Tropical North America Research Articles

Dark-Spored Agarics—I

In MYCOLOGIA for January and March, I918, a series of eight articles on the gill-fungi of tropical North America was concluded with a treatment of species having brown, purplish-brown, or black spores. On page 15 in the January number of that year the fourteen genera of the subtribe Agaricanae were keyed out, beginning with the sessile Melanotus and ending with Coprinus and Clarkeinda, in which the characters are more complex. The present series of articles will deal with species occurring in temperate North America, except those confined to the Pacific Coast, which have already been considered for the most part in articles published in MYCOLOGIA some years ago. The key to the genera need not be repeated here. I shall, for convenience, begin with the larger, more fleshy species and take up the small, slenderstemmed ones later, reversing the natural order. The three genera of the present article may be distinguished from others of the subtribe by a fleshy or fibrous stem, gills that do not deliquesce, and little or no veil, which does not form a definite ring on the stem. They may be separated from each other by the following key:

The Agaricaceae of Tropical North America—V

The Agaricaceae of Tropical North America—V

The Agaricaceae of Tropical North America—IV

The genera treated in the present paper show a strong contrast to most of those in the first article of this series, both as to the number of species found in our tropics and the general information regarding them. This is chiefly due to the fact that tough forms growing on wood above ground are better adapted to tropical conditions than fleshy forms, especially the larger ones, growing in the soil, where air is scarce and bacteria and moulds abound in the rainy season, and where extreme conditions of heat and dryness prevail during the dry season. The fleshy forms are also difficult to collect and preserve, and require good field notes to make them really valuable for study. These genera are all abundantly represented in temperate regions, some of the species being the most common ones found in our forests, but tropical conditions appear to offer an almost impassable barrier to them, Lepiota alone excepted. The following simple key shows how these genera may be readily distinguished.

The Agaricaceae of Tropical North America—II

(1918). The Agaricaceae of Tropical North America—VIII. Mycologia: Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 62-85.

The Agaricaceae of Tropical North America—I

The Agaricaceae of Tropical North America—I

The Agaricaceae of Tropical North America: I

The Agaricaceae of Tropical North America: I