The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise / Its Habitat and its Time of Growth

by Miron Elisha Hard

The gills are free, very crowded, broad, ventricose, flesh-colored, not reaching the margin, toothed. The stem is three to six inches long, tapering upward, solid, smooth, the tough volva remaining like a cup at the base. The spores are rosy in mass, smooth, and elliptical. The volva is large, membranaceous, somewhat viscid.

The plant in Figure 192 was found August 16th, on a maple tree where a limb had been broken, on North High Street, Chillicothe. Many people had passed along and enjoyed the shade of the trees but its discovery remained for Miss Marian Franklin, whose eyes are trained to see birds, flowers, and everything beautiful in nature.

I have found the plant frequently about Chillicothe, usually solitary; but on one occasion I found three specimens upon one trunk, apparently growing from the same mycelial mass. The caps of two of them were each five inches across. It usually grows on maple and beech. If you will observe a hollow beech, or sugar snag of which one side is broken away, leaving the sheltered yet open nestling place, you are very likely to find snugly enscounced in its decaying heart one or more specimens of these beautiful silky plants. The volva is quite thick and frequently the plant, when in the egg state, has the appearance of a phalloid. Found from June to October.

Volvaria umbonata. Peck.

The Umbonate Volvaria.

Figure 194.—Volvaria umbonata. Two-thirds natural size. Entire plant white and silky.

Umbonata, having an umbo or conical projection like the boss of a shield. This plant is quite common on the richly manured lawns of Chillicothe. I have found it from June to October. The pileus is white or whitish, sometimes grayish, often smoky on the umbo; globose when young, bell-shaped, plane when fully expanded, umbonate, smooth; slightly viscid when moist, shining when dry, inch to an inch and a half broad. The flesh is white and very soft.

The gills are free, white at first, then from flesh-color to a reddish hue from the rosy-colored spores; some of the gills are dimidiate, somewhat crowded, broader in the middle.