Agaricaceae 



Stropharia. sometimes cespitose. The typical and handsomest form is gathered in 

 soaking weather in later autumn in shaded woods; it is large (pileus 

 and stem 3 in. and more), stem squarrose with white spreading scales, 

 intensely verdigris or azure-blue-pelliculose and very glutinous. From 

 this there is a long series of forms with the gluten more separating (on* 

 the separation of the gluten the pileus becomes yellow), and the scales 

 alike of the pileus and stem rubbed off. Finally, a smaller form occurs 

 in open meadows, stem scarcely 2 in. long, only 2 lines thick, becoming 

 azure-blue-green and without scales, pileus 12 in. broad, pale verdigris 

 soon light yellowish, less viscid. In this form the ring is incomplete, 

 while in the typical form it is entire, spreading, and persistent. 



In woods, meadows, etc. Common. July to November. Stevenson. 



Spores ellipsoid or spheroid-ellipsoid, 8x4-^ K.; SX//A W.G.S.; 

 elliptical, 10x5/4 Massee. 



POISONOUS. Stevenson. 



"There is a white variety, in which the pileus is perfectly white from 

 the first." Cooke. 



S. aeruginosa has been noted here by Schweinitz in Pennsylvania, 

 Curtis in North and South Carolina, Frost in Vermont and Massachu- 

 setts, Harkness .and Moore, California, Morgan, Ohio. The qualities 

 of the American representatives are not reported. I have not seen the 

 species. As it is asserted to be poisonous by European writers it may 

 be. M. C. Cooke says: "It has the reputation, which is somewhat 

 general on the continent, of being poisonous, but probably this is only 

 assumed from its disagreeable taste and repulsive appearance." Collect- 

 ors are cautioned to look out for it, and not to eat of it carelessly. 



I can find no case of poisoning by this species reported. It presents 

 another case of "Not proven." 



** Merda'rii ring often incomplete. 



S. Stercora'ria Fr. stercus, dung. Pileus I in. broad, yellow, fleshy, 

 but thin at the margin, hemispherical then expanded, obtuse, orbicular, 

 with a viscid pellicle, naked, smooth, even or at length slightly striate 

 only at the margin. Stem 3 in. and more long, 23 lines thick, stuffed 

 with a separate fibrous pith, equal, clpthed to the ring (which is scarcely 

 i in. distant from the pileus, viscous, narrow, but somewhat spreading) 

 with the flocculose veil which is at the same time viscous (so that it 



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