CRYPTOGAMIA. FUNGI. Acaricus. 
229 
Pilens conical, pointed, mouse-coloured, sleek and satiny, half to one inch 
from the base to the apex of the cone. 
Stem hollow, cylindrical, firm, mouse-colour, darker below, three to six 
inches high, thick as a croiv quill. 
Curtain extremely delicate and fugacious, for a short time fringing the edge 
of the pileus. 
This, though one of our most common, and when in perfection a beautiful 
species, does not appear to have been figured by any one. In a fine 
summer morning it is covered with a bloom like that on a plum, fre¬ 
quently with a glittering spangled appearance, which, aided by the 
regularity of its form and the delicate fringe of the curtain, make it 
an object which the eye contemplates with pleasure. When gathered, 
the top of the stem is apt to bend at a right angle, so that the apex of 
the cone points horizontally. The bloom soon vanishes, and the whole 
turns black in decay. In its general habit and the firmness of its 
stem, it approaches Ag. varius . 
Ag. varius. Bolt. Grass plats and new-mown fields. July. 
Var. 4. Gills grey to blue black, four or eight in a set: pileus conical, pale 
brown, apex chesnut: stem dark mulberry, cylindrical. 
Schaff. 202. 
Gills slightly fixed : grey to blue black, numerous, four or eight in a set. 
Pileus pale brown, conical, scored, apex reddish, polished, half an inch 
from the edge to the point of the cone. 
Stem hollow, cylindrical, dark blackish red, or mulberry colour, stiff^ juicy, 
three to four inches high, thick as a crow quill. 
The peculiarities of this variety were probably occasioned by the watery 
situation in which it grew. 
Ag. morus. With. Ed. 2. In wet gravel where no grass grows, by the side 
of the Horse stew, in Edgbaston park, under a large oak tree. 
Oct. 1791. 
Sometimes on cow-dung, and when protected by long grass the stem is 
covered with a white hoariness, which readily rubs off, and the remains 
of the curtain form a beautiful festoon round the edge of the pileus. 
When very young the gills are brown, but they soon change to dark grey 
and become mottled. 
Ag. mei/leus. (SchaefF.) Gills pale brown, four in a set: pileus pale 
buff, centre deeper, rather conical: stem whitish, crooked: cur-, 
tain fugacious. 
Schceff'. 45. 
Gills fixed by small claws to the stem, pale watery brown, four in a set. 
Pileus buff in the centre, paler towards the edge, rather conical, edge 
turned in, smooth, clammy, two inches over. Flesh yellow white. 
Stem hollow, whitish, scurfy, and brown below, cylindrical, crooked, two to 
three inches high, thick as a small goose quill. 
Curtain white, tender, not leaving a ring. 
Grows in clusters, with a large root extending horizontally, and fixed to 
fragments of decayed wood. 
(Horizontal-rooted Agaric. E.) Ag. melleus. SchaefF. Edgbaston 
plantations. 21st Aug. 
War. 2. Pileus chesnut colour. 
Bolt. 10. 
I venture to place this here, but wish the author had been more explicit 
either in his figure or description. 
Ag. q artaneus. Bolt. 
