NATURAL HISTORY SURVEY 



a height of 10 cm. with a pileus up to 5 cm. in breadth. Spores 

 umber-purple, ellipsoid, bluntly pointed at one or both ends, 

 12 to 14 x 8 to 9 p.. 



PSATHYRA. 



Veil none, or only universal and floccose-fibrillose; pileus 

 conical or campanulate, membranaceous, the margin at first 

 straight and adpressed to the stem. Stem somewhat cartilagi- 

 nous, fistulose, polished, fragile. Plants slender, hygrophanous, 

 growing on the ground or on trunks. Spores fuscous-purple. 



Psathyra semivestita B. and Br. 



Pileus dark-brown becoming pale, ovate, obtuse, sprinkled 

 with little snow-white fibrils more than half way up. 



Lamellae adnate, ascending, broad behind, umber-brown. 



Stem fistulose, nearly straight, fibrillose-silky, snow-white 

 with a pale under tinge of brown, the walls within white with 

 down. 



Pileus about 12 mm. broad; stem 5 cm. long, 3 mm. thick. 

 Spores elongated-pruniform, 14 //.. 



In short grass in open woods. Winfield, June, 1905. Pileus 

 hygrophanous, often more or less umbonate in young plants, the 

 umbo paler as the plants part with their moisture and disappear- 

 ing with age. The minute fibrils or atoms with which the outer 

 part of the young pileus is clothed glisten when viewed under a 

 lens. The stem is rigid-fragile, more or less striate beneath its 

 silky covering. Pileus usually 12 to 15 mm. broad, exceptionally 

 25 mm. The spores are dark brown, 13 to 18 x 8 to 9 /u. Young 

 umbonate specimens are perhaps P. umbonata Peck. 



COPRINUS. 



Hymenophore separate from the stem; lamellae membranous, 

 at first pressed together and cohering, scissile, at length melting 

 away into a black fluid; trama obsolete. Spores oval, even, black. 



With a ring 1 



Without a ring 4 



1. Xot hygrophanous 2 



1 . Hygrophanous 3 



2. Pileus whitish or grayish, breaking up into 



large scales . C. comatus. 



2. Pileus lurid-fuliginous, sulcate, disk squamu- 



lose C. atramentarius . 



3. Pileus thin, fragile, with superficial 



patches of tomentum C. variegatus. 



4. Pileus adorned with micaceous scales C. micaceus. 



4. Pilous adorned with floccose-squamose white 



scales C. fimentarius. 



4. Pileus very delicate, glabrous C. plicatilis. 



4. Pileus very delicate, slightly scurfy C. ephemerus. 



