The stem is solid above and hollow below, fibrous, pale, its surface more or less covered with flocculent down, and densely covered with white down at the base.
It will be well for collectors to pass by this and M. peronatus, or to exercise the greatest caution in their use. They have been eaten without harm, but they also have so long been branded as poisonous that too great care cannot be taken. Its taste is acrid, and it grows in lawns and pastures from June to September.
Marasmius androsaceus. Linn.
Figure 103.—Marasmius androsaceus. Natural size.
Androsaceus is from a Greek word which means an unidentified sea plant or zoophyte.
The pileus is three to six lines broad, membranaceous, convex, with a slight depression, pale-reddish, darker in the center, striate, smooth.
The gills are attached to the stem, frequently quite simple and few in number, about fifteen, with shorter ones between, sometimes forked, whitish.
The stem is one to two inches long, horny, filiform, hollow, quite smooth, black, often twisted when dry. The spores are 7×3–4µ.