divided, dilated, and extending into a broad
rounded end, stem solid.

[Illustration: Plate I.
RUSSULA VIRESCENS FR. (EDIBLE)
The Verdette From Nature
Collected in the District of Columbia
Report of Microscopist, U. S. Department of Agriculture 1893
L. Krieger, Pinx.
AVIL. CO. LITH. PHILA.]

PLATE I.

=Russula virescens= Fries. "_The Verdette_" _or_ "_Greenish Russula_."

EDIBLE.

The cap of this species is fleshy and dry, the skin breaking into thin
patches. The margin is usually even, but specimens occur which show
striations. The color varies from a light green to a grayish or moldy
green, sometimes tinged with yellow; gills white, free from the stem or
nearly so, unequal, rather crowded; stem white, stout, solid, smooth, at
first hard, then spongy; spores white, nearly globose.

One writer speaks of the "warts" of the cap, but the term warts, used in
this connection, refers merely to the patches resulting from the
splitting or breaking up of the epidermis of the cap, and not to such
excrescences called warts, as are commonly observed on the cap of
Amanita muscaria, for instance, which are remnants of the volva.

The _R. virescens_ is not as common as some others of the Russulae, in
some localities, and hitherto seems to have attracted but little
attention as an edible species in this country, although highly esteemed
in Europe. It has been found growing in thin woods in Maryland and in
Virginia from June to November, and we have had reports of its growth
from New York and Massachusetts. The peasants in Italy are in the habit
of toasting these mushrooms over wood embers, eating them afterwards
with a little salt. Vittadini, Roques, and Cordier speak highly of its
esculent qualities and good flavor. We have eaten quantities of the
virescens gathered in Washington, D. C., and its suburbs, and found it
juicy and of good flavor when cooked.

EXPLANATION OF PLATE I.

Plate I exhibits four views of this mushroom (_R. virescens_) drawn and
colored from nature. Fig. 1, the immature plant; Fig. 2, advanced stage
of growth, cap expanded or plane; Fig. 3, section showing the unequal
length of the gills and manner of their attachment to the stem; Fig. 4,
surface view of the cap showing the epidermis split in characteristic
irregular patches; Fig. 5, spores, white.

AGARICINI.

COPRINARII (SPORES BLACK OR NEARLY SO).

Genus _Coprinus_ Fries. Hymeno