The milk is very abundant and in every respect agrees with that of L. volemus. I do not know that any one has tested L. corrugis for food. But since it is so closely related to L. volemus I tested it during the summer of 1899 in the North Carolina mountains. I consider it excellent. The methods of cooking there were rather primitive. It was sliced and fried with butter and salt. It should be well cooked, for when not well done the partially raw taste is not pleasant. The plant was very abundant in the woods, and for three weeks an abundance was served twice a day for a table of twelve persons. The only disagreeable feature about it is the sticky character of the milk, which adheres in quantity to the hands and becomes black. This makes the preparation of the plant for the broiler a rather unpleasant task.
Figure [118] is from plants (No. 3910, C. U. herbarium) collected in the woods at Blowing Rock, during September, 1899. Just before the exposure was made to get the photograph several of the plants were wounded with a pin to cause the drops of milk to exude, as is well shown in the illustration.
The dark color of the lamellæ in L. corrugis is due to the number of brown cystidia or setæ, in the hymenium, which project above the surface of the gills, and they are especially abundant on the edge of the gills. These setæ are long fusoid, 80–120 × 10–12 µ. The variations in the color of the gills, in some plants the gills being much darker than in others, is due to the variations either in the number of these setæ or to the variation in their color. Where the cystidia are fewer in number or are lighter in color the lamellæ are lighter colored. Typical forms of Lactarius volemus have similar setæ, but they are very pale in color and not so abundant over the surface of the gills. In the darker forms of L. volemus the setæ are more abundant and darker in color, approaching those found in L. corrugis. These facts, supported by the variation in the color of the pileus in the two species and the variations in the rugosities of the pileus, seem to indicate that the two species are very closely related.
Figure 119.—Lactarius lignyotus. Cap and stem sooty, cap wrinkled, gills white, then tinged with ochre (natural size, sometimes larger). Copyright.
Lactarius lignyotus Fr.—This is known as the sooty lactarius and occurs in woods along with the smoky lactarius. It is distinguished from the latter by the dark brown color of the pileus and by the presence usually of rugose wrinkles over the center of the cap. In size it agrees with the smoky lactarius.
The pileus is convex, then plane, or somewhat depressed in the center, dry, sometimes with a small umbo, dark brown or sooty (chocolate to seal brown as given in Ridgeway's nomenclature of colors), covered with a very fine tomentum which has the appearance of a bloom. The margin of the cap, especially in old plants, is somewhat wavy or plicate as in Lactarius fuliginosus. The gills are moderately crowded when young, becoming distant in older plants, white, then cream color or yellow, changing to reddish or salmon color where bruised. The spores are yellowish in mass, faintly so under the microscope, globose, strongly echinulate, 6–10 µ. The taste is mild, or sometimes slowly and slightly acrid. The plants from North Carolina showed distinctly the change to reddish or salmon color when the gills were bruised, and the taste was noted as mild.
Figure [119] is from plants (No. 3864, C. U. herbarium) collected in the Blue Ridge Mountains, at Blowing Rock, N. C., September, 1899.
Lactarius fuliginosus Fr.—The smoky or dingy lactarius occurs in woods and open grassy places. It is widely distributed. The plants are 4–7 cm. high, the cap 3–5 cm. broad, and the stem 6–10 mm. in thickness. The light smoky color of the cap and stem, the dull yellowish white color of the gills, and in old plants the wavy margin of the cap make it comparatively easy to recognize the species.