Pileus 2–8 in. broad. Stem 1–2 in. long, .6 in. thick.
Sandy soil near salt water, Lynn, Mahant and Marblehead, Mass. June to December. R.F. Dearborn.
This is a very interesting and an excellent mushroom. Dr. Dearborn writes that he has used it on the table for fourteen years and that it is the only mushroom that he has ever eaten in which the stem is as good as the cap. He considers it the most hearty and satisfying of all the numerous species that he has ever eaten. Both its taste and odor is suggestive of the sea. The latter is quite strong, and perceptible by one riding along the road by whose side the mushrooms are growing. They sometimes grow in semicircles and attain a larger size in warm weather than in the colder weather of autumn. They are most abundant in August. The flesh, when cut or broken, quickly assumes a pink or reddish hue on the freshly-exposed surface. This is a very distinctive character and with the maritime habitat makes the species easy to recognize. Another species, Agaricus hæmorrhoidarius Kalchb. exhibits a similar change of color in its wounded flesh, but is of very rare occurrence with us, does not, so far as ascertained, grow near the sea, has a darker cap and a long hollow stem. The stem in the maritime mushroom is short and solid. Its collar is very slight and easily destroyed. Peck, Bull. Torr. Bot. Club, Vol. 26, No. 2, F. 1899.
A. Califor´nicus Pk.—Pileus at first subconical, becoming convex, minutely silky or fibrillose, whitish, tinged with purple or brownish-purple on the disk. Flesh whitish. Gills close, free, pink becoming purplish, then blackish-brown. Stem rather long, solid or stuffed, equal or tapering upward, distinctly and rather abruptly narrowed above the entire externally silky ring, pallid or brownish. Spores broadly elliptical, 5–6×4–5µ.
Pileus 1–3 in. broad. Stem 1.5–3 in. long, 2–4 lines thick.
Under oak trees. Pasadena. January. McClatchie.
This fungus is similar in size, shape and habitat to A. hemorrhoidarius, but it is unlike that species in color, in the adornment of the pileus and in its color not changing where bruised or broken. Bull. Torr. Bot. Club, 22–5 My. 95.
A. Elven´sis B. and Br.—Name from river Elwy, Wales, where first found. Tufted. Pileus 4–6 in. or more across, subglobose then hemispherical, fibrillose, broken up into large persistent brown scales, areolate in the center, margin very obtuse, thick, covered with pyramidal warts. Stem at first nearly equal, at length swollen in the center, and attenuated at the base, 4–6 in. high, 2 in. thick in the center, fibrillose and areolate below, nearly smooth within the pileus, solid, stuffed with delicate threads. Ring thick, very large, deflexed, broken here and there, warted in areas beneath. Gills rather crowded, ¼ in. broad, free, of a brownish flesh-color. Spores elliptic oblong, 8×4µ.
Under oak trees, etc. Edible, delicious eating. Flesh of pileus ¾ in. thick, red when cut. Massee.
California, H. and M.