Grassy places and borders of woods. June to September.
This species is easily known by its small size and the crested appearance of the white pileus, an appearance produced by the orbicular unruptured portion of the cuticle that remains like a colored spot on the disk. The fragments or scales are more close near this central part and more distant from each other toward the margin, where they are often wholly wanting. The scales are sometimes very small and almost granular. In very wet weather the margin of the pileus in this and some other species becomes upturned or reflexed. Peck, 35th Rep. N.Y. State Bot.
Found in Woodland Cemetery, Philadelphia. June to September, 1897. McIlvaine.
Scales were appressed and slightly tinged with brown, often very small. Caps of same, upturned and bare near margin. Taste sweet, slightly like new meal. Odor strong.
Cooked it is of good consistency and pleasing to taste.
L. alluvi´na Pk.—alluvies, the over-flowing of a river. Pileus thin, convex or plane, reflexed on the margin, white, adorned with minute pale-yellow hairy or fibrillose scales. Gills thin, close, free, white or yellowish. Stem slender, fibrillose, whitish or pallid, slightly thickened at the base. Ring slight, subpersistent, often near the middle of the stem. Spores elliptical, 6–7×4–5µ.
Plant 1–2 in. high. Pileus .5–1 in. broad. Stem 1–1.5 lines thick. Alluvial soil, among weeds. Albany. July.
In the fresh plant the scales are of a pale yellow or lemon color, but in drying they and the whole pileus take a deeper rich yellow hue. The ring is generally remote from the pileus, sometimes even below the middle of the stem. Peck, 35th Rep. N.Y. State Bot.
In 1897, I found it growing among weeds on lot near University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Seemingly it is a city resident.
The taste and smell are pleasant. Cooked it is tender and savory. Both stems and caps are good.