North American species of Mycena.

INTRODUCTION

5

In his catalogue of North Carolina plants Curtis (1867) included
a list of agarics. It contained twenty-one names assigned to the
subgenus Mycena of Agaricus. Some, such as A. iocephalus and
A. cohaerens, are now placed in Marasmius. Because of the contributions of Schweinitz and Curtis the Mycena flora of the Carolinas
became particularly well known at an early date. Peck in 1872
published a synopsis of the subgenus Mycena of Agaricus for New
York. In it he described five new species, three of which are still
recognized as valid in Mycena. One, A. paluster, has been transferred
to Collybia (Lyophyllum or Tephrophana of some authors). It has
been necessary to exclude one because the type has been lost and the
meager description fails to characterize the fungus sufficiently in the
difficult group to which it belongs. For the next forty years Peck
continued to contribute to our knowledge of the genus, as is evidenced
by the number of species ascribed to him in the following text. At
the time Peck worked little attention had been given to microscopic
characters of agarics by the more prominent European investigators
and, like most of them, Peck followed the Friesian system.
In 1916 W. A. Murrill published an account of the group in the
North American Flora under the generic names Prunulus and Galactopus. (He used the name Mycena for Bolbitius of the Friesian
system.) He described many new species, particularly from the
Pacific Coast and from tropical North America. He did not place
sufficient emphasis on microscopic characters and, unfortunately,
many of those given have been found to be incorrect. In addition,
his descriptions are frequently sketchy and do not convey a sufficiently
clear picture of the plant to the reader. A study of his type specimens, however, indicates clearly that Murrill has collected and
described many unusual fungi.
Kauffman in 1918 published his Agaricaceae of Michigan, in which
thirty-seven species in Mycena were recognized and described. He
gave information on the cystidia as well as the spores of many species.
From conversations with Kauffman, I know that he was well aware
that his treatment of the Michigan species was very incomplete, but
in the light of what was known at the time it was an outstanding
contribution.
Beardslee and Coker in 1924 brought up to date the information on
the species of Mycena occurring in North Carolina. Their article contains accounts of forty-two and gives many valuable data on the microscopic characters of the group. Numerous photographs of the car