_A._ VISCIPELLES (_viscum_, bird-lime; _pellis_, a skin). Page 349. Pellicle of the pileus even or scaly, generally viscid. * Mundi—_mundus_, clean. Not growing on dung. ** Merdarii—_merda_, dung. Ring often incomplete. _B._ SPINTRIGERI (Stropharia spintriger). Pileus without a pellicle, but fibrillose, not viscid. None known to be edible. _A._ VISCIPELLES. Pellicle of the pileus even or scaly. * Mun´di—_not growing on dung._ (Plate XCVI.) [Illustration: STROPHARIA ÆRUGINOSA. Natural size. (After Stevenson.) ] =S. ærugino´sa= Curt.—_ærugo_, verdigris. =Pileus= fleshy, but not compact, convex-bell-shaped then flattened, somewhat umbonate (obtuse when larger), _with very viscid pellicle_, the ground color yellowish but _verdigris from the azure-blue slime_ with which it is more or less covered over, becoming pale as the slime separates. =Stem= _hollow_, soft, equal, _at the first scaly_ or fibrillose _below the ring, viscid, becoming_ more or less _azure-blue green_. =Ring= distant. =Gills= adnate, plane, 2 lines and more broad, not crowded, soft, whitish then dusky, becoming somewhat purple. The above are the essential marks of this species. Variable in form, sometimes cespitose. The typical and handsomest form is gathered in soaking weather in later autumn in shaded woods; it is large (pileus and stem 3 in. and more), stem squarrose with white spreading scales, intensely verdigris or azure-blue-pelliculose and very glutinous. From this there is a long series of forms with the gluten more separating (on the separation of the gluten the pileus becomes yellow), and the scales alike of the pileus and stem rubbed off. Finally, a smaller form occurs in open meadows, stem scarcely 2 in. long, only 2 lines thick, becoming azure-blue-green and without scales, pileus 1–2 in. broad, pale verdigris soon light yellowish, less viscid. In this form the ring is incomplete, while in the typical form it is entire, spreading, and persistent. In woods, meadows, etc. Common. July to November. _Stevenson._ =Spores= ellipsoid or spheroid-ellipsoid, 8×4–5µ _K._; 5×7µ _W.G.S._; elliptical, 10×5µ _Massee_. POISONOUS. _Stevenson._ “There is a white variety, in which the pileus is perfectly white from the first.” _Cooke._ S. æruginosa has been noted here by Schweinitz in Pennsylvania, Curtis in North and South Carolina, Frost in Vermont and Massachusetts, Harkness and Moore, California, Morgan, Ohio. The qualities of the American representatives are not reported. I have not seen the species. As it is asserted to be poisonous by European writers it may be. M.C. Cooke says: “It has the reputation, which is somewhat general on the continent, of being poisonous, but probably this is only assumed from its disagreeable taste and repulsive appearance.” Collectors are cautioned to look out for it, and not to eat of it carelessly.