Ground and old prostrate trunks of trees in woods and open places. August and September.
Our species has been found to be edible, but its flavor is scarcely as agreeable as that of some other species. Peck, 42d Rep. N.Y. State Bot.
It requires longer cooking than C. prunulus, and is then quite equal in excellence.
The fungus is so named because of the abortive form of it frequently found associated with it. This is faithfully portrayed on Plate LXIII. This is in every way similar to the aborted forms of C. prunulus and Armillaria mellea.
Both forms plentiful near Philadelphia. The undeveloped masses are also similar to those of C. prunulus.
The abortive form is a superior edible to the original.
C. popina´lis Fr.—popina, a cook-shop. Pileus 1–2 in. across, flesh thin, flaccid, convex then depressed, somewhat wavy, glabrous, opaque, gray, spotted and marbled. Flesh grayish-white, unchangeable. Gills very decurrent, broader than the thickness of the flesh of the pileus, lanceolate, crowded, dark-gray, at length reddish from the spores. Stem stuffed, 1–2 in. long, 2 lines thick, equal, often flexuous, naked, paler than the pileus. Spores subglobose, slightly angular, 4–5µ Massee.
Solitary or gregarious, smell pleasant like new meal, entirely gray. Fries.
Woods. Gansevoort. July. The whole plant is of a grayish color except the mature gills, which have a flesh-colored hue, and the base of the stem, which is clothed with a white tomentum. It has a farinaceous odor. Peck, 51st Rep. N.Y. State Bot.
Scattered. Mt. Gretna, Pa. September to November. McIlvaine.