RHPORT OF THE STATE BOTANIST 



231 



The Vermilion hygrophorus is a very highly colored, beauti- 

 ful species. It is small, but in some localities it is so abundant 

 that no difficulty need be encountered in procuring a quantity of 

 it sufficient for a meal for a large family. The cap is thin and 

 fragile, and it must be handled with care or it will be broken. 

 In the young plant it is convex, but it expands with age until it 

 is Hat or even centrally depressed. Its surface is sometimes 

 smooth and even shining, again it is roughened as if coated with 

 minute scurfy scales. Frequently there is a little central depres- 

 sion or umbilicus in it. When young and moist the margin often 

 shows slight striations, but in the dry or mature plant these are 

 not seen. The margin is often irregular or wavy, and in very 

 wet weather it may become curved upwards so that the cap be- 

 comes concave. The color is usually a bright red or vermilion, 

 but sometimes it fades to paler or orange shades, and there is a 

 variety in which the whole plant is yellow. This I have called 

 variety lutescens and have represented it by figures 9 and 10. 

 The bright color of this plant is apt to disappear in drying. 



The gills are commonly yellow, but sometimes they are more 

 or less tinged with the red color of the cap. They are not so 

 wide apart as in the Meadow hygrophorus. They are generally 

 attached to the stem by the entire width of the inner extremity, 

 but specimens occur in which they are plainly notched at the 

 inner end, and others are found in which they are slightly 

 decurrent. 



The stem is rather slender. In young plants it is solid, but in 

 older ones it becomes wholly or partly hollow. It is colored like 

 or sometimes paler than the cap. 



Cap one-half to two inches broad, stem one to two inches long, 

 one to two lines thick. 



The Vermilion hygrophorus grows in woods, swamps and old 

 fields in soil either wet or dry, among mosses or fallen leaves or 

 on naked earth. It is sometimes found in great profusion in 

 recent clearings over which fire has run. In such places it com- 

 monly attains a larger size than in dense woods, the cap attain- 

 ing a diameter of even three inches. It is evidently fond of 

 moisture and is more abundant in wet weather than in dry. It 

 will grow even in the wet Sphagnum of peat bogs, and yet it is 

 also found on the dry knolls and hillocks of the Adirondack 

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