164 MUSHROOMS, EDIBLE AND OTHERWISE 



first suggest a Collybia. The white gills and its decurrent form will distinguish 

 it from P. lignatilis. It makes quite a delicious dish when well cooked. I found 

 some beautiful specimens on a decayed beech log in Poke Hollow. Found in 

 September and October. 



Lactarius. Fr. 



Lactarius means pertaining to milk. There is one feature of this genus that 

 should easily mark it, the presence of milky or colored juice which exudes from 

 a wound or a broken place on a fresh plant. This feature alone is sufficient to 

 distinguish the genus but there are other points that serve to make the determina- 

 tion more certain. 



The flesh, although it seems quite solid and firm, is very brittle. The fracture 

 is always even, clean cut. and not ragged as in more fibrous substances. 



The plants are fleshy and stout, and in this particular resemble the Clitocybes, 

 but the brittleness of the flesh, milky juice, and the marking of the cap, will easily 

 distinguish them. 



Many species have a very acrid or peppery flavor. If a person tastes one 

 when raw, he will not soon forget it. This acridity is usually lost in cooking. 



The pileus in all species is fleshy, becoming more or less depressed, margin at 

 first involute, often marked with concentric zones. 



The stem is stout, often hollow when old, confluent with the cap. 



The gills are usually unequal, edge acute, decurrent or adnate. milky ; in 

 nearly all the species the milk is white, changing to a sulphur yellow, red, or violet, 

 on exposure to the air. 



Lactarius torminosus. Fr. 

 The Woolly Lactarius. Poisonous. 



Torminosus, full of grips, causing colic. The pileus is two to four inches 

 broad, convex, then depressed, smooth, or nearly 50, except the involute margin 

 which is more or less shaggy, somewhat zoned, viscid when young and moist, 

 yellowish-red or pale ochraceous. tinged with red. 



The gills are thin, close, rather narrow, nearly of the same color as the pileus, 

 but yellower and paler, slightly forked, subdecurrent. 



The stem is one to two inches long, paler than the cap, equal or slightly 

 tapering downward, stuffed or hollow, sometimes spotted, clothed with a very 

 minute adpressed down. 



The milk is white and very acrid. The spores are echinulate. subglobose, 

 9-IOX7-8/X. 



This differs from L. cilicioides in its zoned pileus and white milk. Most 



