Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. Part 13

=Russula virescens= (Schaeff.) Fr. =Edible.=--This plant grows on the ground in woods or in gra.s.sy places in groves from July to September.

The stem is short, 2--7 cm. long 1--2 cm. thick, and the cap is 5--10 cm. broad. The plant is well known by the green color of the pileus and by the surface of the pileus being separated into numerous, quite regular, somewhat angular areas or patches, where the green color is more p.r.o.nounced.

The =pileus= is first rounded, then convex and expanded, and when old somewhat depressed in the center. It is quite firm, dry, greenish, and the surface with numerous angular floccose areas or patches of usually a deeper green. Sometimes the pileus is said to be tinged with yellow. The =gills= are adnate, nearly free from the stem, and crowded. The =stem= is white and firm.

The greenish Russula, _Russula virescens_, like a number of other plants, has long been recommended for food, both in Europe and in this country. There are several species of _Russula_ in which the pileus is green, but this species is readily distinguished from them by the greenish floccose patches on the surface of the pileus. =Russula furcata= is a common species in similar situations, with forked gills, and the cap very variable in color, sometimes reddish, purple, purple brown, or in one form green. I know of the _Russula furcata_ having been eaten in rather small quant.i.ties, and while in this case no harm resulted the taste was not agreeable.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 40.

FIG. 1.--Russula virescens.

FIG. 2.--R. alutacea.

FIG. 3.--R. lepida.

FIG. 4.--R. emetica.

FIG. 5.--Yellow Russula.

FIG. 6.--R. adusta.

Copyright 1900.]

=Russula fragilis= (Pers.) Fr.--This plant is very common in damp woods, or during wet weather from July to September. It is a small plant and very fragile, as its name suggests, much more so than most other species. It is 2--4 cm. high, the cap 2--5 cm. broad, and the stem about 1 cm. in thickness.

The =pileus= is convex, sometimes slightly umbonate, then plane, and in age somewhat depressed. The cuticle peels off very easily. The color is often a bright red, or pink, sometimes purple or violet, and becomes paler in age. It is somewhat viscid when moist, and the margin is very thin and strongly striate and tuberculate, i. e., the ridges between the marginal furrows are tuberculate. The =gills= are lightly adnexed, thin, crowded, broad, all of the same length, white. The =stem= is usually white, sometimes more or less pink colored, spongy within, becoming hollow. The taste is very acrid.

=Russula emetica= Fr. =Poisonous.=--This _Russula_ has a very wide distribution and occurs on the ground in woods or open places during summer and autumn. It is a beautiful species and very fragile. The plants are 5--10 cm. high, the cap 5--10 cm. broad, and the stem 1--2 cm. in thickness. The =pileus= is oval to bell-shaped when young, becoming plane, and in age depressed. It is smooth, s.h.i.+ning, the margin furrowed and tuberculate. The color is from pink or rosy when young to dark red when older, and fading to tawny or sometimes yellowish in age.

The cuticle is easily separable as in _R. fragilis_, the flesh white, but reddish just beneath the cuticle. The =gills= are nearly free, broad, not crowded, white. The stem is stout, spongy within, white or reddish, fragile when old.

The plant is very acrid to the taste and is said to be poisonous, and to act as an emetic.

=Russula adusta= (Pers.) Fr.--This plant occurs on the ground in woods during late summer and in autumn. It is 3--6 cm. high, the cap 5--15 cm.

broad, and the stem is 1--1.5 cm. in thickness.

The =pileus= is fleshy, firm, convex, depressed at the center, and when old more or less funnel-shaped from the upturning of the margin, which is at first incurved and smooth. It varies from white to gray and smoky color. The =gills= are adnate, or decurrent, thin, crowded, of unequal lengths, white, then becoming dark. The =stem= is colored like the pileus. The entire plant becomes darker in drying, sometimes almost black. It is near _Russula nigricans_, but is smaller, and does not have a red juice as _R. nigricans_ has.

CANTHARELLUS Adanson.

From the other white-spored agarics of a fleshy consistency _Cantharellus_ is distinguished by the form of the gills. The gills are generally forked, once or several times, in a dichotomous manner, though sometimes irregularly. They are blunt on the edge, not acute as in most of the other genera. The gills are usually narrow and in many species look like veins, folds, or wrinkles, but in some species, as in _Cantharellus aurantiacus_, they are rather thin and broad.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 126.--Cantharellus cibarius. Under view showing forked gills with veins connecting them. Entire plant rich chrome yellow (natural size).]

=Cantharellus cibarius= Fr. =Edible.=--This plant is known as the _chanterelle_. It has a very wide distribution and has long been regarded as one of the best of the edible mushrooms. Many of the writers on fungi speak of it in terms of high praise. The entire plant is a uniform rich chrome yellow. Sometimes it is symmetrical in form, but usually it is more or less irregular and unsymmetrical in form. The plants are 5--10 cm. high, the cap 4--8 cm. broad, and the stem short and rather thick.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 41, FIGURE 127.--Cantharellus aurantiacus. Color orange yellow, and cap varies ochre, raw sienna, tawny, in different specimens (natural size). Copyright.]

The =pileus= is fleshy, rather thick, the margin thick and blunt and at first inrolled. It is convex, becoming expanded or sometimes depressed by the margin of the cap becoming elevated. The margin is often wavy or repand, and in irregular forms it is only produced at one side, or more at one side than at the other, or the cap is irregularly lobed. The =gills= are very narrow, stout, distant, more or less sinuous, forked or anastomosing irregularly, and because of the pileus being something like an inverted cone the gills appear to run down on the stem. The =spores= are faintly yellowish, elliptical, 7--10 . Figure 126 represents but a single specimen, and this one with a nearly lateral pileus.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 128.--Cantharellus aurantiacus, under view, enlarged nearly twice, showing regularly forked gills.]

=Cantharellus aurantiacus= Fr.--This orange cantharellus is very common, and occurs on the ground or on very rotten wood, logs, branches, etc., from summer to very late autumn. It is widely distributed in Europe and America. It is easily known by its dull orange or brownish pileus, yellow gills, which are thin and regularly forked, and by the pileus being more or less depressed or funnel-shaped. The plants are from 5--8 cm. high, the cap from 2--7 cm. broad, and the stem about 4--8 mm. in thickness.

The =pileus= is fleshy, soft, flexible, convex, to expanded, or obconic, plane or depressed, or funnel-shaped, the margin strongly inrolled when young, in age simply incurved, the margin plane or repand and undulate.

The color varies from ochre yellow to dull orange, or orange ochraceous, raw sienna, and tawny, in different specimens. It is often brownish at the center. The surface of the pileus is minutely tomentose with silky hairs, especially toward the center, and sometimes smooth toward the margin. The flesh is 3--5 mm. at the center, and thin toward the margin.

The gills are arcuate, decurrent, thin, the edge blunt, but not so much so as in a number of other species, crowded, regularly forked several times, at length ascending when the pileus is elevated at the margin.

The color of the =gills= is orange to cadmium orange, or sometimes paler, cadmium yellow or deep chrome. The =stem= is clay color to ochre yellow, enlarged below, spongy, stuffed, fistulose, soft, fibrous, more or less ascending at the base.

The taste is somewhat nutty, sometimes bitterish. The plants in Fig. 127 (No. 3272, C. U. herbarium) were collected near Ithaca, October 7, 1899.

MARASMIUS Fr.

In this genus the plants are tough and fleshy or membranaceous, leathery and dry. They do not easily decay, but shrivel up in dry weather, and revive in wet weather, or when placed in water. This is an important character in distinguis.h.i.+ng the genus. It is closely related to _Collybia_, from which it is difficult to separate certain species. On the other hand, it is closely related to _Lentinus_ and _Pa.n.u.s_, both of which are tough and pliant. In _Marasmius_, however, the substance of the pileus is separate from that of the stem, while in _Lentinus_ and _Pa.n.u.s_ it is continuous, a character rather difficult for the beginner to understand. The species of _Marasmius_, however, are generally much smaller than those of _Lentinus_ and _Pa.n.u.s_, especially those which grow on wood. The stem in _Marasmius_ is in nearly all species central, while in _Lentinus_ and _Pa.n.u.s_ it is generally more or less eccentric.

Many of the species of the genus _Marasmius_ have an odor of garlic when fresh. Besides the fairy ring (_M. oreades_) which grows on the ground, _M. rotula_ is a very common species on wood and leaves. It has a slender, black, s.h.i.+ning stem, and a brownish pileus usually with a black spot in the depression in the center. The species are very numerous.

Peck, 23rd Report, N. Y. State Mus., p. 124--126, describes 8 species.

Morgan Jour. Cinn. Soc. Nat. Hist. =6=: 189--194, describes 17 species.

=Marasmius oreades= Fr. =Edible.=--This is the well known "fairy ring"

mushroom. It grows during the summer and autumn in gra.s.sy places, as in lawns, by roadsides, in pastures, etc. It appears most abundantly during wet weather or following heavy rains. It is found usually in circles, or in the arc of a circle, though few scattered plants not arranged in this way often occur. The plants are 7--10 cm. high, the cap 2--4 cm. broad, and the stem 3--4 mm. in thickness.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 129.--Marasmius oreades. Caps buff, tawny, or reddish.]

The =pileus= is convex to expanded, sometimes the center elevated, fleshy, rather thin, tough, smooth, buff color, or tawny or reddish, in age, or in drying, paler. When moist the pileus may be striate on the margin. The =gills= are broad, free or adnexed, rounded near the stem, white or dull yellowish. The =spores= are elliptical, 7--8 long. The =stem= is tough, solid, whitish.

This widely distributed fungus is much prized everywhere by those who know it. It is not the only fungus which appears in rings, so that this habit is not peculiar to this plant. Several different kinds are known to appear in rings at times. The appearance of the fungus in rings is due to the mode of growth of the mycelium or sp.a.w.n in the soil.

Having started at a given spot the mycelium consumes the food material in the soil suitable for it, and the plants for the first year appear in a group. In the center of this spot the mycelium, having consumed all the available food, probably dies after producing the crop of mushrooms. But around the edge of the spot the mycelium or sp.a.w.n still exists, and at the beginning of the next season it starts into growth and feeds on the available food in a zone surrounding the spot where it grew the previous year. This second year, then, the plants appear in a small ring. So in succeeding years it advances outward, the ring each year becoming larger. Where the plants appear only in the arc of a circle, something has happened to check or destroy the mycelium in the remaining arc of the circle.

It has been noted by several observers that the gra.s.s in the ring occupied by the mushrooms is often greener than that adjoining. This is perhaps due to some stimulus exerted by the mycelium of the fungus on the gra.s.s, or possibly the mycelium may in some way make certain foods available for the gra.s.s which gives an additional supply to it at this point.

Fig. 129 is from plants (No. 5503, C. U. herbarium) collected in a lawn, October 25, 1900, Ithaca.

Ill.u.s.trations of some fine large rings formed by this fungus appeared in circular No. 13 by Mr. Coville, of the Division of Botany in the U. S.

Dept. Agr.

=Marasmius cohaerens= (Fr.) Bres. (_Mycena cohaerens_ Fr. _Collybia lachnophylla_ Berk. _Collybia spinulifera_ Pk.)--This plant grows in dense cl.u.s.ters, ten to twenty individuals with their stems closely joined below and fastened together by the abundant growth of threads from the lower ends. From this character the name _cohaerens_ was derived. The plants grow on the ground or on very rotten wood in woods during late spring and in the summer. The plant is not very common in this country, but appears to be widely distributed both in Europe and here, having been collected in Carolina, Ohio, Vermont, New York, etc.

The plants are 12--20 cm. high, the cap 2--2.5 cm. broad, and the stem 4--7 mm. in thickness.

The =pileus= is fleshy, tough, convex or bell-shaped, then expanded, sometimes umbonate, or in age sometimes the margin upturned and more or less wavy, not viscid, but finely striate when damp, thin. The color varies from vinaceous cinnamon to chestnut or light leather color, or tawny, paler in age, and sometimes darker on the center. The =gills= are sometimes more or less crowded, narrow, 5--6 mm. broad, adnate, but notched, and sometimes becoming free from the stem. The color is light leather color, brick red or bay, the color and color variations being due to numbers of colored cystidia or spicules scattered over the surface of the gills and on the edge. The =cystidia= are fulvous, fusoid, 75--90 long. The =spores= are oval, white, small, 6 3 . The =stem= is long and slender, nearly cylindrical, tapering somewhat above, slightly enlarged below, and rooting. The color is the same as that of the pileus or dark bay brown, and s.h.i.+ning, and seems to be due to large numbers of spicules similar to those on the gills. The color is paler below in some cases, or gradually darker below in others. The stems are bound together below by numerous threads.

Figure 130 is from plants (No. 2373, C. U. herbarium) collected in woods near Freeville, N. Y. The plants have been collected near Ithaca on three different occasions, twice near Freeville about nine miles from Ithaca, and once in the woods at Ithaca. It is easily distinguished by its color and the presence of the peculiar setae or cystidia.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 130.--Marasmius cohaerens (Fr.) Bres. (= Mycena cohaerens Fr. = Collybia lachnophylla Berk. = C. spinulifera Pk.) Color chestnut, light leather color, tawny or vinaceous cinnamon, darker in center, stems dark, s.h.i.+ning, gills leather color, or fulvous, or wine color, brick red or bay, varying in different specimens (natural size).

Copyright.]

Although the plant has been collected on several different occasions in America, it does not seem to have been recognized under this name until recently, save the record of it from Carolina by de Schweinitz (Synop.

fung. Car. No. 606. p. 81).

LENTINUS Fr.

The plants of this genus are tough and pliant, becoming hard when old, unless very watery, and when dry. The genus differs from the other tough and pliant ones by the peculiarity of the gills, the gills being notched or serrate on the edges. Sometimes this appearance is intensified by the cracking of the gills in age or in drying. The nearest ally of the genus is _Pa.n.u.s_, which is only separated from _Lentinus_ by the edge of the gills being plane. This does not seem a very good character on which to separate the species of the two genera, since it is often difficult to tell whether the gills are naturally serrate or whether they have become so by certain tensions which exist on the lamellae during the expansion and drying of the pileus. Schroeter unites _Pa.n.u.s_ with _Lentinus_ (Cohn's Krypt. Flora, Schlesien, =3=, 1; 554, 1889). The plants are usually very irregular and many of them shelving, only a few grow upright and have regular caps.