it, anxiety to ascertain the genuine substance has ceased likewise. The Agaric of druggists, formerly used 

 as a remedy for consumption, but one so potent as certainly to kill if not to cure, is Polyporus laricis, and, 

 we believe, has never been found in Britain, where the larch is comparatively a junior member of the forest 

 community ; but it by no means follows that, in process of time and decay, it may not appear, to reward 

 industrious students. Another fungus, called Agaricus sti/pticws, from having been employed, instead of 

 bandages, as a surgical compress, and also Agaricus qwercinus, from its growing on oak timber, is Dadalia 

 quercina ; the effects ascribed to the use of this species seem to have been due to the mechanical action of 

 its texture, rather than to any chemical virtues possessed by its juices. This soi-disant " Agaric " of surgery 

 was supposed by Sir J. E. Smith to be Pol^porus igniarius, the Amadou, or German tinder ; but that, al- 

 though recently employed to prevent abrasions of the skin, is a very different thing. 



Even supposing any given fungus to possess potent and most valuable qualities, the ignorance which 

 formerly prevailed concerning the tribe would have rendered their use hazardous (indeed, it prevails stUl) ; 

 and the very various results reported whenever such remedial agency has been called in, implies that dif- 

 ferent members of the family have been confounded with each other. We can hardly expect that doubtful 

 medicines should be exliibited, when certain ones are in the nearest chemist's shop. Physicians cannot 

 ramble in search of " simples " themselves, and the professional devastator, calling himself " herbalist," ^ 

 of course suppHes, whether correctly or not, anything asked for, secure in the almost certainty that the 

 inquirer after one Agaric is not able to detect the substitution of another; in fact, with so many errors 

 ill nomenclature, confusion is scarcely avoidable. 



Agaricus stypticug of the recent Mycologists, our present pretty little subject, cannot be mistaken for 

 any of its predecessors in the title : Fries has classed it with a few congeners of similar coriaceous dry 

 texture, under the head Panus; tliis texture renders the fungus very persistent. During the winter 

 through it tlourishes, sometimes shrivelled by frost and keen wind, but giving out again in rainy weather ; 

 the zones are not so much variations in colour in the pileus, as alternate ridges and depressions of its sub- 

 stance. Even in weather-beaten old age the tough little plant remains attached to the stump, ragged and 

 paUid, Uke fragments of ThelepJiora hirsuta, their similar enduring consistence enabling both to subsist 

 after all characteristic external beauty has disappeared. 



' It must not be supposed that these remarks are levelled at respectable tradesmen, but at such persons as 

 sell Belladouiia berries to make pies. 



