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LEPIOTA
L. brunnea is distinguished from L. procera by its stout stature, dingy
coloring, striate stipe, and thick recurving scales as well as by the spores.
The poisonous L. molybdites is very similar in size and stature. If L. brun-
nea is being collected for food, a spore print should be obtained to make certain
the spores are white. The spores of L. molybdites are green.
L. brunnea is very close to L. rachodes (Vitt.) Quel, (sometimes spelled
rhacodes or racodes by different authors). The characters by which L. brunnea
is said to differ are the darker brown color, striate stipe, and less remote
lamellae. The most important of these characters would seem to be the striate
stipe, and most European illustrations of L. rachodes do not show a striate
stipe, although there is a suggestion of it in Cooke's Plate 22 in Illustrations of
British Fungi. There are two European specimens labeled L. rachodes from
England and Norway in the herbarium at Ottawa and in these the stipes
appear to be identical with those of dried specimens of L. brunnea from
Canada in which the stipe was known to be striate when fresh. On the other
hand, A. H. Smith's photograph in Mushrooms in their Natural Habitats,
Reel 21, No. 142, shows specimens with smooth nonstriate stipes. Since the
species commonly collected around Ottawa does have a striate stipe we are
referring it to L. brunnea until more information is available. From the standpoint
of edibihty the problem is of no significance because both L. brunnea and
L. rachodes are edible but it is very important to distinguish the poisonous
L. molybdites.
LEPIOTA CLYPEOLARIA (Bull, ex Fr.) Kummer Suspected
Figure 152, page 91
PILEUS 1-2 in. broad, at first ovate or acorn-shaped, coated with a thin
layer of yellowish-buff or brownish tissue, expanding to campanulate-convex,
the outer tissue being drawn apart into scales which range in color from
creamy white to ochraceous or brown and which vary from appressed or
floccose patches to somewhat squarrose, brown-tipped scales, the exposed flesh
between the scales creamy white, fibrillose, the disk umbonate or obtuse,
smooth, brownish, in age the pileus becoming nearly plane, the scaliness
partly or almost entirely disappearing, margin often ragged with fragments of
veil, sometimes striate, flesh thin, soft, white, lamellae free, close, moderately
broad, white, edges somewhat floccose. stipe 1 ]/^-4 in. long, about Y^ in.
thick, tapering slightly upward, hollow, whitish, silky-fibrillose, sheathed with
white or creamy yellow, cottony fibrils which may partly disappear, annulus
white, floccose, disappearing, spores smooth, white, variable in size and shape,
subfusiform to ellipsoid, often slightly beaked or curved at one end, 10-16
(18) X 4-6 /x.
In groups, on the ground in open woods or fields. Aug.-Oct.
Suspected of being poisonous.
L. cristata may be somewhat similar in size and coloring but it has a
glabrous stipe and quite different spores.
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