Height 2–4 in., breadth of pileus 6–12 lines. Stem 1–2 lines thick.
Swamps and damp shaded places in fields or woods. July to September. Common. Peck, 23d Rep. N.Y. State Bot.
Var. fla´va. Pileus and stem pale yellow. Gills arcuate, strongly decurrent.
Var. fla´vipes. Pileus red or reddish. Stem yellow.
Var. fla´viceps. Pileus yellow. Stem red or reddish.
Var. Ro´sea. Has the pileus expanded and the margin wavy scalloped. Swamps. Sandlake. Peck, 23d Rep.
Common in the Adirondack region, and throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey, in all its varieties.
The resemblance to H. miniatus in color is great, but there is a marked difference in the gills, which extend further down the thinner stem. It is tougher, and takes longer to cook. It has a flavor of its own which is enjoyed by some and condemned by others.
H. cocci´neus Schaeff.—of a scarlet color. (Plate [CXXXVI], fig. 6, p. 508.) Pileus 1–2 in. and more broad, at first bright scarlet, then soon changing color and becoming pale, slightly fleshy, convex, then plane and often unequal, obtuse, at first viscid and even, smooth, not floccose-scaly. Flesh of the same color as the pileus. Stem 2 in. long, 3–4 lines thick, hollow, then compressed and rather even, not slippery, scarlet upward, always yellow at the base. Gills wholly adnate, decurrent with a tooth, plane, distant, connected by veins, watery-soft as if fatty, when full grown purplish at the base, light yellow in the middle, glaucous at the edge. Fries.
Flesh of the pileus descending into the gills and forming a trama of the same color. Fragile. Varying in stature, easily mistaken for some of the following species which are of the same color. Pileus at length becoming yellow. Stevenson.