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ENTOLOMA<br />
ENTOLOMA<br />
Entoloma includes the pink-spored species roughly comparable to Tri-<br />
choloma of the white-spored group. The stipe is fibrous to fleshy, sometimes<br />
splitting longitudinally very easily and there is no volva or annulus. The<br />
lamellae are sinuate-adnate to adnexed, sometimes seceding. The spores are<br />
more or less angular (Figure 33), varying from eUiptical to spherical in general<br />
outline and sometimes almost square.<br />
There is no very clear-cut distinction between the genera Entoloma,<br />
Leptonia, Nolanea, Eccilia, and the section of Clitopilus including species with<br />
angular spores. Many authors believe that they should be combined into one<br />
genus but this raises some difficult nomenclatural problems. Some authors<br />
have placed these species in the genus Rhodophyllus but this name is illegitimate<br />
because it was pubhshed after some of the other generic names mentioned<br />
above, and it is also of questionable validity because of its similarity to the<br />
name of the algal genus Rhodophyllis. Of the names listed above, Entoloma<br />
is the earliest, but there is also the older generic name Acurtis to be taken into<br />
account. This name was based on the so-called 'abortive' fruit bodies of Clito-<br />
pilus abortivus and for a long time was disregarded because it was considered<br />
to be based on an abnormality. However, it has recently been shown that these<br />
fruit bodies produce normal basidia and spores and there is good reason to<br />
consider them to be a normal structure in the life cycle of the fungus. If this is<br />
so, then Acurtis will be the correct name for this group of species, but so far<br />
this name has not been taken up by mycologists and to use either Acurtis or<br />
Entoloma would require the creation of a good many new combinations. Thus,<br />
until either Acurtis is accepted or Entoloma officially conserved, it is thought<br />
preferable to use the other generic names rather than make new combinations<br />
in a book of this type.<br />
None of these genera is of any importance as food. In fact some of the<br />
species of Entoloma are known to be poisonous and this whole group should be<br />
avoided. This genus provides a good illustration of the danger of attempting<br />
to lay down general rules regarding edibihty. It has often been said that any<br />
mushroom that is pink underneath is good to eat, but Entoloma and its rela-<br />
tives provide a whole group of species with pink lamellae, and some of these<br />
species are definitely known to be poisonous, and others are suspected.<br />
ENTOLOMA GRISEUM Pk.<br />
PILEUS 114-3 in. broad, at first firm, becoming fragile, campanulate-<br />
convex to nearly plane, grayish brown, more umber when moist, shghtly<br />
hygrophanous, glabrous, with a delicate separable peUicle, margin even,<br />
decurved, wavy, flesh thin, easily splitting, odor and taste farinaceous, lamel-<br />
lae adnexed, close to subdistant, moderately broad, at first grayish white,<br />
slowly becoming flesh colored, stipe 1-3 in. long, X^-Vs<br />
in. thick, equal or<br />
169
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