diagnosis 



