Readily distinguished from neighboring species by the gills being at first beautifully dark violaceous, never flesh-colored. Densely cespitose, fragile, very hygrophanous. Stevenson.
Spores elliptical, 8×4µ Massee.
Edible, often used in catsup. Cooke.
A species variable in color with the weather. Its gills are cream-colored at first, then purplish, then very dark. After rain the fragile cap often turns up at the margin and splits.
It differs somewhat in texture from other Hypholomas, being more delicate in texture and substance. It is excellent.
H. suba´quilum Banning.—aquilus, brownish, tawny. Pileus brown, convex, smooth, hygrophanous, often shaded into ocher at margin, veil delicate, silk-like, encircling and covering the marginal extremities of the lamellæ but forming no ring on the stem. Flesh white, turning umber when cut. Lamellæ adnexed or nearly free, close, forked, umber. Stem cespitose, regular, hollow, silky, white, 2–3 in. long.
Spores brown, 4×5µ. Banning MS.
Druid Hill Park, Baltimore, Miss Banning; decaying wood, Adirondack mountains. August and September. New York. Peck, 45th Rep. N.Y. State Bot.
H. subaquilum is closely allied to H. appendiculatum, but is distinguished by its darker colored cap and gills.
Its edible qualities are the same. It is among the best.