1916] 
OVERHOLTS—GILL FUNGI 197 
The plants are more highly colored than in any described 
species of Panaeolus. 
Panaeolus variabilis Overholts, n. sp. Plate 6, figs. 3, 4. 
Pileus slightly campanulate to convex or plane, young speci- 
mens indistinctly umbonate, 2-6 cm. broad, very variable, 
when young hygrophanous, fleshy brown mingled with gray, 
somewhat rugose, when mature dry and lighter or creamy 
white, glabrous; margin even; flesh thin, concolorous; odor 
none; taste slightly farinaceous; gills adnate to adnexed, at 
first light brown, then spotted, finally black, rather close, 3-6 
mm. broad, whitish on the edge; veil none; stem central, terete, 
equal or nearly so, pallid to slightly flesh-color or dark brown, 
floccose-pruinose when young, usually striate at the apex, 
hollow from the first, 4-9 em. long, 2-5 mm. thick; spores 
broadly elliptic or ellipsoid, black, 12-13X 7-95; cystidia none. 
Gregarious or subcespitose on earth in flower beds and 
among shrubbery in the Missouri Botanical Garden, May 31, 
1915; also from the same place, June 17, 1915. 
Type collection in Herb. Overholts No. 2794, and specimens 
from this collection are deposited in the herbaria of the 
Missouri Botanical Garden and the New York Botanical Gar- 
den. The species is a very variable one. 
AN INTERESTING VARIETY OF PLUTEUS CERVINUS 
In November, 1914, while collecting in the region of Pa- 
cific, Missouri, the writer found a large cluster of a species 
of Pluteus growing in the sawdust on an old sawmill site. 
There were about thirty individuals in the cluster, and they 
ranged from 11 to 16 em. broad. The specimens were much 
larger than is usual in Pluteus cervinus, and the fibrils on 
the pileus were much more conspicuous than in that species. 
These facts, together with the cespitose habit and another 
character mentioned below, seemed to justify the separation 
of these specimens into a new species. Further study has 
led the writer to modify this first conclusion, and the plants 
are now referred to P. cervinus. The variations are so 
marked, however, that they deserve notice, the accompanying 
