32 STUDIES OF AMERICAN FUNGI. 



The pileus is rounded, then hemispherical (semi-globate), smooth, 

 fleshy at the center, thinner toward the margin, even, very viscid 

 or viscous when moist, light yellow. The gills are squarely set 

 against the stem (adnate), broad, smooth, in age purplish brown to 

 blackish, the color more or less clouded. The spores in mass, are 

 brownish purple. The stem is slender, cylindrical, becoming hollow, 

 straight, even or bulbous below, yellowish, but paler at the apex 

 where there are often parallel striae, marks from the gills in the 

 young stage. The stem is often viscid and smeared with the glutin- 

 ous substance which envelopes the plant when young, and from the 

 more or less glutinous veil. The ring is glutinous when moist. 



Figure 30 is from plants (No. 4613 C. U. herbarium) collected on 

 one of the streets of Ithaca. 



Stropharia stercoraria Fr., is a closely related plant, about the 

 same size, but the pileus, first hemispherical, then becoming ex- 

 panded and sometimes striate on the margin, while the stem is 

 stuffed. The gills are said to be of one color and the ring floccose, 

 viscose, and evanescent in drying. It occurs on dung, or in grassy 

 places recently manured. 



Stropharia aeruginosa Curt., the greenish Stropharia, is from 6-8 

 cm. high, and the pileus 5-7 cm. broad. The ground color is yellow- 

 ish, but the plant is covered with a greenish slime which tends to 

 disappear with age. It is found in woods and open places during 

 late summer and in autumn. According to Stevenson it is poisonous. 



CHAPTER V. 



THE BLACK-SPORED AGARICS. 



The spores are black in mass, not purple tinged. For analytical 

 keys to the genera see Chapter XXII. 



COPRINUS Pers. ^ 



The species of Coprinus are readily recognized from the black 

 spores in addition to the fact that the gills, at maturity, dissolve into 

 a black or inky fluid. The larger species especially form in this way 

 an abundance of the black fluid, so that it drops from the pileus and 

 blackens the grass, etc., underneath the plant. In some of the 



