36 
NOTES AND QUERIES ON RUSSULE. 
of a species as yet undescribed, but which we call provisionally R . 
ochroviridis. Whether it takes a positive and definite form in 
R. vesca is not yet determined. It is not so liable to mutation, 
according to a wet or dry season, as taste or odour, and hence, all 
things considered, is more reliable. 
The colour of the flesh under the cuticle appears to have the 
confidence of some mycologists who have little or no faith in the 
external coloration of Agancini at all. This seems rather 
anomalous, but it may be true. It is generally considered a good 
test of R. emetica , R. consobrina , R. cyanoxantha , and perhaps to a 
certain extent of R. furcata, as well as R. cutefracta. This sub- 
cuticular colour is not always the same as that of the cuticle, and 
then perhaps even more to be trusted, as in R. cutefracta, R.furcata , 
and R. rhytipes. 
Considerable emphasis is often placed upon a separable or adnate 
cuticle, but we doubt much if this is not relative rather than abso- 
lute, and very much fluctuates with a wet or dry season. True, the 
cuticle may always be raised with much greater facility in some 
species than in others, and always most freely at the margin. Here 
is a little work still left for the microscope to determine whether 
there is in all cases a distinct outer layer of cuticular cells, or 
whether they are represented in the adnate pellicle by a cell struc- 
ture continuous with the subcuticular cells. If the distinct cuti- 
cular cells are in all cases a superimposed layer, parting away with 
more or less facility, then the reliance to be placed upon a separable 
pellicle must be very small, fluctuating according to external 
circumstances. 
Relative again, and not absolute, must be regarded the viscidity 
of the pellicle. Granted that in some instances it is most decided 
under any, and almost every, condition of humidity, as we presume 
it must be in Russula cruentata , Quel., where it is said to resemble 
Hygrophorus limacinus, but this is an extreme case. In damp 
situations, and persistently wet weather, it can be imagined that 
the cuticle of the species in the section Rigidce will any of them 
exhibit fragments of grass and leaves adhering to them with some 
tenacity, as if they had experienced their soft moments. A dis- 
tinguished and esteemed Woolhopeian not infrequently has been 
known to experiment on the conversion of a dry cuticle to a viscid 
one, by damping and pressing fragments of grass thereon, as a trap 
to catch the unwary. Nevertheless, for all this, the section Rigidae 
is a good one, and, comparatively, the cuticle is dry, but not abso- 
lutely so, especially when young, that persistently damp weather has 
no influence upon them. Even that most characteristic, and charac- 
teristically dry, species Russula virescens may be gathered with 
fragments of grass closely agglutinated to the pileus, and yet the 
wood nymphs carry no fairy gum pot, for the delusion of corporeal 
fungus hunters. 
Apropos of the cuticle, a curious phenomenon may be observed 
in two or three species — and we have observed it only in two or 
