A. silvic´ola Vitt.—silva, a wood; colo, to inhabit. (Plate [XCI], fig. 2, p. 332.) (A. arvensis, var. abruptus Pk.; now A. abruptus Pk.) Pileus convex or sub-bell-shaped, sometimes expanded or nearly plane, smooth, shining, white or yellowish. Gills close, thin, free, rounded behind, generally narrowed toward each end, at first whitish, then pinkish, finally blackish-brown. Stem long, cylindrical, stuffed or hollow, white, bulbous; ring either thick or thin, entire or lacerated. Spores elliptical, 6–8×4–5µ.
Plant 4–6 in. high. Pileus 3–6 in. broad. Stem 4–8 lines thick.
Woods, copses and groves or along their borders. Summer and autumn. Peck, 36th Rep. N.Y. State Bot.
Very good eating, though scarcely as highly flavored as the common mushroom. Peck.
West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, June to frost. McIlvaine.
A. silvicola, by many authors considered a variety of A. campester, is, seemingly, becoming common. Professor Peck in 46th Rep. has made the abrupt bulb and its usual double veil distinctive marks which ally it to A. arvensis. He therefore calls it var. abruptus. As this book goes to press Professor Peck writes me that he concludes var. abruptus to be a good and distinct species. It is therefore given as such. While familiar with it since 1881, I never found it in quantity until 1898, at Mt. Gretna, Pa. There, among the straw and rubbish of abandoned camps on wood margins, it grew in great quantity; sometimes singly, at others in crowded clusters. When growing singly it exhibits all the characteristics of its description; when clustered, the stems are not always bulbous. The caps are thin but fleshy, brittle and bear a disproportionate width to the stem—like a plate on a pipe stem. The caps when mature are usually tinged with yellow and are spread flat; the ring is large, often double, yellowish, often torn, fragments of it frequently hang from the cap margin; the bulb when perfect is small, abrupt, as if it had once been round but the stem pushed into it. It has a strong spicy mushroom odor and taste, and makes a high-flavored dish. It is delicious with meats. It is the very best mushroom for catsup. Mixed with Russulæ or Lactarii or other species lacking in mushroom flavor, it enriches the entire dish. The stems, excepting of the very young, are tough.
Larvæ do not infest A. silvicola. Its habit of growth shows it to be cultivatable. It has but one draw-back. Growing as it does in woods and in the presence of the poisonous Amanita, it is possible for the careless collector to confound the two. The Amanitæ have larger bulbs, cups at the base, and white gills; the A. silvicola has no volva, has whitish gills when very young only, they become pinkish, then a marked blackish-brown.
A. creta´ceus Fr.—creta, chalk. Pileus 3 in. and more broad, wholly white, fleshy, lens-shaped-globose when young, then convexo-flattened, obtuse, dry, sometimes even, sometimes rivulose chiefly round the margin from the cuticle separating into squamules. Flesh thick, white, unchangeable. Stem 3 in. long, 3–6 lines and more thick, hollow, stuffed with a spider-web pith, firm, attenuated upward, even, smooth, not spotted, white. Gills free, then remote, ventricose but very much narrowed toward the stem, crowded, remaining long white, becoming dingy-brown only when old. Fries.
Spores 3×4µ W.G.S.; 5–6×3.5µ Massee.
Under certain conditions the spores are white. M.J.B.