st white, then pink, soft. Most of the
species grow on wood. Some on damp ground, rich mold, in gardens, and in
hot-houses. One is a parasite on Clitocybe nebularis and monadelphus.

_Volvaria bombycina. (Pers.) Fr._

THE SILKY VOLVARIA. EDIBLE.

[Illustration: Plate XXIX. Figure 191.--Volvaria bombycina.

The egg form of the V. bombycina showing the universal veil or volva
bursting at the apex. These are unusually large specimens.]

[Illustration: Figure 192.--Volvaria bombycina. Two-thirds natural size.
Entire plant white and silky.]

[Illustration: Figure 193.--Volvaria bombycina. Two-thirds natural size,
showing the gills, which are pink, then dark-brown.]

Bombycina is from _bombyx_, _silk_. This plant is so called because of
the beautiful silky lustre of the entire plant. The pileus is three to
eight inches broad, globose, then bell-shaped, finally convex and
somewhat umbonate, white, the entire surface silky, in older specimens
more or less scaly, sometimes smooth at the apex. The flesh is white
and not thick.

The gills are free, very crowded, broad, ventricose, flesh-colored, not
reaching the margin, toothed. The stem is three to six inches long,
tapering upward, solid, smooth, the tough volva remaining like a cup at
the base. The spores are rosy in mass, smooth, and elliptical. The volva
is large, membranaceous, somewhat viscid.

The plant in Figure 192 was found August 16th, on a maple tree where a
limb had been broken, on North High Street, Chillicothe. Many people had
passed along and enjoyed the shade of the trees but its discovery
remained for Miss Marian Franklin, whose eyes are trained to see birds,
flowers, and everything beautiful in nature.

I have found the plant frequently about Chillicothe, usually solitary;
but on one occasion I found three specimens upon one trunk, apparently
growing from the same mycelial mass. The caps of two of them were each
five inches across. It usually grows on maple and beech. If you will
observe a hollow beech, or sugar snag of which one side is broken away,
leaving the sheltered yet open nestling place, you are very likely to
find snugly enscounced in its decaying heart one or more specimens of
these beautiful silky plants. The volva is quite thick and frequently
the plant, when in the egg state, has the appearance of a phalloid.
Found from June to October.

_Volvaria umbonata. Peck._

THE UMBONATE VOLVARIA.

[Illustration: Figure 194.--Volvaria umb