Leucosporae 

 *** PiPERATI. Pileus dry, etc. 



L. plum'beus Fr. like plumbum, lead. Pileus 25 in. broad, com- Lactarius. 

 pact, convex, then infundibuliform, dry, unpolished sooty or brownish- 

 black. Gills crowded, white, or yellowish. Stem 1-5-3 m - l n g 3-6 

 lines thick, solid, equal, thick. Milk white, acrid, unchangeable. 

 Spores 6.3-7.6)".. 



The specimens which I have referred to this species were found in the 

 Catskill mountains several years ago, growing in hemlock woods, under 

 spruce and balsam trees. I have not met with the species since. The 

 pileus in the larger specimens had a minutely tomentose appearance, 

 but in the dried specimens this has disappeared. They also varied in 

 color from blackish-brown to pinkish-brown and grayish-brown, but 

 they can scarcely be more than a mere form or variety of the species 

 the description of which, as given by Fries, I have quoted. In the 

 Handbook the pileus is described as dark fuliginous-gray or brown, and 

 Gillet describes it as black-brown, dark fuliginous or lead color, and 

 adds that the plant is poisonous and the milk very acrid and burning. 

 Cordier says that the flesh is white and the taste bitter and disagreeable. 

 Peck, 38th Rep. N. Y. State Bot. 



Poisonous. Gillet. 



L. pergame'nilS Fr. parchment. White. Pileus fleshy, pliant, 

 convex then piano-depressed, spread, zoneless, slightly wrinkled, 

 smooth. Stem stuffed, smooth, changing color. Gills adnate, very 

 narrow, horizontal, very crowded, branched, white, then straw-color. 

 Milk white, acrid. 



Very much allied to L. piperatus, but differing in the stem being 

 stuffed, at length softer internally, elongated, 3 in., unequal, attenu- 

 ated downward and here and there ascending, quite smooth; in \hepilens 

 being thinner, pliant, elastic, most frequently irregular and excentric, 

 for the most part flexuous, at first convex (not umbilicate), then rather 

 plane, the surface very smooth, but unpolished and wrinkled in a pecu- 

 liar manner ; and in the gills being adnate, not decurrent, very crowded, 

 very narrow (scarcely I line broad), always straight and horizontal , not 

 arcuate or extended upward, soon straw-color : The flesh is very milky, 

 but the gills are sparingly so. Fries. 



In woods. October. 



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