H ab. On the ground, in woods and moist shady places. Summer and autumn.
Common.
Plant gregarious, sometimes almost fasciculate. Pileus from one to two
inches in breadth, flesh-colour, reddish, pink-brown, or fine violet,
darker and striated in a moist state, in dry w eather becoming pale; convex,
or even somewhat campanulate, becoming depressed in the centre,
at length sometimes nearly plane, or even curled upwards at the m a rg in ;
margin irregular, often u n d u la te : surface rough, with minute scales.
Lamella: flesh-colour or violet, broad, thick, distant, brittle, 2 -4 in a set,
sometimes forked, slightly decurrent, at length whitish and farinose.
Flesh very thin, the colour of the pileus. Stipes 3 -6 inches in length, 3-4
lines in thickness, somewhat fibrous, firm, hollow, crooked, generally
slightly thickened at the base, flesh-colour or violet.
There are few fungi in which different colours prevail so
decidedly as in the present species. One variety is found so
uniformly of a flesh colour, and another of a fine purple, that
botanists have usually agreed in keeping them distinct; yet the
resemblance in other respects has generally been remarked. My
friend Mr P u r t o n long ago anticipated that they would be
united ; and so we accordingly find them in the Systema My-
cologicum. When specimens of each are preserved, it is very
difficult to find any difference whatever. The few peculiar
marks whereby the violet-purple variety is distinguished, are
the colour, a somewhat more solitary mode of growth, and the
stipes rather inclined to be attenuated towards the base than
thickened.
Figures in different states,—all tbe natural size.
I