Grows in the West Virginia mountains, along with C. cibarius, and separate from it. It is more tender than C. cibarius, and not equal in flavor to those found there. I usually cooked them together and thus got quantity well flavored.
C. auranti´acus Fr.—orange-yellow. (Plate [CXXXVI], fig. 4, p. 508.) Pileus fleshy, obconic, nearly plane above, smooth or minutely tomentose, dull orange with the disk usually brownish, the margin decurved and sometimes yellowish. Gills narrow, close, repeatedly forked, orange, sometimes yellowish. Stem inequal, generally tapering upward, colored like the pileus. Flesh yellowish, taste mild.
Height 2–3 in., breadth of Pileus 1–3 in. Stem 2–4 lines thick.
Ground and very rotten logs in woods or in fields. Common. Peck, 23d Rep. N.Y. State Bot.
Spores 6.4–7.6×4–5µ Peck, 10×5µ Massee.
Var. pallidus Pk. Pileus and gills pale yellow or whitish yellow.
Stevenson says of the English species, “Unpleasant, reckoned poisonous.” The writer’s acquaintance with C. aurantiacus has been principally confined to West Virginia. There its taste is mild, scent but little, flavor not distinguishable from eastern C. Cibarius. There it is perfectly safe and wholesome; neither have the writer and his friends any reason for condemning it.
C. umbona´tus Fr.—having an umbo. Pileus 1 in. and more broad, ashy-blackish, slightly fleshy, convex when young, umbonate, at length depressed, even, dry, flocculoso-silky on the surface, shining brightly especially under a lens. Flesh soft, white, often becoming red when wounded. Stem 3 in. long, about 4 lines thick, stuffed, equal, elastic, villous at the base, ash-colored, but paler than the pileus. Gills decurrent, thin, tense and straight, crowded, repeatedly divided by pairs, shining-white.
Odor and taste scarcely notable. Gregarious. Among the taller mosses the stem is longer. Often overlooked from its habit being that of an agaric. It varies with the pileus squamulose and blackish.
In woods. April to August. Fries.