Heterophyl´læ.
R. ves´ca Fr.—vesco, to feed. Pileus red-flesh-color, disk darker, fleshy, slightly firm, plano-depressed, slightly wrinkled with veins, with a viscid pellicle, margin at length spreading. Flesh cheesy, firm, shining white. Stem solid, compact, externally rigid, reticulated and wrinkled in a peculiar manner, often attenuated at the base, shining white. Gills adnate, crowded, thin, shining white, with many unequal and forked ones intermixed, but scarcely connected by veins.
Of middle stature. Taste mild, pleasant. Fries.
Spores globose, echinulate, white, 9–10µ diameter. Massee.
In mixed woods. Common. August to frost.
R. vesca is frequent in woods or margins, and under trees in the open. It is especially fond of growing in the grass under lone chestnut trees. The caps seldom exceed 2-½ in. across.
It is one of the best.
R. cyanoxan´tha (Schaeff.) Fr. Gr—blue; Gr—yellow. (From the colors.) (Plate [XLIV], fig. 1, p. 184.) Pileus 2–3 in. and more broad, lilac or purplish then olivaceous-green, disk commonly becoming pale often yellowish, margin commonly becoming azure-blue or livid purple, compact, convex then plane, then depressed or infundibuliform, sometimes even, sometimes wrinkled or streaked, viscous, margin deflexed then expanded, remotely and slightly striate. Flesh firm, cheesy, white, commonly reddish beneath the separable pellicle. Stem 2–3 in. long, as much as 1 in. thick, spongy-stuffed, but firm, often cavernous within when old, equal, smooth, even, shining white. Gills rounded behind, connected by veins, not much crowded, broad, forked with shorter ones intermixed, shining white.
Allied to R. vesca in its mild, pleasant taste and in other respects, but constantly different in the color of the pileus, which is very variable, whereas in R. vesca it is unchangeable. The peculiar combination of colors in the pileus, though very variable, always readily distinguishes it. Fries.
Spores 8–9µ, cystidia numerous, pointed, Massee; 8–10×6–8µ Sacc.