H. sublateritium has many forms. Both Fries and Stevenson indicate this as a variable species and my own observation confirms the truth of this.
This is a very common autumnal species, lasting into the winter. Old authors give it as bitter and very poisonous. I tested it in 1881 and have been eating it, in common with all Hypholomas I have found, ever since. At times it is bitter. I believe this to be due to the passage of larvæ through the flesh. Unattacked specimens are slightly saponaceous to the taste while others in the same bunch are bitter.
Vis´cidi. Pileus viscid, etc. (None known to be edible.)
Velutini. Pileus silky, etc.
H. veluti´nus Pers.—vellus, a fleece. Velvety. Pileus fleshy, thin, convex or expanded, brittle, minutely tomentose-scaly, becoming smooth, hygrophanous, yellow with the disk reddish. Lamellæ rather broad, attached, tapering toward the outer extremity, dark brown tinged with red, the edge whitish-beaded. Stem equal, rather slender, hollow, fibrillose, subconcolorous, white-mealy and slightly striate at the top. Spores black.
Height about 2 in., breadth of pileus 1–1.5 in.
Roadsides. Albany Cemetery. September. The pileus sometimes cracks transversely. Peck, 23d Rep. N.Y. State Bot.
Spores 6×8µ W.G.S.; elliptical, 10×5µ Massee.
Often used in catsup. Innocent and edible. Cooke.
West Virginia. 1881–1885, Pennsylvania, West Philadelphia, Bartram’s Creek, 1887, McIlvaine.