130 STUDIES OF AMERICAN FUNGI. 



and by the pileus being more or less depressed or funnel-shaped. 

 The plants are from 5-8 cm. high, the cap from 2-7 cm. broad, and 

 the stem about 4-8 mm. in thickness. 



The pileus is fleshy, soft, flexible, convex, to expanded, or obconic, 

 plane or depressed, or funnel-shaped, the margin strongly inrolled 

 when young, in age simply incurved, the margin plane or repand and 

 undulate. The color varies from ochre yellow to dull orange, or 

 orange ochraceous, raw sienna, and tawny, in different specimens. 

 It is often brownish at the center. The surface of the pileus is 

 minutely tomentose with silky hairs, especially toward the center, and 

 sometimes smooth toward the margin. The flesh is 3-5 mm. at the 

 center, and thin toward the margin. The gills are arcuate, decur- 

 rent, thin, the edge blunt, but not so much so as in a number of 

 other species, crowded, regularly forked several times, at length 

 ascending when the pileus is elevated at the margin. The color of 

 the giils is orange to cadmium orange, or sometimes paler, cadmium 

 yellow or deep chrome. The stem is clay color to ochre yellow, en- 

 larged below, spongy, stuffed, fistulose, soft, fibrous, more or less 

 ascending at the base. 



The taste is somewhat nutty, sometimes bitterish. The plants 

 in Fig. 127 (No. 3272, C. U. herbarium) were collected near Ithaca, 

 October 7, 1899. 



MARASMIUS Fr. 



In this genus the plants are tough and fleshy or membranaceous, 

 leathery and dry. They do not easily decay, but shrivel up in dry 

 weather, and revive in wet weather, or when placed in water. This 

 is an important character in distinguishing the genus. It is closely 

 related to Collyhia, from which it is difficult to separate certain spe- 

 cies. On the other hand, it is closely related to Lentinus and Panus, 

 both of which are tough and pliant. In Marasmius, however, the 

 substance of the pileus is separate from that of the stem, while in 

 Lentinus and Panus it is continuous, a character rather difficult for 

 the beginner to understand. The species of Marasmius, however, 

 are generally much smaller than those of Lentinus and Panus, espe- 

 cially those which grow on wood. The stem in Marasmius is in 

 nearly all species central, while in Lentinus and Panus it is generally 

 more or less eccentric. Many of the species of the genus Marasmius 

 have an odor of garlic when fresh. Besides the fairy ring (M. orea- 

 des) which grows on the ground, M. rotula is a very common spe- 

 cies on wood and leaves. It has a slender, black, shining stem, and 

 a brownish pileus usually with a black spot in the depression in the 



