162 FORTT-FOURTH REPORT ON THE StATE MuSEUM 



Both it and the preceding" species are somewhat g-reg-arious and 

 occur in the same localities. They are especially found in groves 

 or thickets of young spruce trees. 



Tricholoma terreum Schceff. 

 Eabth-colobed Tricholoma * 



(Hym. Europ., p. 57. Syl. Fung., Vol. V, p. 104.) , 



Pileus fleshy, thin, soft, convex campanulate or nearly plane, 

 obtuse or umbonate, innately Jibrillose or floccose-squamosey cinere- 

 ous fuscous ^ayish-brown or mouse-color, flesh white or whitish ; 

 lamellae adnexed, subdistant, more or less eroded on the edge, white 

 becoming cinereous ; stem equal, varying from solid to stuffed or 

 hollow, fibrillose, white or whitish ; spores broadly elliptical, .00024 

 to .00028 in. long, .00016 to .0002 broad. 



Pileus 1 to 3 in. broad ; stem 1 to 2 in. long, 2 to 4 lines thick. 



Woods. Albany, Bensselaer and Cattaraugus counties. Septem- 

 ber to November. 



Var. fragrans n. var. Pileus innately fibrillose, obtuse, odor 

 farinaceous. Dutchess county. 



This is a very variable species and European authors do not fully 

 agree upon the characters that belong to it. According to Fries 

 it is subinodorous, but Stevenson says it is inodorous. One 

 author describes the spores as "nearly spherical," .0002 in. long, 

 another says they are .00024 to .00028 in. long, .00016 broad. 

 The spores of our plant agree closely with the latter measure- 

 ment. The plants are sometimes gregarious, sometimes 

 caespitose. The larger forms often have the pileus obtuse 

 fibrillose or squamulose and less regular, the smaller ones more 

 regular, more floccose-squamulose and often with a very small umbo 

 or papilla. I find this form especially in pine woods. It varies 

 considerably in color and is a pretty little plant. The variety 

 fragrans is generally a little larger and is edible, though it retains 

 somewhat of the farinaceous flavor. This appears to be common 

 farther south, and I suspect that Agaricus hypopythius of Curtis' 

 Catalogue is the same thing. 



T. argyraceum Bull., in which the lamellae and commonly the 

 pileus also are pure white is considered by Fries as a subspecies of 

 T. terreum. T. argyreum Kalchb. he thinks is the same as Bulliard's 

 plant. T. atrosquamosum Chev., in which the whitish or cinereous 

 umbonate pileus is adorned with minute black scales, and T. oriru- 

 bens Quel., in which the lameUae have a rosy -red edge, are also made 

 subspecies of T. terreum by Stevenson. 



