6o AN HISTORY OF AGARICS,
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AGARICUS fiipitatus, pileo difiorto mutante,' fufcefcente,
laSiefcente, lamellis trißdis, ßipite cdmprejjo fulcata, bafi
angußo.
GREY PEPPER AGARIC.
T A B. LX.
>~pHE root coniifts of a few fibres iffuing from the contra&ed
bafe of the item.
The item is often crooked or leaning, it is comprefied, fulcated,
and uneven; largeft at top, and diminiihing downwards;
it is firm and folid while the plant is young, when old it becomes
fiftular; it grows fingle or folitary, and is conftantly of
a pale greyiih buff colour.
The gills' are arranged in three diftinft feries ; the firft feries
about forty-five in number; they adhere to the item by their
bafe, are narrow, membranaceous, thin, and brittle;, the
colour is a pale buff, with a tinge of fieih.
The pileus is two or three inches "diameter, very various in
its ihape; it is convex, horizontal, or umbilicated; the margin
frequently lobed or waved, and fometimes deficient on one
fide; the colour is conftant, 'being a kind of mixed grey, between
moufe colour and buff; the fubftance of the fieih is
white and brittle.
When the gills, pileus, or ftem, are wounded, there iiTues
a white milky fluid, of a hot acrid tafte. This'toilk, when
dried in drops, becomes a browniih gum, but retains little of
its acrimony. •
Grows in the ihady parts of woods, but is rare in this
neighbourhood. The fpecimen above-defcribed, grew in
Woodhoufe-Wood, in Auguft, 1787.
This is a fpecies altogether different from the true
A.piperatus. See Vol. 1. P. 21. T. 21.
1 Hi