Murrill: Illustrations of Fungi 



167 



rose-squamose ; lamellae free, crowded, ventricose, white to black ; 

 spores very large, ellipsoid, regular, smooth, black, 18 X 12 ^ in 

 specimens found, reported slightly larger by most authors ; stipe 

 attenuate upward, fibrillose, white, blackening when handled, sub- 

 bulbous at the base, 5-8 cm. high, 4-8 mm. thick ; veil small, white, 

 cottony, remaining near the base of the stipe as a small annulus. 



This interesting species was described by Fries in 1821 from 

 specimens collected on cow dung in autumn. My own plants, 

 collected on a manure heap in the grounds of the New York Bo- 

 tanical Garden, June 22, 1910, were compared with those at 

 Upsala and found to agree perfectly. Specimens found by Dr. 

 Peck on the ground in an open field near Ticonderoga in August 

 were described by him in 1879 as Coprinus macros porus. 

 Bolton's A. oblcctus is probably the same thing, but it is hard to 

 determine this with certainty. The species seems to be rare and 

 not generally w T ell known, either in this country or in Europe. 

 Its edible qualities have probably not been tested, but some of our 

 best economic species, figured in Mycologia for March, 1909, 

 belong to this genus. 



Melanoleuca melaleuca (Pers.) Pat. 

 Tricholoma melaleucum (Pers.) Quel. 

 Black and White Mushroom 



Plate 49. Figure 4. X 1 



Pileus thin, convex to plane, depressed around the small umbo, 

 solitary, 3-6 cm. broad ; surface glabrous, fuliginous to fawn- 

 colored, margin incurved when young ; context thin, sweet, edible, 

 inodorous ; lamellae very white, ventricose, emarginate, crowded ; 

 spores ovoid-ellipsoid, finely echinulate, hyaline, uninucleate, 7-9 

 X5-6/Z.; stipe elastic, variable in color and size, subglabrous, 

 slender, often enlarged above or below, 4-8 cm. long. 



This well-known and exceedingly variable European species, 

 occurring in open or slightly shaded grassy places, seems rare in 

 America, and the form found about New York City appears so 

 different from the normal European type as to be scarcely recog- 

 nizable. To add further to the difficulty, this species is probably 

 as much a Collybia as a Tricholoma, and Collybia stridula Fries 

 seems hardly distinct from it. Dr. Peck has specimens from 

 North Elba labeled Tricholoma microcephalum Karsten. His T. 



