42 



NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



varied with purple, flesh white, taste acrid or tardily acrid; lamel- 

 lae thin, narrow, close, often forked, tapering toward each end, 

 adnate or slightly decurrent, white; stem equal or nearly so, solid, 

 sometimes cavernous, white; spores white, subglobose, .0003-. 0004 

 of an inch long, .0003 broad. 



The variable russula is appropriately named for its caps are very 

 variable in color. They are dark purple or reddish purple variously 

 intermingled or variegated with green, or wholly pale green. The 

 viscid pellicle is closely attached to the cap in the center but it is 

 separable on the margin. In drying it sometimes forms obscure 

 spots. Notwithstanding the variations in the color of the caps, 

 the species is easily recognized for the gills are very constant in 

 their characters. Their narrowness, closeness and numerous 

 bifurcations are peculiar and very constant features. They are 

 sometimes slightly decurrent, specially in mature specimens whose 

 upcurved margin gives the cap a more or less funnel shape. The 

 stem is white and solid or sometimes with central cavities arranged 

 one above' another. 



The cap is 2-4 inches broad, the stem 1.5-3 inches long, 5-8 lines 

 thick. This mushroom grows in woods and appears during July 

 and August. It belongs to the section Furcatae, as shown by the 

 even margin of the cap and the gills tapering toward each end. 

 The acrid taste of the fresh cap is destroyed in cooking and the 

 flavor is then very good. 



Clavaria conjuncta n. sp. 



CONJOINED CLAVARIA 

 PLATE I02, FIG. 1-3 



Stems united at the base, forming tufts 3-5 inches tall and nearly 

 as broad, fragile, solid, glabrous, white or whitish, divided above 

 into numerous erect, crowded, solid branches which are whitish or 

 pale buff, ultimate branchlets terminating in two or more blunt 

 points which are pale pink, sometimes with a yellowish tinge, 

 flesh white, taste mild; spores dingy yellow in a thin stratum, 

 subochraceous in a thick one, oblong, .0004-. 0005 of an inch long, 

 .000 1 6-. 0002 broad. 



The conjoined clavaria is a large tufted and attractive species 

 closely related to Clavaria flava on one hand and to C. 

 botrytoides on the other. From the first it may be dis- 

 tinguished by the pinkish tips of the branchlets, from the second 

 by their paler color and greater permanence and from both by the 



