[A] A more detailed description of this group will appear in No. 5 of this series.
The Nyctali are minute mushrooms parasitic on other mushrooms.
In Omphalia, the plants are quite small, with membranaceous caps, gills truly decurrent, and cartilaginous stems.
The Myceneæ are generally very small, slender, and fragile, usually cæspitose, with bell-shaped caps, sinuate gills, not decurrent, and cartilaginous stems. In some species the plants exude a milky juice.
In the genera Panus, Lentinus, Lenzites, Schizophyllum, Xerotus, and Trogia, the plants are leathery or coriaceous, dry and tough, and though none are recorded as poisonous, they are too tough to be edible.
The mushrooms having pink or salmon colored spores, section Rhodosporii, form the smallest of the four primary groups of Agaricini, the number of known species not exceeding 400, and most of these are tasteless, or of disagreeable odor, while some are recorded as unwholesome.
The species are pink-gilled when mature, though often white or whitish when very young.
The recorded edible species are found in Volvaria, Clitopilus, and Pluteus. The Volvariæ are characterized by the very large and perfect volva which wraps the base of the stem in loose folds, the ringless stem, and the pink, soft, liquescent gills, which are free and rounded behind. The cap is not warted; in some species it is viscid, and in bombycinus, recorded by several authors as edible, and by some as doubtful, it is covered with a silky down.
In Clitopilus the odor of the edible species is more or less mealy. The cap is fleshy, and the margin at first involute. Two edible species which closely resemble each other—viz., Clitopilus prunulus, "Plum mushroom," and Clitopilus orcella, "Sweetbread mushroom,"—are highly recommended for their delicacy of flavor.