State Museum of Natural History. 89 



size, especially when solitary. Tufts a foot or more in diameter are 

 not at all uncommjon. I liave seen them so abundant in the Adiron- 

 dack region that they might easily have been gathered by the 

 bushel. 



The pileus is generally adorned with numerous rather small or 

 minute hairy tufts or scales, which are mostly brown or blackish and 

 more dense on the disk than toward the margin. Sometimes they 

 are so crowded on the disk, especially in young plants, that they give 

 a blackish or darker hue to that part of the pileus. In some forms of 

 the species these hairy scales are wanting or they disappear with age, 

 especially in wet weather, thus leaving the pileus glabrous. The 

 margin of the pileus is normally striate, but forms occur in which it 

 is even. Armillaria laricina Bolt, has a glabrous pileus with even 

 margin, but it is regarded by Fries as a mere variety of this species, 

 and the figure of A. mellea, as given in Berkeley's Outlines, table 4, 

 indicates the correctness of this view. Occasionally the disk is some- 

 what prominent or subumbonate. In young specimens and in wet 

 weather the pileus is frequently found moist or subhygrophanous. In 

 color it varies from almost white, through intermediate shades, to a 

 dark reddish-brown. The lamellae are sometimes clearly emarginate, 

 sometimes broadly adnate or .even decurrent. They are generally 

 whitish or moi-e or less tinged with yellow. When old they are some- 

 times stained with brownish-red spots and dusted with the white 

 spores. The stem varies considerably in color. It often assumes a 

 brown or livid-brown color, especially toward the base or when old. 

 Externally it is rather firm and fibrous, but within it is paler, spongy 

 or even hollow. It is sometimes adorned with pale floccose scales, 

 but these are apt to disappear with age. The veil is usually 

 well developed and membranous, and in the mature plant 

 encircles the stem like a spreading collar, but sometimes it is 

 very thin, soon lacerated and somewhat evanescent. Occasionally it 

 is of a webby character as in Cortinarius, and it is then more or less 

 fugacious. Thus it is possible to find specimens of this species with 

 the stem destitute of an annulus much to the disgust and perplexity 

 of young students of mycology. In young plants the veil often 

 entirely conceals the lamellae. It is generally white or whitish, but 

 sometimes it is stained about the edges with greenish yellow or 

 olivaceous. The tomentum at the base of the stem also presents, in 

 some specimens, the same hue. 



Abnormal forms of the species sometimes occur. An abortive form 

 consists of whitish irregular subglobose masses of cellular matter 

 without any distinction of stem pileus or lamellae. This corresponds 

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