Very protean. Veil none. The flesh of the pileus is formed as it were of the stem dilated upward. The typical form resembles the Cantharelli. _Everywhere becoming light yellow-tawny_, but varying with the stem and gills pale-white. In pastures. Common. _Stevenson._ =Spores= 6×4µ _Cooke_; 6–10×4–6µ _K._ Common over the United States. West Virginia, 1881, North Carolina, 1890, Pennsylvania, 1887, Mt. Gretna, 1897–1898. _McIlvaine._ Gregarious, and often in tufts, sometimes in partial rings. An exceedingly variable species. White, buff, smoky, pinkish colors are common. The cap shapes are also diverse. The margins of some are incurved; of others repand. The weather seems to have much to do with their shapes. M.C. Cooke says: “It requires careful cooking, as it is liable to be condemned as tough, unless treated slowly, but it is a great favorite abroad.” He calls them “Buff Caps.” All fungi are the better for slow cooking. The H. pratensis in all its forms is excellent, but particularly so in croquettes and patés. =H. virgin´eus= Fr.—_virgo_, a virgin. (Plate XXXVII, fig. 6, p. 146.) _Wholly white._ =Pileus= fleshy, convex then plane, _obtuse_, moist, _at length depressed_, cracked into patches, floccose when dry. =Stem= _curt, stuffed, firm_, attenuated at the base, externally becoming even and naked. =Gills= decurrent, distant, rather thick. _Fries._ =Flesh= sometimes equal, sometimes abruptly thin. Commonly confounded with H. niveus, but it is more difficult to distinguish it from white forms of H. pratensis. It is distinguished chiefly by its smaller stature, by the color being constantly white, sometimes becoming pale, by the _obtuse pileus_ being scarcely turbinate, _at length cracked into patches and floccose when dry_, and by the gills being thinner, etc. In pastures. Common. _Stevenson._ =Spores= 12×5–6µ _Cooke_. Tastes like M. oreades. _M.J.B._ Delicious broiled or stewed. _Cooke._ “Mony littles make muckle,” says the Scotch proverb. It applies well to the brave little toadstool looking through the first grass of lawns for the coming of spring, and coming again in the autumn, defiant of early frosts. Small though it be, its numbers soon fill the basket. The “Ivory Caps” are plentiful, and extend their haunts to the woods, where thick mold or grassy places abound. =H. ni´veus= Fr.—_niveus_, snow-white. (Plate XXXVII, fig. 7, p. 146.) Wholly white. =Pileus= scarcely reaching 1 in. broad, _somewhat membranaceous_, and without a more compact disk, hence truly _umbilicate_, bell-shaped then convex, smooth, striate and viscid when moist, not cracked when dry. =Flesh= thin, everywhere equal, white, hygrophanous. =Stem= 2 in. or a little more long, 1–2 lines thick, _tubed_, _equal_, even, smooth, tense and straight. =Gills= decurrent, _distant_, _thin_, scarcely connected by veins, arcuate, quite entire.