Closely resembles T. transmutans in size, color and taste. It is, however, easily separated by its dry cap and solid stem. Peck.
Plentiful in pine woods of New Jersey, and among hemlocks in West Virginia. Mt. Gretna, Pa., under pines. October and November, 1898. McIlvaine.
Specimens found at Mt. Gretna had caps dark umber when young, and margin incurved to stem. Gills yellowish. Stem up to 4 in. long, stout, solid, swollen at base, and having a short pointed ending, firm, fibrillose, white. Flavor farinaceous.
Flesh of good texture and taste.
III.—Rig´ida. Pileus rigid, cuticle broken up into smooth scales, etc.
* Gills white or pallid, not becoming spotted with red or gray.
Not represented.
** Gills becoming reddish or grayish, spotted, etc.
T. sapona´ceum Fr.—sapo, soap. Strong, smelling of an undefinable soap. Cap 2–4 in. across, involute at first, convex then flattened, dry, glabrous, moist in wet weather, never viscid, brownish, more or less spotted or having the skin cracked into scales, occasionally covered with dark fibrils. Flesh firm, whitish becoming reddish when wounded. Gills emarginate, with a hooked tooth (uncinate) thin, distant, pale white. Stem 2–4 in. long, about ½ in. thick, often unequal, base sometimes long and rooting, usually smooth, at times reticulated with black fibrils, or is scaly. Distasteful.
The species is variable in size and color. Stevenson remarks: “Scarcely any species has been more confounded with others.” It may always be safely distinguished by its odor, by its distant gills, by the smooth cuticle of the cap cracking into scales, and by the change of color to reddish when bruised.