Height 3–6 in., breadth of pileus 6–12 lines. Stem 1–2 lines thick.
Ground in woods and open places. North Elba and Center. August to October.
The color of the pileus is variable. I have taken specimens with it pale sulphur-yellow and others with it bright red or scarlet. The plant turns black in drying. Peck, Rep. 23, New York State Bot.
Spores 10×7µ Cooke; 10×6µ Morgan.
An old-time cure-all had medicinal virtues proportionate to its offensiveness. Old-time writers, contrariwise, gave every toadstool a bad name which changed color or displeased their noses. The pretty little Hygrophorus conicus, for these reasons, has, until now, been under the ban of suspicion. M.C. Cooke, in his handy book, Edible and Poisonous Mushrooms, was the first to lighten its sentence and make it a sort of ticket-of-leave culprit.
The writer has frequently eaten it, and is glad to vouch for its harmlessness and testify to its eminent respectability.
H. chloroph´anus Fr. Gr—greenish-yellow. Pileus 1 in. broad, commonly bright sulphur-yellow, sometimes, however, scarlet, not changing color, somewhat membranaceous, very fragile, at first convex, then plane, obtuse, orbicular and lobed, and at length cracked, smooth, viscid, striate. Stem 2–3 in. long, 2–3 lines thick, hollow, equal, round, rarely compressed, wholly even, smooth, viscid when moist, shining when dry, wholly unicolorous, rich light yellow. Gills emarginato-adnexed, very ventricose, with a thin decurrent tooth, thin, distant, distinct. Fries.
Very much allied to H. conicus, but never becoming black, and otherwise certainly distinguished by its convex, obtuse, striate pileus, by its even and viscous stem, and by its emarginato-free, thin, somewhat distant, whiter gills. Like H. ceraceus in appearance.
In grassy and mossy places. Common. August to October. Stevenson.
Spores 8×5µ Cooke; 8µ Q.