36 BULLETIN N. ¥. STATE MUSEUM. 
The bright color and regular bifurcations of the lamellee render this 
a beautiful and easily recognizable species. The pileus is somewhat 
obconic in outline, but it is subject to some variation in color. The 
disk is often tinged with brown or smoky-brown and sometimes the 
whole surface fades to a dingy buffred. The margin is sometimes 
a pale yellow or even whitish, and a form with whitish lamelle has 
occurred in a sphagnous marsh near Albany. In the European plant 
the stem is said occasionally to become black. This form is Merulius 
nigripes Pers. The wholly white European form has not been found 
here. 
The species is pronounced ‘ poisonous” by some authors, and 
‘scarcely esculent”’ by Rev. M. J. Berkeley. It is especially fond 
of adamp mossy soil filled with vegetable mold, and it sometimes 
occurs quite late in the season. 
Cantharellus umbonatus /f”. 
Umbonate Chantarelle. 
Pileus thin, soft, at first convex, then plane or centrally depressed, 
umbonate, papillate or even, smooth or flocculose-silky, rarely mi- 
nutely squamulose, bluish-cinereous, grayish-brown or blackish-cin- 
ereous, the flesh white; lamelle thin, straight, more or less decur- 
rent, dichotomous, white; stem equal or slightly tapering upward, 
solid or stuffed, generally slightly silky, villose or white-tomentose 
at the base, whitish or tinged with the color of the pileus; spores 
white, oblong or subfusiform, .0004 to .0005 in. long, .00016 to 
.0002 broad. 
Plant 1 to 6 in. high, pileus 6 to 12 lines broad, stem 2 to 4 lines 
thick. 
Damp, mossy ground in woods and open places. North Elba, 
Catskill mountains and Karner. August to October. 
Var. subceruleus. Pileus bluish or bluish-gray, silky and shining. 
Var. dichotomus. Pileus even or the umbo reduced to a mere 
papilla, grayish-brown. 
Var. brevior. Pileus as in variety dichotomus, but the stem very 
short, about 1 inch long, equal and scarcely silky. 
This is a variable species. All the descriptions of the European 
plant which have come under my notice speak of it as umbonate, 
and some emphasize this character and describe it as ‘‘ always per- 
sistent,” ‘‘ unchanged,” etc. In the American plant it is often en- 
tirely absent, and when present it is generally a mere acute papilla. 
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