352 Notes on Fungi. 



•woodland species, A. laccatus, where it is sometimes of a rufous 

 flesh colour, but sometimes of the most lovely amethyst, the 

 cuticle being always more or less mealy. Other varieties of 

 this common species occur ; one, which combines both colours, 

 which I have gathered in fir-woods in Scotland, and another 

 of a bright orange yellow. 



In Gollybia (from /co'XXv/3o9, a piece of money) we enter upon 

 another series, in which the hymenophorum is of a different sub- 

 stance from the more or less cartilaginous stem. Fries even 

 seems inclined to separate this and the two following subgenera 

 from other agarics, under the name of Chondropus. Most of 

 the species are small, but there are one or two which are very 

 conspicuous. We have here four sections : 1st, those in which 

 the stem is rather stout and sulcate, or fibrilloso-striate ; 

 2ndly, species in which it is velvety, floccose, or pruinose; 

 3rdly, those which have a slender nearly equal fistulose stem, 

 which is smooth, except at the base, and even ; and 4thly, 

 species with dusky gills. 



One of the most common agarics in our woods is A. radicatus, 

 which is remarkable not only for its deeply rooting stem, but also 

 for its wrinkled, glutinous, but scarcely moist pileus. A. pla- 

 typhyllus is one of our finest species, and easily known from 

 its long, thick, white string-like roots ; while A. fusipes, which 

 grows in clusters at the foot of oaks, has the pileus frequently 

 deeply cracked, and springing from a stem swollen in the 

 middle, and it should seem, from the observations of Leveille, 

 throws up new individuals from the base of the old stem, as 

 indeed is the case in the specimen figured (Fig. 5). This, 

 though unfit for stewing from its tough consistence, is one of the 

 best species for pickling. Under the second section we may 

 notice A. velutipes, a species conspicuous for its bright colours 

 and beautifully velvety stem, enduring a good deal of cold, 

 and occurring upon almost every kind of timber. It is one of 

 the commonest species, and must be known to almost every 

 one. A host of smaller species occur, one or two of which are 

 parasitic on some of the larger gill-bearing fungi, and are 

 remarkable for forming dense cellular masses which live 

 through the winter, and produce the perfect fruit in the fol- 

 lowing year.* One of these, A. racemosus (Fig. 6), is the most 

 remarkable perhaps of all the Agaricus, as it not only pro- 

 duces a pileus, but a quantity of heads on the stem, which have 

 quite a different structure, and have different spores. In the 

 third section we meet again with a small though esculent spe- 

 cies, A. esculentus, which, under the name of nagelschwamme, 

 frequently appears in the markets of G-ermany. Of the fourth 



* An acccaint of some of these has already been given in a former volume of 

 the Intellectual Observer. 



