The stem is two inches to two and a half long, tapering from the base up, smooth, cylindrical, hollow and firm. The volva is always present, free, variously torn, white and sometimes grayish.
The entire plant is silky when dry. I have found it growing in my buggy shed. It is not abundant, though quite common. I have never eaten it, but I do not doubt its edibility.
Volvaria pusilla. Pers.
Figure 195.—Volvaria pusilla.
The pileus is explanate, white, fibrillose, dry, striate, center slightly depressed when mature.
The gills are white, becoming flesh-color, from the color of the spores, free, distant.
The stem is white, smooth, volva split to the base into four nearly equal segments. The spores are broadly elliptical, 5–6 mc.
This is the smallest species of the Volvaria. It grows on the ground among the weeds and is apt to escape the attention of the collector unless he knows its habitat. It is quite likely that V. parvula is the same plant as this. Also V. temperata, although it has a different habitat, seems to be very near this species. The plants in Figure 195 were collected in Michigan and photographed by Dr. Fischer. The volva is brown-tipped as shown in the figure given.