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Smooth Lepiota. Edible.

Figure 33.—Lepiota naucina. The entire plant white.

Pileus soft, smooth, white or smoky-white; gills free, white, slowly changing with age to a dirty pinkish-brown color; stem annulate, slightly thickened at the base, attenuated upward, clothed with fibres pure white. The Smooth Lepiota is generally very regular in shape and of a pure white color. The central part of the cap is sometimes tinged with yellow or a smoky white hue. Its surface is nearly always very smooth and even. The gills are somewhat narrower toward the stem than they are in the middle. They are rounded and not attached to the stem.

Cap two to four inches broad; stem two to three inches long. It grows in clean grassy places in lawn, pastures, and along roadsides. I have seen the roadside white with this species around Sidney, Ohio. The specimens represented in figure were found in Chillicothe, August to November.

This is one of the best mushrooms, not inferior to the meadow mushroom. It has this advantage over the former that the gills retain their white color and do not pass from a pink to a repulsive black. The halftone and the description ought to make the plant known to the most casual reader.