28 AN HISTORY OF AGARI.CS,
AGARICUS Jiipitatus, piho crajo hemifpherko fabluteo vifcido,
lumellis trifidis crajis fragiiis fubalbidis, Jlipite albo crajo
JpongtoJb.
E L E P H A N T AQARIC.
'Í' A B. . XXVTIJi.
' T ^ H E root confifts of a few fibers, which iffue from the
1 bottom of the ftem : there is no volva.
The item is upright, folid, large, and of a fair white-colour
j it is fix inches in circumference; and about fe.ur inches
high ; the-fubftance is foft, fpongy, and eafily compreffible;'the
figure approaches to an oval, being broadeft in the middle, and
narrow above and below. When the plant grows old, the item
becomes cylindrical, hard, of a dark colour, and hollow within;
it has no annulus or curtain.
The gills aré arranged in three feries, they are deep, remote,
extremely grofs, (being a line in thicknefs) brittle, and appear
like wax of a very pale kind of whitiíh taliow colour. - .
The pileus, at its firft appearance, is globular, and inwraps
the whole of the plant, except the radical fibres : for its margin
or rim furrounds and embraces the bottom of the ftem, and by
this means ferves the fame purpofe as a'volva in foma other
Agarics; afterwards it acquires.an hemifpherical figure; is1'
covered with a vifcid liquor, and is of a yellowiih clay colour.
In decay ihe pileus becomes irregularly horizontal, lacerates, '
becomes dry, changes to dark colqurs of various hues, and feems
as if a- coniiderable degree of fire had pafied upon it.
Grows in the dry part of woods about Halifax, in Oftober,
and, if the feafon is^dry, abides feveral weeks in the ftate reprefented
in the upper figure, plate 28.
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