28 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 
close, rounded behind, slightly adnexed or free, whitish; stem 
equal, hollow, glabrous, usually white tomentose at the base, red- 
dish brown or purplish brown; spores white, elliptic, .00024-.0003 
of an inch long, .00016 broad. 
The tufted collybia is an inhabitant of the woods of our hilly 
and mountainous districts. It grows in dense tufts on decaying 
prostrate trunks of trees and among decaying leaves or on bits 
of rotten wood half buried by fallen leaves. The caps are rather 
thin and convex when young, but they expand with age and be- 
come broadly convex or nearly plane. When young and moist 
they are of a pale tan color or brownish red sometimes with a 
pinkish tint but as the moisture escapes they fade to a whitish 
color. In the European plant they are said to be umbonate but 
in the American plant the umbo is rarely present. The gills are 
quite narrow and close. They are rounded at the inner extremity 
and either slightly attached to the stem or quite free from it. 
They are whitish or slightly tinged with pink. The stem is 
rather slender, rigid but brittle, hollow and smooth except at the 
base where it is usually clothed with a white tomentum. The 
color is reddish brown or purplish brown but in the young a 
it is often whitish at the top. 
The cap is commonly 1-2 inches broad; the stem 2-3 inches long, 
1.5-2.5 lines thick. The plants usually grow in clusters and occur 
during August and September. Though the individual plants are 
small they grow in such abundance that it is not difficult to obtain 
a sufficient supply for cooking. They are slightly tough but of 
good flavor and harmless. 
Collybia familia Pk. 
FAMILY COLLYBIA 
PLATE 84, Fic. 1-7. 
Pileus thin, fragile, hemispheric or convex, glabrous, hy- 
grophanous, while moist sometimes slightly striatulate on the 
margin, whitish, ‘grayish or pale smoky brown, sometimes 
brownish or more highly colored in the center; lamellae thin, 
narrow, close, rounded at the inner extremity, nearly free, white; 
stem slender, glabrous, hollow, white or whitish, commonly with 
