Figure 50.—Gomphidius nigricans. Side and under view showing forked gills, and reticulate collapsed patches of dark slime on stem. Cap flesh color, gills dark gray; entire plant black when dried (natural size). Copyright.
What appears to be the same plant was collected by me at Blowing Rock, N. C., under a pine tree, in September, 1899 (No. 3979 C. U. herbarium).
The notes taken on the fresh plant are as follows:
Very viscid, with a thick, tough viscid cuticle, cortina or veil viscid, and collapsing on the stem, forming coarse, walnut-brown or dark vinaceous reticulations, terminating abruptly near the gills, or reaching them.
The stem is white underneath the slimy veil covering, tough, fibrous, continuous, and not separable from the hymenophore, tapering below.
The pileus is convex, the very thin margin somewhat incurved, disk expanded, uneven, near the center cracked into numerous small viscid brownish areoles; pileus flesh color, flesh same color except toward the gills. Gills dark drab gray, arcuate, distant, decurrent, many of them forked, separating easily from the hymenophore, peeling off in broad sheets, and leaving behind corresponding elevations of the hymenophore which extended between the laminæ of the lamellæ. Pileus 7 cm. in diameter; stem 4–5 cm. long by 2 cm. diameter.
In drying, the entire plant as well as the gluten becomes black, on the pileus a shining black.
The spores are rusty to dark brown, or nearly black, fusoid or oblong, and measure 15–22 × 5–6 µ.