Toadstools, mushrooms, fungi, edible and poisonous; one thousand American fungi / How to select and cook the edible; how to distinguish and avoid the poisonous, with full botanic descriptions. Toadstool poisons and their treatment, instructions to students, recipes for cooking, etc., etc.

by Charles McIlvaine; Robert K. Macadam

Variations in species of Clitocybe are great. A few are easily fixed in the genus, but many of them will puzzle the amateur and perplex the expert. The gills are always attached to the stem, and usually run down it. They are not notched next to the stem as in Tricholoma.

Like Tricholoma, Clitocybe has many species, most of which are common, and are probably edible. I therefore give Professor Peck’s description of all Clitocybes thus far submitted to him.

I know of but one species which is injurious to some persons—Clitocybe illudens. Many eat and enjoy it. It does not agree with others. A few untried species are suspicious to a like extent. Clitocybe illudens possesses the property of phosphorescence.

Several species of Clitocybe have not been seen or tested by me, nor have I information that these have been tested.

ANALYSIS OF TRIBES.

A. Pileus Fleshy, Often Pallid When Dry, not hygrophanous.

Flesh firm, not watery, nor splitting into plates. Those which turn pale in drying differ from Series B by their silky luster.

Disciformes (disk-shaped). Page [85].

Pileus somewhat equally fleshy; convex then plane or depressed, obtuse, regular; gills at first adnate or regularly adnato-decurrent. Normally solitary.

[*] Pileus gray or brownish.