July 1906 ] North American Species of Lepiota 
155 
list of 4 species. Sprague in one of his papers (1858) enumer¬ 
ates 5 species. The Amherst Catalogue (1875) contains 11 
species. The Pacific Coast Catalogue (1850) 5 species. Com¬ 
prehensive and critical work upon the Fungi of North America 
began with the publication ( in 1870) of the 23d Report of the 
State Botanist of New York, Charles H. Peck. The series of 
Reports upon the Fungi of the State of New York issued an¬ 
nually from that year up to the present suggests the extent and 
richness of the Northern Fungal Flora. 
There has been enumerated up to this time near 80 species 
of North American Lepiotas, plainly an inadequate number for 
the vast territory considered. Peck’s monograph of the genus in 
the 35th New York Report (1882), appears to be still about all 
we have to work with; it describes only 18 species! It is there¬ 
fore suggested that we endeavor to marshall the species known 
and described up to date into some sort of order that we may, 
first, make a more critical study of them, and secondly, bring to 
light such species as are not yet recognized. For this purpose 
we are applying to North American species a scheme of arrange¬ 
ment which we make use of to refer to the numerous species of 
Lepiota described in the Sylloge Fungorum. 
Lepiota Persoon , Synopsis 1801 ; Fries, Syst. Myc. 1821. 
Hym. Eur. 18/4; Saccardo, Sylloge Fungorum, V, IX, XI, 
XIV, XVI, XVII. 
Pileus soft fleshy, rather dry; veil marginal. Stipe hollow 
or fibrous-stuffed, rarely solid, commonly tapering upward from 
a thickened base; volva none. Lamellae free, approximate or 
remote, rarely reaching the stipe; spores white, sometimes zvith 
a tinge of pink or yellow, in one species bright green. 
Agarics varying in size from the largest to very small, grow¬ 
ing usually in rich soil, a few species on old decaying wood. The 
surface of the pileus may be smooth and glabrous, more com¬ 
monly the dermis is broken up into granules, warts and scales; 
in a few species the surface is viscid or glutinous. Fries invests 
the pileus in this genus with a universal veil concrete with the 
dermis. According to De Bary, Brefeld and others there is 
but a partial or marginal veil. This veil is a membrane joining 
the margin of the pileus to the surface of the stipe; it continues 
to grow along with the general growth of the pileus and stipe 
until the time of the hyponastic upward expansion of the former 
when it is torn away from the margin of the pileus and is left 
behind upon the stipe. The mode of development of the partial 
veil and the manner of its rupture occur in three different ways 
which are made use of to arrange the species of Lepiota into 
three different sections. These sections are defined in accord¬ 
ance with the views of De Bary as expressed in his Comparative 
Morphology. 
