North American species of Mycena.

298 NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES OF MYCENA

members of the group. A very pale form, however, has been found
in which the pileus is "buffy brown" at first and fades to "pale olive
buff." Usually the pileus is some shade of sordid grayish brown at
the same stage in typical fruiting bodies. The reddish spots on the
gills are found most frequently on old specimens that have endured
much wet weather. The consistency is very cartilaginous, resembling
that of M. polygramma, and in this respect the fungus differs from
most bog-dwelling Mycenae.
It appears that M. megaspora is related to M. polygramma on the
one hand and to M. galericulata on the other. I have never been
able to determine with certainty that the pseudorhiza of M. megaspora
originates from decaying roots of Vaccinium corymbosum, but such a
connection is very likely. M. galericulata is typically a lignicolous
species which frequently develops a long pseudorhiza, particularly
if the fruiting bodies occur on a very rotten log. It has similar cystidia and only slightly smaller spores. Its gills, however, are often
evenly flushed with pale pink, a character not observed for M. megaspora. Collection 14637 from the Olympic Mountains appears to be
a four-spored form of M. megaspora. Its spores are 10-12 X 5-7 g.
STIPE AND CAP INTERMEDIATE IN SIZE
145. MYCENA GRISEICONICA Kauffman
Pap. Mich. Acad. Sci., Arts, and Letters, 11: 199. 1930
Illustrations: Text fig. 27, nos. 5-6 (p. 240).
Pileus 1-3.5 (5) cm. broad, up to 2.5 cm. high, at first narrowly
elliptic, then broadly conic to campanulate, at maturity broadly
convex or with an obtuse conic umbo, margin appressed against the
stipe at first, surface smooth and with a faint bloom in young specimens, soon polished, moist, translucent-striate, subhygrophanous,
sulcate-striate in age, bluish gray when young, becoming "hair
brown" on the disc and "tilleul buff" on the margin, fading to silvery
gray or the disc, remaining more brownish (near "avellaneous");
flesh thin, pliant or scarcely fragile, grayish, no odor, taste mild;
lamellae ascending-adnate at first, horizontally adnate in convex pilei,
subdistant, about twenty reach the stipe, narrow at first (2-2.5 mm.)
but broader (4 mm.) in age, two tiers of lamellulae, pale glaucous
whitish, slightly intervenose, edges even and pallid; stipe 5-10 cm.
long, 1-2.5 mm. thick, equal, strict, hollow, cartilaginous but fragile,