Pileus moist, hygrophanous, at first smooth or sprinkled with the whitish superficial evanescent fibrils of the veil. Flesh thin, or when thick it becomes abruptly thin toward the margin, scissile. Stem ringed below or coated from the universal veil, slightly veiled at the apex, hence with almost a double veil. HYGROCYBE. Page 325. Pileus hygrophanous, smooth or covered with superficial white fibrils, not viscid, moist when fresh, becoming discolored when dry. Flesh very thin or scissile, rarely more compact at the center. Stem rather rigid, bare. Veil thin, rarely collapsing and forming an irregular ring on the stem. PHLEGMA´CIUM. (_Gr_—clammy moisture.) _A._ CLIDUCHII. * _Gills pallid, then clay-colored._ =C. seba´ceus= Fr.—_sebum_, tallow. =Pileus= 2½-5 in. broad, unicolorous, _pale_, of the color of tallow, equally fleshy, convex then rather plane, commonly very repand, viscid, smooth, but at the first _covered over with a whitish pruinose luster_. =Flesh= white. =Stem= 3–4 in. long, ½-1 in. thick, solid, stout, compact, never bulbous, often twisted and compressed, slightly fibrillose, pale white. =Cortina= delicate, fugacious, adhering only to the margin of the pileus. =Gills= emarginate, _not crowded_, connected by veins, 4 lines broad, clay-color or pallid-cinnamon, paler at the sides. _Fries._ The flesh of the pileus is not compact at the disk and abruptly thin at the circumference, but equally attenuated toward the margin. The flesh of the stem is white. The gills never turn bluish-gray. Taste mild. _Stevenson._ =Spores= pip-shaped, 9×7µ _Cooke_. A very common and prolific species in West Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina. _McIlvaine._ Pushing from the earth in great clusters it raises the mat of leaves above it into hut-like mounds through which it seldom bursts. Yet side openings to its huts show its coziness, and reveal the ground thickly dusted with its spores. Detecting these mounds is part of the woodcraft of a toad-stool hunter. Where clusters are not dense, or the fungus is solitary, the stem is frequently swollen at the base, even bulbous. Both caps and stems are edible, but the stems are not equal to the caps. It is a valuable food species, because of its lateness and quantity. It is not of best quality.