=Hypholoma sublateritium= Schaeff. =Edible=, _bitter sometimes_. The name of this species is derived from the color of the cap, which is nearly a brick red color, sometimes tawny. The margin is lighter in color. The plants grow usually in large clusters on old stumps or frequently appearing on the ground from buried portions of stumps or from roots. There are from six to ten, or twenty or more plants in a single cluster. A single plant is from 8--12 cm. high, the cap is 5--8 cm. broad, and the stem 6--8 mm. in thickness. The =pileus= is convex to expanded, smooth, or sometimes with loose threads from the veil, especially when young, even, dry. The flesh is firm, whitish, and in age becoming somewhat yellowish. The =gills= are adnate, sometimes decurrent by a little tooth, rather crowded, narrow, whitish, then dull yellow, and becoming dark from the spores, purplish to olivaceous. The =stem= usually tapers downward, is firm, stuffed, smooth, or with remnants of the veil giving it a floccose scaly appearance, usually ascending because of the crowded growth. The =veil= is thin and only manifested in the young stage of the plant as a loose weft of threads. As the cap expands the veil is torn and adheres to the margin, but soon disappears. [Illustration: PLATE 6, FIGURE 25.--Hypholoma sublateritium. Cap brick-red or tawny. (Natural size, often larger.) Copyright.] [Illustration: PLATE 7, FIGURE 26.--Hypholoma appendiculatum (natural size, often larger). White floccose scales on cap (var. coroniferum) and appendiculate veil; caps whitish or brown, tawny, or tinge of ochre. Gills white, then purple-brown. Copyright.] The flesh of this plant is said by European writers to be bitter to the taste, and it is regarded there as poisonous. This character seems to be the only distinguishing one between the _Hypholoma sublateritium_ Schaeff., of Europe, and the _Hypholoma perplexum_ Pk., of this country which is edible, and probably is identical with _H. sublateritium_. If the plant in hand agrees with this description in other respects, and is not bitter, there should be no danger in its use. According to Bresadola, the bitter taste is not pronounced in _H. sublateritium_. The taste probably varies as it does in other plants. For example, in _Pholiota præcox_, an edible species, I detected a decided bitter taste in plants collected in June, 1900. Four other persons were requested to taste the plants. Two of them pronounced them bitter, while two did not detect the bitter taste. There is a variety of _Hypholoma sublateritium_, with delicate floccose scales in concentric rows near the margin of the cap, called _var. squamosum_ Cooke. This is the plant illustrated in Fig. 25, from specimens collected on rotting wood in the Cascadilla woods, Ithaca, N. Y. It occurs from spring to autumn. _Hypholoma epixanthum_ Fr., is near the former species, but has a yellow pileus, and the light yellow gills become gray, not purple.