341 
AGARICUS VERSICOLOR Wirn. 
By Wortuineton G. Suitu, F.L.S. 
In Withering’s Arrangement of British tape ed. 8, vol. iv. 
p- 166 (1796), there is a description of an n Agaricus under the name 
of A. versicolor which has been a puzzle to Bobkisiate ever since the 
time of publication, and, according to the most recent Floras, has 
never been met with since Withering’s time. 
or the purposes of identification, which is very easy, it is 
necessary to transcribe Withering’s original description, and to 
note the modifications and alterations of subsequent authors. 
Withering writes :—* Gills yellow-white, changing to dark red- 
brown ; pileus greenish na Diconed convex, edge turned in; stem 
white to brown ; ring per 
** Gills decurrent, valtowial.- white, changing when old to dark 
brown, 2 or 4 in a set. Pileus gree nish- buff, seurfy, most so in the 
btiitee, convex, bisdtiitiig flat with age, but the edge much curled 
in; 1 to 4 inches over. * Stem solid, but each ee Seen 
quill. Ring jeri, oot ulbous. This is a rare pert 
= found it only once, aud then near the bridge at Edgbaston Park 
ich ‘eg over the oe that oe large pool. July, 1792.” 
ries, in translating the aboy o Latin in 1821 for the 
Systema Mycologicu vol. i. p. 286, PI ot ‘‘ pileus greenish-buff, 
rfy,’’ ‘* pileo i 
- rite ”’; perhaps they were not in his dictionaries. 
es had sagacity enough to include the date, but he made the 
initial Periaees of placing the plant under his subgenus Psalliota, 
nex 
with the persistent ring. He retains Fries’s position of the plant 
next to 4. eruginosus Curt. He omits the date, which Fries saw 
was importan 
a in his sites foes 1886788," p- 218, again nase ergnd the 
pileu “ squa and ‘virescente-brunneo”’; but he is 
evidently troubled about ar pileus, for a adds, ** Meret 7 ‘and 
places ‘‘buldboso’’ in it 
edge of the pileus, and arte the plait: in the teatirenrd he first 
gave it. He now unwisely omits the date. 
Berkeley, in his Outlines, 1860, p. 167, amends his own deserip- 
tion, uses Wi thering’s word ‘‘scurfy” instead of the erroneous 
“squamose,” and refers to the bulbous stem and ri trange to 
say, he now alters Withering’s “‘ greenish-buff”’ into ries’s “ green- 
ish-brown,”’ ‘* virescente brains." He continues to omit the date. 
in his Handbook, vol. i. p. 140, 1871, copies Berkeley in 
part, but restores the e rroneous word ‘ ‘squamose.” He quotes 
