INTRODUCTION 





AMERICA is without a text-book of the American species of Fungi, 

 among which the edible and poisonous varieties are found. Many 

 excellent but expensive foreign volumes describe species common to 

 both continents, and several special but widely scattered monographs 

 have been published here. The need of the mycologist, mycophagist 

 and amateur toadstool student is a book giving the genus, names and 

 descriptions of the prominent American toadstools whose edibility has 

 been tested, or whose poisonous qualities have been discovered. The 

 absence of such a book, and the universal and rapidly-growing interest 

 all over the United States in edible fungi, have led to the publication of 

 the present work, which includes every species known to be esculent in 

 North America. As a precautionary measure, full explications of all 

 those known or suspected to be poisonous are included. 



Many species found in this country only have been described and 

 named by various authors, from the time of Schweinitz (1822) to the 

 present day. These have been published in the botanical magazines 

 and in the papers of scientific societies and colleges. The greater num- 

 ber have as author Professor Charles H. Peck, New York State Botanist, 

 who has contributed an annual report each year from i8'68. These 

 appear in the reports of the State Museum of New York, and coming 

 from the pen of our ablest mycologist are of great value to everyone 

 interested in the study. The classifications and (in many instances) 

 modified descriptions by such an eminent authority upon fungoid growth 

 should therefore be the guides to American forms, that the confusion 

 created by numerous descriptions of the same fungus by different ob- 

 servers may be avoided. 



Professor N. L. Britton, editor of the Torrey Botanical Club, has 

 courteously given permission to use the descriptions of new species 

 given in its instructive Bulletins. 



Professor A. P. Morgan and Laura V. Morgan, with equal courtesy, 



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