Figure 49.—Psathyrella disseminata (natural size), caps whitish, grayish, or grayish-brown. Copyright.
Psathyrella disseminata Pers.—This is a very common and widely distributed species, appearing from late spring until late autumn. It sometimes appears in greenhouses throughout the year. The plants are 2–3 cm. high, and the caps 6–10 mm. broad. The plants are crowded in large tufts, often growing on decaying wood, but also on the ground, especially about much decayed stumps, but also in lawns and similar places, where buried roots, etc., are decaying. They resemble small specimens of a Coprinus.
The pileus is whitish or gray, or grayish brown, very thin, oval, then bell-shaped, minutely scaly, becoming smooth, prominently silicate or plicate, plaited. The gills are adnate, broad, white, gray, then black. The spores are black, oblong, 8 × 6 µ. The stem is very slender, becoming hollow, often curved. The entire plant is very fragile, and in age becomes so soft as to suggest a Coprinus in addition to the general appearance. Figure [49] is from plants collected on decaying logs at Ithaca.
GOMPHIDIUS Fr.
The genus Gomphidius has a slimy or glutinous universal veil enveloping the entire plant when young, and for a time is stretched over the gills as the pileus is expanding. The gills are somewhat mucilaginous in consistency, are distant and decurrent on the stem. The gills are easily removed from the under surface of the pileus in some species by peeling off in strips, showing the imprint of the gills beneath the projecting portions of the pileus, which extended part way between the laminæ of the gills. The spores in some species are blackish, and for this reason the genus has been placed by many with the black-spored agarics, while its true relationship is probably with the genus Hygrophorus or Paxillus.
Gomphidius nigricans Pk.—The description given by Peck for this plant in the 48th Report, p. 12, 1895, reads as follows:
"Pileus convex, or nearly plane, pale, brownish red, covered with a tough gluten, which becomes black in drying, flesh firm, whitish; lamellæ distant, decurrent, some of them forked, white, becoming smoky brown, black in the dried plant; stem subequal, longer than the diameter of the pileus, glutinous, solid, at first whitish, especially at the top, soon blackish by the drying of the gluten, whitish within, slightly tinged with red toward the base; spores oblong fusoid, 15–25 µ long, 6–7 µ broad. Pileus 1–2 inches broad; stem 1.5–2.5 inches long, 2–4 lines thick."
"This species is easily known by the blackening gluten which smears both pileus and stem, and even forms a veil by which the lamellæ in the young plant are concealed. In the dried state the whole plant is black."
"Under pine trees, Westport, September."