Murrill: Illustrations of Fungi 
223 
Lepiota brunnescens Peck 
Browning Lepiota 
P late 137. Figure 4. X 1 
Pileus thin, convex or nearly plane, usually obtuse or umbonate, 
2-8 cm. broad; the entire plant changing to brown when bruised 
or after 12-24 hours of drying; surface whitish, the cuticle soon 
cracking and forming chestnut-colored squamules except in the 
center, margin often rosy, radiate-rimose at times ; context white, 
taste sweet ; lamellae free, at first white, crowded, ventricose ; 
spores ovoid, appendiculate, smooth, hyaline, yellowish in mass, 
6-8 X 4-5 h- ; stipe equal or slightly enlarged below, white, chang- 
ing at first to reddish-brown and then to brown below the annulus 
on drying, fibrous to glabrous, hollow, 3 -7 cm. long, 2-7 mm. thick ; 
annulus median, fixed, usually ample and persistent. 
This species occurs rather rarely in open woods and grassy 
places from New York and New Jersey through Ohio and Mis- 
souri to southern California. Few collectors know it on sight, 
but it should be recognized by the brown color which the entire 
sporophore assumes after about a day of drying. The flesh is 
white, sweet, and probably edible, but it has not been tested so far 
as known. The species might be confused by the beginner with 
small plants of Lepiota americana. 
Laccaria ochropurpurea (Berk.) Peck 
Yellowish-purple Laccaria 
Plate 137. Figure 5. X 1 
Pileus fleshy, firm, subhemispheric or convex becoming plane 
or slightly centrally depressed, often very irregular and very vari- 
able in size and shape, solitary or rarely gregarious, 5-10 cm. 
broad ; surface hygrophanous, purplish-brown when moist, gray- 
ish or pale-alutaceous when dry, unpolished, margin decurved ; 
context edible ; lamellae thick, distant, broad, adnate or decurrent, 
purplish; spores globose, verruculose, 8-10 /x; stipe variable, 
short or long, equal or sometimes thicker in the middle, sometimes 
at each end, fibrous, solid, concolorous or paler, firm, 3-8 cm. long, 
4-12 mm. thick. 
This species is known throughout temperate North America, 
occurring in open grassy or bushy places in thin woods, often 
associated with its smaller relative, Laccaria laccata, of which it 
