North American species of Mycena.

EUMYCENA: LACTIPEDES

147

Pileus 3-10 (25) mm. broad, either convex or conic when young,
becoming broadly convex or campanulate, not expanding completely,
margin appressed when young, surface at first covered with a dense
grayish hoary-pruinose coating, becoming naked and glabrous, moist,
margin opaque or slightly striatulate, soon becoming sulcate, color
variable but always some shade of bright or dull reddish brown with
a more or less vinaceous to avellaneous margin ("brick red" becoming
"dragon's-blood red" on the disc and "avellaneous" to "light vinaceous-fawn" on the margin, sometimes "cameo brown" to "Prussian
red" on the disc or "liver brown" to "Hessian brown"); flesh thin,
not very fragile, sordid reddish, exuding a reddish juice when cut,
odor and taste not distinctive; lamellae adnate or slightly toothed,
subdistant to distant, narrow to moderately broad, sordid reddish to
grayish, the edges very dark reddish brown and even; stipe 2-6 (7)
cm. long, 1-1.5 mm. thick, equal, tubular, fragile, white-strigose at the
base, the remainder covered with a drab pruina, soon polished and
more or less concolorous with the nileus, exuding a bright or dull-red
juice when cut or broken.
Spores 8-10 (11) X 4-5 (6), subellipsoid, only weakly amyloid;
basidia four-spored (occasionally two- or three-spored); pleurocystidia
rare to scattered or sometimes quite abundant, narrowly to broadly
fusoid-ventricose, 36-54 X 8-13 u, filled with a sordid-reddish substance; cheilocystidia similar to pleurocystidia or shorter and more
obese, very abundant; gill trama of broad hyphae the cells of which
are often vesiculose in age, pale reddish brown in iodine; pileus trama
covered with a thin adnate pellicle, hypoderm moderately well differentiated, the remainder floccose and filamentous, all except the pellicle
pale vinaceous brown in iodine, lactiferous hyphae abundant.
Habit, habitat, and distribution.-Gregarious on leaf mold, moss
beds, or needle carpets during the spring and fall; from Maine to
Washington and south to North Carolina and California in the
United States, and from Nova Scotia to British Columbia in Canada.
Common and very widely distributed.
Material studied.-Smith, 32-29, 32-98, 33-97, 33-186, 33-344,
33-377, 33-403, 33-914, 11, 22, 331, 505, 906, 1381, 3307, 4345, 4450,
6254, 6515, 8619, 9670, 15077. Atkinson, numerous collections from
Cayuga Lake Basin, New York. Davidson, August 15, 1932, British
Columbia. Flett, Washington. Hesler, 906, 4345, 6515, 9670,
11484, 14187, 14226. Kauffman, 8 collections, Tennessee, Maryland,
Michigan, Washington, Oregon. Mains, 32-576, 33-120, 33-620,
5073. Morse, January 27, 1931. Wehmeyer, 505.