XI. LEPIOTAS AND ARMILLARIA. 
The genus Lepiota agrees withthe generaAmanita and Aman- 
itopsis in having the gills free from the stem, but it differs from 
them in having no distinct enveloping wrapper in the very young 
plant, and consequently no warts on the cap and no sheathing 
membrane or scales at the base of the stem. In some of the 
species the epidermis of the cap breaks up into small fibrillose 
fragments, so that the cap is scaly but not warty. 
The Parasol mushroom or Tall lepiota, Lepiota procera, is a 
conspicuous fungus, which grows in fields, pastures, waysides or 
thin woods. Its cap, when very young, resembles an egg in 
shape. It is covered with a reddish-brown epidermis, which 
breaks up, with its expansion, into brownish spot-like scales. 
These are closer to each other 
near the centre, more distant 
and sometimes wanting near 
the margin of the cap. 
The centre of the cap rises in 
a prominent umbo, which re- 
mains covered with the un- 
broken epidermis, and is 
therefore darker colored than 
the rest of the cap, for the 
space between the scales is 
white or whitish, and of a 
silky or fibrillose texture. 
Generally the mature cup is 
broadly convex like an open 
Lepiota procera. L. naucinoides. Armillaria mellea, parasol, and this with the 
prominent winbo and the long slender stem so simulates an out- 
spread parasol that it has given rise to the common name of the 
fungus. The flesh is rather dry and somewhat tough, and of a 
white color. The gills are also white or yellowish white, and 
gradually narrowed toward the stem. They do not reach the 
stem but leave an open space around it, so that it appears to be 
inserted in a cavity or shallow basin in the lower surface of the 
eap. The stem is verv tall, straight or a little flexuous, swollen 
or somewhat bulbous at the base, and often variegated by brown- 
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