IX.—OCHRACEOUS AND PINK SPORES. 
Of the species belonging to the section Ochrosporae, only two 
or three have been tested by myself or my correspondents, and 
although several others have been recorded as edible, it is my 
purpose to describe those only that have been proved by us. 
Edible species belonging to the genera Pholiota, Pazxillus and 
Cortinarius have been recorded. The few which we will notice 
belong to Cortinarius. 
This is ‘a genus containing many species, of which several will 
probably be found upon trial to be esculent. Eight have been 
classed as edible in Europe, and three in the United States. The 
species of Cortinarius are distinguished from other Agaricines 
by their rusty-ochraceous spores, and by the webby filaments 
that stretch from the stem to the margin of the cap in the voung 
pant. These filaments disappear in the mature plant, and there- 
fore the collar is absent from the stem in species of Cortinarius, 
though sometimes a few filaments adhere to the stem, and by the 
lodgment of the falling spores upon them, a rusty-brownish 
stain is occasionally seen about the stem instead of a collar. The 
mature gills in nearly or quite all the species are dusted by, and 
correspond to the spores in color, but in the young plants the 
color is almost always quite different. Tt is, therefore, very im- 
poitant to know the color of the gills in the young plant in order 
to identify the species of this genus. The gills are attached to 
the stem in all the species. 
The Violet cortinarius, C’. violaceus, is a beautiful mushroom, 
and one of the most easily recognized species of the genus. The 
whole plant, when young, is of a dark violaceous color without 
and within. The cap is usually 
well formed and _ beautifully 
LA USS 
adorned with numerous minute 
hairy tufts or scales. The gills 
are at first of the same color, but 
when old they become dusted 
with the spores, and have their 
color modified accordingly. The 
stem is rather long and more or 
less bulbous or thickened at the ei 
‘base. The cap is generally two — Cortinarus violaceus, C. collinitus. 
to four inches broad, and the 
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