_Habitat_ & _Distribution_: Common on the ground near newly built houses, on roadsides, tips and paths in woods, either solitary or in groups; it is also found in pastures. _General Information_: The fibrillose scaly cap and stem and the almost black gills which frequently have liquid droplets at their edge separate this species from all other agarics and microscopically it can be easily recognised by the warted spores. ‘Velutina’ means velvety and refers to the texture of the cap-surface, of the young fruit-body. The genus name _Lacrymaria_ refers to this peculiar, but certainly not unique, phenomenon, of exuding liquid from cells on the gill-edge. This has been compared with weeping and ‘lacrymans’ means weeping; the common name reflects this also--weeping widow (cf. p. 154). This fungus has had a chequered history, for it is also known in some books as _Hypholoma lacrymabunda_ (again meaning weeping) or _H. velutina_; the anatomy of the fungus, however, is quite different to _Hypholoma_ (e.g. _H. fasciculare_ p. 64). More recently it has found a place in _Psathyrella_, but it seems unsatisfactorily placed there because of the warty spores, black spore-print and fibrillose cap-surface; it warrants a separate genus, i.e., _Lacrymaria_. _L. pyrotricha_ (Fries) Konrad & Maublanc is the only other British species of this genus but it has a bright orange cap colour; it is rare. _Illustrations_: Hvass 180; LH 141; WD 86³. ~Lepista nuda~ (Fries) Cooke Wood blewits _Cap_: width 70-100 mm. _Stem_: width 10-15 mm; length 70-100 mm. _Description_: Plate 42. Cap: rounded then flattened or slightly depressed in the centre, smooth, bluish lilac, or violaceous when young but gradually with age becoming reddish-brown, with or without a flush of wine colour. Stem: similarly coloured to the cap, equal, fleshy, elastic, fibrillose and streaky. Gills: adnate with or without a decurrent tooth, crowded, lilac and easily separable from the cap-tissue by the fingers. Flesh: bluish violaceous, but drying out dirty buff in the base of the stem. Spore-print: flesh-coloured. Spores: medium-sized, ellipsoid appearing smooth but very minutely roughened under the microscope, although it is very difficult to see except with a good instrument (6-8 × 4-5 µm in size). Marginal and facial cystidia: absent. _Habitat_ & _Distribution_: Widespread in troops or small groups in copses and under hedgerows and not uncommon in flower-beds in gardens in late autumn and early winter especially on compost heaps and in rhubarb patches which have been mulched with piles of moribund leaves.