GENERA AND SPECIES OF MUSHROOMS 



in young specimens they disappear when the plant is mature; 

 the margin is often notched or lobed and wavy and splitting 

 when the cap expands; when old the color is brownish or 

 dirty, especially if wet; i to 2 inches broad. 



Gills crowded together; whitish when young, soon becom- 

 ing pinkish tinted and later, brown and black and liquefying. 



Stem white; slender; fragile; smooth; hollow; i to 3 inches 

 long. 



Spores brown, which is unusual in this genus (others have 

 black spores); elliptical; .00025 to .0003 inch long. 



The glistening coprinus is a small but common and beauti- 

 ful species. Several successive crops often come about a 

 single old stump in one season. It is not uncommon to find 

 it growing from places in the margin of the sidewalks of our 

 cities where shade trees have been cut down. These tufts 

 are sometimes very large and composed of very many plants 

 crowded closely together. Sometimes the caps crack into 

 small areas, the white flesh showing itself in the chinks. 



European writers do not record the Glistening coprinus 

 among the edible species, perhaps because of its small size. 

 But it compensates for its lack of size by its frequency and 

 abundance. In tenderness and delicacy it does not appear 

 to be at all inferior to the shaggy coprinus and it certainly 

 is harmless. Peck. 



In wet weather this coprinus melts into an inky fluid, but 

 in quite dry weather it remains more or less firm and some- 

 times it does not deliquesce at all, but dries with all parts 

 well preserved, though much shrunken of course, as is the 

 case with all the very fleshy fungi. Atkinson. 



The genus Cortinarius 



This genus is distinguished by the rusty yellowish-brown- 

 clay (ochraceous) color of the spores and by the webby charac- 

 ter of the veil which, in the young plants, stretches between 



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