Water color illustrations of a cluster of small white mushrooms with thin stems and white bell-shaped caps that are dusty brown at the top. The underside of the caps is striped dark brown. Whispy green plants adorn the base of the mushrooms.

Agaricus atramentarius, 1876

Accession Number: 
NYSM i-586

Mary Banning writes the following text in an elegant, handwritten cursive style underneath her illustration:

Plate 73 

Order Hymenomycetes Tribe Pileati 

Agaricus atramentarius Bull. 

Name—atramentaum, ink 

Series Pratella Subgenus Coprinus 

Species Characters. Pileus rather fleshy, oval shaped, margin irregular, at times the disk is spotted with innate warts or scales; lamellae free ventricose at first white then turn to purple or purple black; stem hollow, white, ring fugacius; from five to six inches high; slender, regular; caespitose or gregarious. Spores 00035 × 00023. inch. The above fungus was found in Druid Hill Park, Baltimore, Maryland, July 15th, 1876. It was gathered in the morning but was so deliquescent that it melted away before five o’clock in the afternoon.  

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Mary Banning: Fungi of Maryland