8 



STUDIES OF AMERICAN FUNGI. 



Since the plant occurs in the same situations as the Agaricus 

 campestris it might be mistaken for it, especially for white forms. 

 But of course no harm could come by eating it by mistake for the 

 common mushroom, for it is valued just as highly for food by some 

 who have eaten it. if one should look at the gills, however, they 

 would not likely mistake it for the common mushroom because the 

 gills become pink only when the plant is well expanded and quite 

 old. There is much more danger in mistaking it for the white 

 amanitas, A. phalloides, A. verna, or A. virosa, since the gills of these 

 deadly plants are white, and they do sometimes grow in lawns and 



Figure 8o. Lepiota naucina. Section of three plants, different ages. 



other grassy places where the smooth lepiota and the common 

 mushroom grow. For this reason one should study the descriptions 

 and illustrations of these amanitas given on preceding pages, and 

 especially should the suggestions given there about care in collecting 

 plants be followed, until one is so certainly familiar with the 

 characters that the plants would be known "on sight." 



The pink color of the gills of this lepiota has led certain students 

 of the fungi into mistakes of another kind. This pink color of the 

 gills has led some to place the plant among the rosy spored agarics 

 in the genus Annularia, where it was named Annularia Icevis by 

 Krombholtz (vide Bresadola Funghi Mangerecci e velenosi, p. 29, 



