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

R. aura´ta Fr.—aurum, gold. Pileus 2–3 in. broad, varying lemon-yellow, orange and red, disk darker, fleshy, rigid, brittle however, hemispherical then plane, disk not depressed, pellicle thin, adnate, viscid in wet weather, margin even, and slightly striate only when old, but sometimes wrinkled. Flesh lemon-yellow under the pellicle, white below. Stem 2–3 in. long, solid, firm, but spongy within, cylindrical, obsoletely striate, white or lemon-yellow. Gills rounded free, connected by veins, broad, equal, shining, never pulverulent, whitish inclining to light yellow, but vivid lemon-yellow at the edge. Fries.

West Virginia, 1881–1885; Pennsylvania, 1887–1898. In woods under pines. July to October. McIlvaine.

Pileus sometimes depressed in center, very viscid when wet.

A troop of this Russula upon brown wood mat is a pretty sight. Its rich and brightly-colored cap attracts the eye from a distance. The yellow edge of its gills is the distinctive mark of the species.

The smell is pleasant, the taste slightly of cherry bark.

Cooked it is one of the best Russulæ.

R. atropurpu´rea Pk.—atre, black; purpureus, purple. Dark purple Russula. Pileus 3–4 in. broad, at first convex, then centrally depressed, glabrous, dark purple, blackish in the center, the margin even or slightly striate. Flesh white, grayish or grayish-purple under the separable pellicle, taste mild, odor of the drying plant fetid, very unpleasant. Lamellæ nearly equal, subdistant, sometimes forked near the stem, at first white, then yellowish, becoming brownish where bruised. Stem 2–3 in. long, 5–8 lines thick, equal, glabrous, spongy within, white, brownish where bruised. Spores subglobose, minutely rough, pale ochraceous with a salmon tint, 8–10µ.

Open woods. Gansevoort. July.

In color this species resembles R. variata, but in other respects it is very different. It is very distinct in the peculiar color of its spores, and in the brownish hue assumed by wounds. Peck, 41st Rep. N.Y. State Bot.

West Philadelphia, Pa. July, 1897. Open woods. Solitary. Philadelphia Myc. Center.