REPORT OF THE STATE BOTANIST 



203 



becoming sordid with age and sometimes variegated with red- 

 dish-brown spots ; stem annulate, at length brownish toward the 

 base; spores elliptical, white, .0003 to .0004 in. long. 



The Honey-colored armillaria is very plentiful and extremely 

 variable. The cap is generally adorned with numerous minute 

 tufts or scales of brown or blackish hairs, which are often more 

 dense on the disk or center than toward the margin. In young 

 plants they are often so crowded on the disk as to cover it and give 

 it a darker hue than the margin has, and they sometimes are so 

 fine and matted that they have a kind of woolly or tomentose 

 appearance. In some forms of the species they are entirely 

 wanting, or they disappear with age. The cap is sometimes 

 charged with moisture, and as this evaporates the color becomes 

 slightly paler. Its color varies from almost white to a dark red- 

 dish-brown, which is shown in figure 4. The most common hue 

 is a brownish-yellow shown in the lower figures of the plate. 

 The margin of the cap in mature plants is commonly striated, 

 but forms are not rare in which no striations appear. The center 

 of the cap is sometimes prominent, as in figure 3. The flesh is 

 white or whitish and its taste is somewhat unpleasant or acrid. 



The gills are at first white or whitish, but with age they 

 become less clear in color and are often more or less stained or 

 spotted with reddish-brown. The inner extremity of those that 

 reach the stem is attached to it and usually runs down slightly 

 upon it. Sometimes there is a sl'ght notch on the lower edge of 

 the gills near the stem. 



The stem is adorned with a collar which may be membranous 

 or of a thick cottony texture, or so thin and webby that it entirely 

 disappears in the older plants. Externally the stem is rather 

 firm and fibrous, but centrally it is soft and spongy or even hol- 

 low. It varies considerably in color, but usually it assumes a 

 reddish-brown or livid-brown hue, especially toward the base, 

 remaining paler above. Sometimes a yellowish-green tomentum is 

 noticeable at the base of the stem, and occasionally on the collar. 

 The stem may be of uniform thickness or slightly thickened at 

 the base or even narrowed almost to a point here. In one variety 

 it has a distinctly bulbous base, in another a tapering base like a 

 tap root which penetrates the earth deeply. 



