40 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



it is soon stained with smoky brown patches, and with advancing 

 age the whole surface assumes this color. In old age or in drying 

 the whole plant becomes black. The flesh is compact but brittle, 

 grayish white quickly changing to blackish brown when cut or 

 broken and exposed to the air. The white gills and stem also 

 undergo the same change in color as the cap when subjected to the 

 same conditions. In comparatively young specimens it often 

 happens that when the stem is split longitudinally the center will 

 be found full of the perforations of insect larvae and the injured 

 tissues all blackened. This mushroom closely resembles two other 

 nearly related species, Russul a nigricans and R. densi- 

 folia. From the first it may be separated by its dry cap, its 

 closer gills and by its wounded places assuming a blackish 

 color without any intervening reddish hue. From the second 

 also this last character will distinguish it, for in both these 

 species wounded places first change to a reddish color and after- 

 ward to a black or blackish color. 



The cap is 3-6 inches broad, the stem 1-2 inches long and 6-12 

 lines thick. This mushroom grows under hemlock trees and ap- 

 pears during July if the weather is sufficiently rainy. 



Russula subsordida n. sp. 



SUBSORDID RUSSULA 



PLATE 99, FIG. 1-5 



Pileus fleshy, firm, convex becoming nearly plane or centrally 

 depressed, glabrous, viscid when moist or young, even on the 

 margin, whitish becoming smoky brown with age, sometimes with 

 an olive-green tint, flesh grayish white, slowly changing to a darker 

 or smoky brown color when cut or broken, taste mild or tardily 

 and slightly acrid; lamellae thin, close, adnate, with many short 

 ones intermingled, whitish; stem short, firm, glabrous, spongy 

 within or sometimes cavernous, white slowly becoming smoky 

 brown where wounded; spores white, globose, .0003 of an inch 

 broad. 



The subsordid russula is very similar to the sordid russula and 

 grows in similar places. It is sometimes associated with it, growing 

 in the same locality and at the same time. Hitherto it has been 

 found in Horicon only, but occurred there in several stations. It 

 may be distinguished from the sordid russula by its viscid cap 

 which is also less white when young, by its less white gills and by 

 its wounds more slowly assuming the smoky brown hue. Both 



