North American species of Mycena.

EUMYCENA: CALODONTES

199

fading slowly to pallid olive brown with an orange tinge or near
"Naples yellow," becoming somewhat plicate in age; flesh thin, rather
pliant, odor and taste not distinctive; lamellae narrow, becoming
broad in age, close, bluntly adnate or with a decurrent tooth, pallid to
grayish olive on the faces, edges bright "cadmium orange"; stipe
3-6 cm. long, 1.5-2 (3) mm. thick, rigid, and cartilaginous, equal,
terete or compressed, tubular to hollow, "buffy brown" to "medal
bronze" (olive or grayish olive), sometimes tinged orange, glabrous,
with an orange pruina toward the apex, base strigose with "cadmiumorange" hairs.
Spores 7-9 X 4-5 Pu, ellipsoid, smooth, amyloid; basidia fourspored; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia abundant and similar, 28 -36 X 7-12 u, clavate to subcapitate, the apices sparsely or densely
echinulate, filled with a bright-orange pigment; gill trama homogeneous, pale vinaceous brown in iodine; pileus trama with a thin
pellicle over the surface upon which are found scattered pilocystidia
similar to the pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia; beneath this is a
differentiated hypoderm of enlarged cells, the remainder floccosefilamentous and of moderately broad hyphae.
Habit, habitat, and distribution.-Widely scattered, gregarious or
subcespitose under conifers on moss and needle carpets. I have
found it in Washington, Oregon, and California. During the fall of
1937 it was very abundant under spruce around Crescent City,
California.
Material studied.-Smith, 2595, 3080, 3283, 3393, 3435, 3455,
3725, 7771, 7971, 8015, 8271, 18081. Kauffman, 1925, Washington.
Observations.-The species is best recognized by the brilliant
orange margins of the gills and the echinulate pleurocystidia and
cheilocystidia. The color of the pileus varies greatly from olive
fuscous to orange shaded with gray or dull yellowish olive, depending
on the proportions of the various pigments present. It is readily
separated from M. Leaiana by its habitat, manner of growth, and the
lack of a gelatinous layer over the stipe.
Kiihner (1938) uses the name M. elegans (Fr. ex Pers.) sensu
Schroeter for this fungus. As I (1936) have previously pointed out,
Fries made a definite distinction between the color of the gill edges
of M. aurantiomarginata and that of M. elegans, so that, by following
Wharton's interpretation of Fries's color names, the former can be
recognized by the orange edges of the gills, whereas the gills of the
latter should have yellow margins. Regardless of the various interpretations of the color term "croceus"-whether it is merely a full