A small genus with great difference among the species. Intermediate in habit between Cortinarius and Hygrophorus.
Universal Veil glutinous, at first terminating on the stem in a floccose ring soon disappearing. The Gills frequently admit of being detached and stretched out into a continuous membrane. Fries.
A genus possessing several well-marked characters. The very decurrent gills differ from all others in their soft mucilaginous consistency. The spores are larger than usual in the Agaricaceæ and have the elongated spindle-shape found in Boleti. The stem and pileus are of the same substance, and the pileus and veil are both glutinous when moist. The spores have been described as greenish-gray becoming black, and as dingy-olive.
I have had opportunity to see but two species of this small genus—G. rhodoxanthus and G. viscidus. Of these the spores are decidedly olivaceous. If the six other species recorded as found in the United States are as creditable, they are well worth hunting for. G. Oregonensis Pk. is reported as edible and as a valuable food species in Oregon. The glutinous coatings to pileus and stem do not appear on the American form of G. rhodoxanthus in the localities I have found it in during fifteen years.
G. glutino´sus (Schaeff.) Fr.—glutin, glue. Pileus 2–5 in. broad, purple-brown, often mottled with black spots, fleshy, convex, obtuse, at length plane, even depressed, even, smooth, very glutinous. Flesh thick, about ½ in., soft, white. Stem 2–3 in. and more long, about ½ in. thick, solid, whitish, thickened and externally and internally yellow at the base, viscid with the veil, fibrillose or varying with black scales. Cortina often woven in the form of a ring, but soon fugacious. Gills deeply decurrent, distant, distinct, branched, quite entire, mucilaginous, 3–4 lines broad, at first whitish, then cinereous, clouded with the spores.
Trama none, wherefore the gills easily separate from the pileus. Taste watery, moldy. Odor not marked. Stevenson.
Spores 20µ Cooke; 18–23×6–8µ K.; 16–17×6µ W.G.S.; 18–20×6µ Massee.
Distinguished by the bright yellow base of stem.
Pine woods. July to November. Nova Scotia. Somers.
Edible. Leuba. Chiefly used for catsup. Cooke.