Agaricacese 



Agaricus. perfect is small, abrupt, as if it had once been round but the stem 

 pushed into it. It has a strong spicy mushroom odor and taste, and 

 makes a high-flavored dish. It is delicious with meats. It is the 

 very best mushroom for catsup. Mixed with Russulae or Lactarii or 

 other species lacking in mushroom flavor, it enriches the entire dish. 

 The stems, excepting of the very young, are tough. 



Larvae do not infest A. silvicola. Its habit of growth shows it to be 

 cultivatable. It has but one draw-back. Growing as it does in woods 

 and in the presence of the poisonous Amanita, it is possible for the 

 careless collector to confound the two. The Amanitae have larger bulbs, 

 cups at the base, and white gills; the A. silvicola has no volva, has 

 whitish gills when very young only, they become pinkish, then a marked 

 blackish-brown. 



A. creta'ceilS Fr. creta, chalk. Pileus 3 in. and more broad, 

 wholly white, fleshy, lens-shaped-globose when young, then convexo- 

 flattened, obtuse, dry, sometimes even, sometimes rivulose chiefly round 

 the margin from the cuticle separating into sqtiamules. Flesh thick, 

 white, unchangeable. Stem 3 in. long, 3-6 lines and more thick, hol- 

 low, stuffed with a spider-web pith, firm, attenuated upward, even, 

 smooth, not spotted, white. Gills free, then remote, ventricose but 

 very much narrowed toward the stem, crowded, remaining long white, 

 becoming dingy-brown only when old. Fries. 



Spores 3x4/1. W.G.S.; 5-6x3.51". Massee. 



Under certain conditions the spores are white. M. /. B. 



In lawns and rich ground. 



North Carolina, on earth and wood. Edible, Curtis; Minnesota, rare, 

 Johnson; California, H. and M.; Ohio, Lloyd; Kentucky, Lloyd, Rep. 

 4; New York, Peck, Rep. 22. 



A. Subrufes'cen-S Pk. siib, under; rufescens, becoming red. PileilS 

 at first deeply hemispherical, becoming convex or broadly expanded, 

 silky fibrillose and minutely or obscurely scaly, whitish, grayish or dull 

 reddish-brown, usually smooth and darker on the disk. Flesh white, 

 unchangeable. Lamellae at first white or whitish, then pinkish, finally 

 blackish-brown. Stem rather long, often somewhat thickened or 

 bulbous at the base, at first stuffed, then hollow, white; the annulus 

 flocculose or floccose-scaly on the lower surface; mycelium whitish, 



344 



