36 Notes on Fungi. 



for its dingy pileus, covered with, smoke-coloured meal, and its 

 blood-red gills which often yield only effete spores, occurs now 

 and then upon peat in gardens. In all the species there is a 

 universal veil, though not always distinct from the partial veil. 

 In A. echinatus this is represented by the copious meal. 



It is not necessary to dwell on the subgenus Pilosace (from 

 7rTkos, a hat, and gclkos, a shield), which is distinguished from 

 Psalliota by the absence of a ring, as we have no British 

 representative. 



The subgenus Stropliaria (from arpofaov, a girdle) was 

 formerly included in Psalliota, but has been very properly sepa- 

 rated on account of its gills not being decidedly free as in 

 Lepiota, Volvaria, Pluteus, and Psalliota. It does not seem to 

 contain a single esculent species, though one has the reputation of 

 being extremely poisonous. A. ceruginosus is sometimes a beauti- 

 ful object when fresh from its verdigris-green pileus, clothed with 

 white floccose scales. Both the green tint and scales, however, 

 vanish with the first shower, and the beauty is gone. It has a 

 peculiar smell like that of cerate, and is in all probability 

 poisonous. A. albo-cyaneus, of which a figure (No. 3) is given 

 in our second coloured plate of Fungi, published in the Intellec- 

 tual Observes, October, 1865, p. 184, occurs occasionally in 

 meadows, and is distinguished by its more elegant form, and 

 livid rather than green tint when young, in addition to other 

 characters. 



A. semiglobatus is one of the most common species, occur- 

 ring everywhere on horse dung. Whether this or some other 

 species was the cause of several deaths at Battersea when 

 Sower by was publishing the latter portion of his Fungi is not 

 very clear, though he gave it, by way of indicating its supposed 

 evil qualities, the name of A. viro'sus. It is, however, a species 

 which could only be eaten by mistake, though it is very pro- 

 bable that it often gets with other dangerous species into the 

 mushroom basket. Though in some cases the deleterious 

 qualities of fungi may be diminished by evaporation and the 

 free use of the salt in ketchup, there are cases on record where 

 it has been fatal. 



It will not be necessary to dwell long on the remaining 

 subgenera. 



Hypholoma (from vcprj, a web, and \£fia, a veil) is distin- 

 guished by the veil being woven into a fugacious web, which 

 often adheres in fragments to the margin of the pileus. It 

 does not form a ring upon the stem as in Psalliota. The 

 species are mostly of a tolerable size, and are densely tufted. 

 Either the taste of the primary species is bitter, or the texture 

 tough, or the two bad qualities are combined so as to make 

 them ineligible for food. A. velutinus is more tender, and is 



