Figure 100.—Mycena acicula. Cap brilliant red, gills and stem yellowish (natural size). Copyright.
The pileus is very thin, membranaceous, bell-shaped, then convex, when the pointed apex appears as a small umbo. It is smooth, striate on the margin, and of a rich vermilion or orange color. The gills are rounded at the stem and adnexed, rather broad in the middle, distant, yellow, the edge white, or sometimes the gills are entirely white. The stem is very slender, with a root-like process entering the rotten wood, smooth except the hairs on the root-like process, yellow.
Figure [100] is from plants (No. 2780, C. U. herbarium) collected in a woods near Ithaca. It has been found here several times.
Mycena cyanothrix Atkinson.—This is a very pretty plant growing on rotting wood in clusters, often two or three joined at the base, the base of the stem inserted in the rotten wood for 1–2 cm., and the base is clothed with blue, hair-like threads. The plants are 6–9 cm. high, the cap 1–2 cm. broad, and the stem not quite 2 mm. in diameter.
The pileus is ovate to convex, viscid when young. The color is bright blue when young, becoming pale and whitish in age, with a tendency to fuscous on the center. The cap is smooth and the margin finely striate. After the plants have dried the color is nearly uniform ochraceous or tawny. The gills are close, free, narrow, white, then grayish white, the edge finely toothed or fimbriate. The spores are globose, smooth, 6–9 µ. The stem is slender, hollow, faintly purple when young, becoming whitish or flesh color, flexuous, or nearly straight, even, often two united at the base into a root-like extension which enters the rotten wood. The base of the stem is covered with deep blue mycelium which retains its color in age, but disappears on drying after a time. Figure 101 is from plants (No. 2382, C. U. herbarium) collected at Ithaca, in woods, June 16, 1898.
Mycena hæmatopa Pers.—This is one of the species of Mycena with a red juice which exudes in drops where wounds occur on the plant. It is easily recognized by its dense cespitose habit, the deep blood red juice, the hollow stem, and the crenate or denticulate sterile margin of the cap. Numbers of the plant occur usually in a single cluster, and their bases are closely joined and hairy. The stems are more or less ascending according to the position of the plant on the wood. The plants are 5–10 cm. high, the cap is 1–2.5 cm. broad, and the stem 2–3 mm. in thickness.
