II.—CLITOCYBÆ. Gills not sinuate, etc. =A. mel´lea= Vahl.—_melleus_, of the color of honey. (Plate XVI, fig. 1, p. 52.) =Pileus= adorned with minute tufts of brown or blackish hairs, sometimes glabrous, even or when old slightly striate on the margin. =Gills= adnate or slightly decurrent, white or whitish, becoming sordid with age and sometimes variegated with reddish-brown spots. =Stem= ringed, at length brownish toward the base. =Spores= elliptical, white, 8–10µ long. _Peck_, 48th Rep. N.Y. State Bot. =Spores= 9×5–6µ _W.G.S._; 10×8µ _B._; 8–10µ _Peck_. The A. mellea is unusually prolific and is common over the United States and Europe. Specimens may be found in the spring-time, but in middle latitudes it is common from August until after light frosts. It is usually in tufts, some of which contain scores of plants and are showy over ground filled with roots, or on stumps or boles of decaying trees. It frequents dense woods and open clearings. I have seen acres of dense woodland at Mt. Gretna, Pa., so covered with it and its varieties that but few square yards were unoccupied. A description of the typical A. mellea will rarely apply to any one plant. A combination of its variable features in one description would include something of nearly every white-spored Agaric under the sun. Yet there is something indescribable about it which once learned will unerringly betray it. Its =Caps= vary from perfectly smooth, through tufts of scales and hairs, more or less dense, to matted woolliness. It may show any one of these conditions in youth and be bald in age. Some shade of yellow is the prevailing color, but this will vary from whitish to dark-purplish or reddish-brown. When water-soaked it is one color, when dry, another. Commonly the margins of the =Caps= are striated, sometimes they are smooth as a cymbal, and not unlike one, have a raised place or umbo in the center. =Flesh= white or whitish. =Gills= when young are white or creamy, usually running down the stem, sometimes slightly notched at attachment. They freckle in age and lose their fair complexion. The =Veil= or collar about the stem is as variable as fashion—thick and closely woven or flimsy as gossamer, or vanishing as the plant grows old. The =Stems= may be even as a lead pencil, or swollen like a pen-holder, or bulbous toward the base, or distorted by pressure in the tufts. It is as variable in color as the cap, usually darkening downward in hues of brown. The outside is firm and fibrous, sometimes furrowed, inside soft or hollow. =Cap= 1–6 in. across. =Stem= 1–6 in. long, ¼-¾ in. thick. Var. _obscu´ra_ has the cap covered with numerous small blackish scales. Var. _fla´va_ has the cap yellow or reddish-yellow, but in other respects it is like the type. Var. _gla´bra_ has the cap smooth, otherwise like the type. Var. _radica´ta_ has a tapering, root-like prolongation of the stem, which penetrates the earth deeply.