sinuosKS, of which our present C. crispm is a variety, is described as " olidus," " moschatus." Linnaeus 

 styled all funguses smelling of anise, " suaveolens." In the present case the subject is scentless, so the 

 relative agreeableness of odours does not affect its character. 



It can scarcely be supposed, however, that powerful scents resembling nitric or prussic acid, or any 

 other pungently offensive substance, can co-exist with pleasant flavour and with bland esculent qualities. 

 Miss Mitford described the ancient village herbalist as saying of a plant he had detected, " it must be good 

 for something, it has such a fine venomous smell." Any one who has taken a few sniffs of bruised 

 hemlock or Solanum Dulcamara will acknowledge the perfect propriety of his expression, and many a 

 powerful drug is " venomously " valuable for physic ; — but for food, that is quite another question. C. crispvs 

 may have properties akin to those of Cctrana Islandica, the rein- deer moss, or oui- own Peltidea canina, 

 the once famed remedy of Dr. Mead for the bite of a mad dog, but we do not think it can be " esculent " 

 in the common acceptation of the term. 



How easily error may arise and be propagated is instanced in this example. Bulliard, copying 

 Schseffer, classed our fungus erroneously as a Helvetia (which we have shown it not to be), and Sowerby, 

 following the high authority of his time, Bulliard, called it also Helvella, but adopted the trivial name of 

 ^ch^Ser, floriformis, instead of crisjm, which had been given to it by Bulliard. Now here are three 

 standard authorities, much more likely to be found in libraries than more modem ones, who consider 

 the plant a Helvella ! " All the Helvellas are esculent," is asserted by a popular botanist and lecturer, 

 probably with perfect correctness where true Helvellas ^ are concerned ; but a friend of ours, meeting 

 with a most copious crop of C. crispws, was going, in perfect faith, to make a dish of it, and quite disap- 

 pointed when the treat in expectancy was forbidden — ou the very just grounds, that the proposed subject 

 of it was no Helvetia at all, but a very questionable Cantharellus, a fact easily proved by the Flora volume, 

 wliich had put the impostor into its proper place. 



' There is a true Helvella crispa, which we mean hereafter to introduce to our friends. 



