Keport of the State Botanist. 159 



the enlargement in the flowering stem of an onion. The plants some- 

 times occur in tufts or clusters of many individuals. When very young 

 the pileus is ovate and of a uniform color, but the surface soon 

 breaks up into minute scales which rest upon a white or whitish 

 ground color. In drying the lamellre generally assume a dingy or 

 smoky hue, but the pileus does not generally change color. Two forms 

 occur in hot-houses, the one having a white, the other a yellow pileus. 

 The striations of the margin are rather deep and close and give a 

 somewhat plicate appearance to that part of the pileus. The form that 

 grows in the open air has shorter striations on the margin, and the 

 stem is not so regularly enlarged in the middle, the enlargement being 

 mostly near the base and sometimes wanting entirely. Possibly this 

 form may be the A. rorulentus Panizzi, but it seems to me too near A. 

 cepcestipes to be separated. 



Aqaricus Americaxus, Fk. 

 American Agaric. 



Pileus rather fleshy, at first ovate, then convex or expanded, umbo- 

 nate, more or less striate on the margin, the cuticle breaking up, ex- 

 cept on the umbo, into reddish or reddish-hroion appressed scales, white, 

 flesh white ; lamellae rather broad, close, free, white, narrower toward 

 the stem and there sometimes anastomosing ; stem tapering upward, 

 enlarged at or a little above the base, hollow, white, annulus rather large, 

 but thin and flabby, sometimes separating from its attachment to the 

 stem, occasionally evanescent ; spores subelliptical, uninucleate, ,0003' 

 — .0004' long, .0002' — .0003' broad. 



' Plant sometimes caespitose, 3' — 5' high; pileus 1.5' — 4' broad; 

 stem 2' — 5" thick. 



Lawns and grassy places, sometimes on decaying wood. July and 

 August. 



This species has many points of resemblance to the preceding one 

 but it is larger, with a stouter stem and a more fleshy pileus, with much 

 broader and more distinct scales. The stem is enlarged as in that species 

 but the enlargement is generally at or near the base. When bruised 

 the flesh changes color and in drying the whole plant assumes a dull 

 brownish-red or smoky-red hue, a character by which the species may 

 be easily distinguished. The European species, A. Badhami and A. 

 meleagris, change color under similar circumstances, but the latter be- 

 comes red and the former saffron-red. They also difi"er in other re- 

 spects from our plant. This has been found by Miss Banning near 

 Baltimore, Maryland, with a pileus sometimes seven inches in diameter. 

 She has observed that it sometimes exudes a reddish juice when cut or 



