en, clean cut, and not ragged as in more fibrous
substances.

The plants are fleshy and stout, and in this particular resemble the
Clitocybes, but the brittleness of the flesh, milky juice, and the
marking of the cap, will easily distinguish them.

Many species have a very acrid or peppery flavor. If a person tastes one
when raw, he will not soon forget it. This acridity is usually lost in
cooking.

The pileus in all species is fleshy, becoming more or less depressed,
margin at first involute, often marked with concentric zones.

The stem is stout, often hollow when old, confluent with the cap.

The gills are usually unequal, edge acute, decurrent or adnate, milky;
in nearly all the species the milk is white, changing to a sulphur
yellow, red, or violet, on exposure to the air.

_Lactarius torminosus. Fr._

THE WOOLLY LACTARIUS. POISONOUS.

[Illustration: Figure 127.--Lactarius torminosus. Three-fourths natural
size. Caps yellowish-red or ochraceous tinged with red, margin
incurved.]

Torminosus, full of grips, causing colic. The pileus is two to four
inches broad, convex, then depressed, smooth, or nearly so, except the
involute margin which is more or less shaggy, somewhat zoned, viscid
when young and moist, yellowish-red or pale ochraceous, tinged with red.

The gills are thin, close, rather narrow, nearly of the same color as
the pileus, but yellower and paler, slightly forked, subdecurrent.

The stem is one to two inches long, paler than the cap, equal or
slightly tapering downward, stuffed or hollow, sometimes spotted,
clothed with a very minute adpressed down.

The milk is white and very acrid. The spores are echinulate, subglobose,
9-10x7-8u.

This differs from L. cilicioides in its zoned pileus and white milk.
Most authorities speak of it as dangerous. Captain McIlvaine speaks of
the Russians as preserving it in salt and eating it seasoned with oil
and vinegar. They grow in the woods, open places, and in fields. The
specimens in Figure 127 were found in Michigan and photographed by Dr.
Fischer.

_Lactarius piperatus. Fr._

THE PEPPERY LACTARIUS. EDIBLE.

[Illustration: Figure 128.--Lactarius piperatus. One-third natural
size.]

Piperatus--having a peppery taste. The pileus is creamy-white, fleshy,
firm, convex, then expanded, depressed in the center, dry, never viscid,
and quite broad.

The gills are creamy-white, narrow, close, unequal, forked, decurrent,
adnate, exuding a milky ju