32 AN HISTORY OF AGARICS,
AGARICUS Jiipitatus albus, pleo plicato membraneceo, Jlipite
nigra. .. Sp: PI: 1644. Hudfon Angl: "621, 44. Lightfoot
Flo: Scot: 1027, 19.
BLACK STALKED AGARIC.
T A B . xxxri.
' I VHE root confifts of a few imperceptible fibres, which infírmate
themfelves into the fubftance. of fuch decayed vegetable
matter, as afford proper nouriihment to the plant.
The item is one or two inches high, hard, black, and
ihining ; from the thicknefs of a horfe's hair to that of a large
hog's briftle, either of which, in fubftance and in touch, it not
unaptly imitates. It often remains for a coniiderable time after
the pileus is fallen.
The gills are few, narrow, and remote ; they are of a pale
duiky white, while the plant is young, but change to brown
afterwards.
The pileus is at firft conical, and white, afterwards fpreads,-
becomes almoft horizontal, and about half an inch in "diameter J
the colour changes to brown, pale near the margin, darker in
the centre ¡ it is fometimes ftriated and confíantly of a thin,
dry, membraneous fubftance. In decay it withers and falls: off,
Grows on putrid leaves," chiefly thofe of "oak, in the ihady
moift parts of woods about Halifax ¡ it alio grows oñ moors,
among ruíhes. I faw it in great abundance, in September, this
year 1787, on the hill above Caufey-Foot, near Halifax ¡ it grew
upon' the ftalks of decayed ruíhes,' in the place where -the
Trientalis europcea, and the Ophrys cordata grow.