Pileus smooth, hygrophanous.
Members of this purple-spored genus grow upon decayed wood, either standing or as roots in the ground, or from ground heavily laden with woody material. They grow singly, in groups, or in densely-tufted or overlapping masses. The several species vary in shades of yellow, red, orange, brick-color and brown; their caps are from 1–6 in. across; their stems are short or long, as the number in the cluster permits; when growing singly the stems are short and sturdy. There is a floccose veil, or remnants of one, about the stem. The gills are yellowish, greenish, olivaceous or greenish shades of yellow, gray, purple, almost black. They are showy, easily recognized and are found from September until mid-winter. I have gathered them when frozen hard. The flesh is solid, or spongy, flexible or fragile, white or yellowish; the tastes are sweet, nutty, bitter and saponaceous. Patches of them—and they are frequent in almost every woods in the land—often yield several bushels. Tons of them annually go to waste.
Old authors and some copyists say “the species are not edible, the tough ones being bitter, the fragile ones almost void of flesh.” Eighteen years of experience with them warrants my saying that there is not a single wild genus approaching it in economic value, and when its most prominent species are properly cooked, few equal it in consistency and flavor. As a pickle the Hypholomas have no superior.
Half a dozen or more of the species are exceedingly difficult to separate. Professor Peck has happily made a new species, H. perplexum, which is well named. For all culinary purposes these affiliated species may be gathered under that convenient name; for botanic purposes his description covers several perplexing characteristics common to what have been written as separate species, and covers a composite species.
The occasional bitter taste of some species is not constant, and can not be relied upon as a distinguishing mark. In the same tufts some individuals may be mild, others bitter; some individuals in groups are in a position and of an age to absorb water; others are not. There will be a marked difference in their taste raw. A few in the same group may have been infested by insects; others not. Those infested are often intensely bitter, while their companions are of pleasant flavor. The same remarks apply to neighboring clusters and individuals. I am of the opinion, from long observation, that the bitter is largely due to the injury and excrement of larvæ. Changes of taste occur in toadstools in a most marked and rapid manner. Apples from the same tree, chestnuts from the same tree, acorns from the same oak, radishes from the same seed, blackberries from the same bush, differ widely in taste. Why not toadstools of the same species?
I have often seen species of this genus, described as having stems up to 5 in. long, stretch and twist their stems to over a foot in order to get their caps from the inside of, or from a crack in a decaying stump, out into the light; and I have seen stems of the same species stout, solid and sturdy when individuals grew upright and singly. But wherever and however they grow, Hypholomas are safe. I have eaten them indiscriminately since 1881, and as long ago as 1885 published their edibility.
Fascicula´res. Pileus smooth, etc.
H. perplex´um Pk.—perplexus, perplexed. Perplexing Hypholoma. (Plate [XCVII], fig. 2, p. 352.) Pileus convex or nearly plane, glabrous, sometimes broadly and slightly umbonate, reddish or brownish-red fading to yellow on the margin, the flesh white or whitish. Lamellæ thin, close, slightly rounded at the inner extremity, at first pale-yellow, then tinged with green, finally purplish-brown. Stem nearly equal, firm, hollow, slightly fibrillose, whitish or yellowish above, rusty-reddish or reddish-brown below. Spores elliptical, purplish-brown, 8×4µ.
The Perplexing hypholoma has received the name because it is one of a group of five or six very closely allied species, whose separation from each other is somewhat difficult and perplexing. Of these six species three have a decidedly bitter, unpleasant flavor, and three are mild, or not decidedly bitter, if we may rely on the published descriptions of them. The three bitter ones, also, have no purplish tints to the mature gills; but two of the mild ones have. By using these and other distinguishing characters the six species may be tabulated and their several peculiarities more clearly shown.
| Taste bitter | 1 | |
| Taste mild, or not clearly bitter | 3 | |
| 1. | Stem solid or stuffed, flesh whitish, gills whitish, then sooty-olive | sublateritium |
| 1. | Stem hollow, flesh yellow | 2 |
| 2. Cap yellow or tinged with tawny, stem yellow, gills yellow, becoming greenish | fasciculare | |
| 2. Cap brick-red, stem ferruginous, gills green, becoming olive | elæodes | |
| 3. | Cap red or brick-red, with a yellow margin; gills yellow, then greenish, finally purplish-brown | perplexum |
| 3. | Cap yellow, or slightly tawny on the disk only | 4 |
| 4. Gills gray, becoming purplish-brown | capnoides | |
| 4. Gills yellow, becoming gray, neither green nor purplish | epixanthum |