Order Hymenomtcetes. Tribe Pileati. 



Plate XIV. 



AGARICUS ATRAMENTARIUS, Buiuard. 



Inky Agaric. 

 Series Pratella.' Sub-genus Coprinus.'^ 



Spec. Char. A. atramentarius. Gregarious, csespitose. Pileusin youth obese, ovate, rugoso-plicate, lacunose 

 lobed, sprinkled with glittering meal, afterwards campanulate, obtuse, dirty-grey or brownish, innato-fibrillose, more 

 or less furfuraceous, the apex clothed with dark scales, the margin uneven. GiUs very broad and close, at first 

 white, changing to purple-brown, the margins remaining white, ventricose, rounded behind, quite free. Stem three 

 inches high, half an inch thick, fistulose, juicy, fibrillose, brittle, the substance banded concentrically, attenuated 

 upwards, the base nodose ; veil fugacious. Spores very dark brown. 

 Agaricus atramentarius, Bulliard, Fries, Berkeley. 

 fimetarius, Sowerhy. 



Hah. Fields, gardens, waste places, roots of trees. Spring and autumn. 



As might be expected, the Coprini, or Dung-stools, have little to recommend them ; neither beauty 

 nor utility (except, perhaps, as vegetable vultures) can be the boast of the majority, and one who has seen 

 large masses in decay, their black juices staining the turf and disfigiuing all within their reach, cannot be 

 blamed for pronouncing such toadstools a pest, and attempting by all means to eradicate objects so un- 

 sightly in dressed grounds. 



Agaricus atramentarius affords a considerable quantity of black fluid, whicU is not to be recommended 

 as ketchup, although perhaps it is not poisonous, but the colour would spoil the appearance of any dish to 

 which it might be added. Some expounder of the mysteries of antiquity decided that the black broth of 

 Sparta was mushroom ketchup ! if so, it was a less nauseous mess than it has been represented ; but be 

 that as it may, youthful prejudices, contracted from the history of Greece, would always prevail in rendering 

 black a disagreeable hue in any broth. Sepias make excellent soup, but we do not think their ink-bag 

 improves the appearance of this Mediterranean dehcacy. The expressed ink of A. atramentarius resembles 

 Sepia in colour, not being perfectly black. Sentences written with it have stood the test of sixty years 



' From ^rcrtowj, pasture-ground. Veil not arachnoid. Gills changing colour, clouded, at length dissolving. 

 Spores dark brown or black. 



2 GiUs free, unequal, thin, simple, changing colour, at length deliquescent. Veil universal, more or less con- 

 crete, flocculose, fugacious. Stem fistulose, straight, elongated, brittle, subsquamulose, whitish. Pileus membrana- 

 ceous, rarely subcarnose when young, ovato-conic, then campanulate, at length torn and revolute, deliquescent, 

 distinct from the stem, clothed with the flocculose fragments of the veil. Fugacious fungi, growing in rich dungy 

 places, or on rotten wood. 



