Order Hymenomycetes. Ti-ibe Pileati. 



nn. 



Plate XIX. 



AGARICUS OSTREATUS, /«.^^- 



Oyster Agaric. 

 Series Leucosporus. Subgenus Pleuropus. 



Spec. Cliar. Agakicus ostreatus. Caespitose, imbricated, frequently confluent, generally subdimidiate, 

 excentric, conchate, ascending. Pileus fleshy, cinereous-gi-ey growing pallid, smooth, but the border is at 

 first fibiillose or even squamoso-lacerate ; margin involute ; the whole surface of the pileus is at first soft and 

 clammv, afterwards dry, shining, and satiny. GUIs decurrent, broad, here and there forked, rather distant, anas- 

 tomosing behind, whitish. Spores perfectly white. Stem abbreviated or obsolete, elastic, firm, white, smooth, 

 sublateral, often irregularly confluent, stuffed, compact, tuberous or equal, strigose at the base, where it is generally 

 downy ; flesh white, tender when young, succulent, flavour sweet, odour farinaceous. Esculent. 



Agakicus ostreatus, Jacquin, Fries, Kromblioh, Berkeley. 

 La CuiUer des Arbres, Faulet. 



Hah. On various trees ; on the trunk of an apple-tree at Hayes. Enduring from autumn through the winter till 

 spring, but never freshly developed at that season. 



A comparison between this Plate and Plate LXXV. of the First Series, A. eiiosmvs, ■niW show how 

 much they ditler in externals when characteristic specimens are selected ; juvenile, dimidiately or imbri- 

 cately stunted individuals may be confounded with each other, if general appearance only is relied upon ; 

 but A. euos?/ius is scented hke Tarragon and its spores are pale lilac ; A. ostreatus has the smell of new 

 flour which distinguishes the Prunuloidea, and perfectly white spores. It is a favourite article for the 

 table on the continent, opinion being universally in its favour, while A. euosmus is tough and disagreeable. 

 This latter has a disposition to a regularly depressed, trumpet-formed pileus, " La conche des arbres " 

 (Paulet), never being spathulate ; while the genuine A. ostreatus, concave beneath, and always more or less 

 dimidiate, ■nhen the stem is present assumes the shape of a spoon of the antique " postle-spoon " pattern, 

 which occasioned Paulet to call it " La cuiller des arbres." Paulet, wishing to write a boot which should 

 enable the vulgar and illiterate to discriminate funguses as a marketable article of value (numbers of 

 people being annually poisoned in Paris alone by using unwholesome ones), refused to use botanical names, 

 or to avail himself in any way of scientific terms, so that while the Mycologist complains of uncertainty 

 and undervalues his authority, the price of the book (it sells for ten guineas) prevents its being, as the 

 author intended, "aportee de tout le monde," and it is comparatively of no service to anybody; never- 



