Order Hymenomycetes. Tribe Pileati. 



Plate XC. 



AGARICUS CAMPESTRIS, unnceus. 



The Mushroom. 

 Series Pratella. Siib-geuus Psaliota. 



Spec. Char. A. C.vmpestbis. Pileus from two to six inches broad, at first convex, then plano-convex, dry, 

 white, subsquaniose or silky, or clothed with reddish-browu adpressed fibrillae, collected into little fascicles ; epi- 

 dermis easily separating from the flesh, projecting beyond the gills ; flesh firm, but brittle, thick, white, sometimes 

 tinged with pink beneath the epidermis, and at the junction of the stem with the pileus. Gills very unequal, free, 

 hut approximate, more or less ventricose, obtuse and occasionally forked behind ; of a beautiful pink, growing dark 

 brownish purple ; spores rich dark brown. Stem from two to three inches high from half an inch to an inch thick; 

 nearly equal or slightly thickened at the base, solid w^bite, beautifully but minutely silky, furnished with a ring 

 which is sometimes sub-])ersistent, thick and spongy, irregularly lacerated, sometimes of a cortinarious fugacious 

 texture ; root consisting of a few branched white fibres, often beset with little knobs, which are the infant state of 

 the plant. Scent and flavour very agreeable. Esculent, most excellent. 



Agaeicus campestris. Litmans, Fries, Berheley, WUJiering, Sowerby, Persoon. 



Hah. In pastures, parks, &e., where the ground has not been phiughcd up for many years. August and Sept. 



All the funguses called " Mushroom " iu England may be classed under two heads^ A. campedria our 

 present subject, and A. arvensls, the Horse-mushroom; the latter we have depicted in two of its forms, and 

 described in others ; A. campestris differs from it in having the gills of a purer pink, and richer purple- 

 brown ; these are broader and more approximate to the stem, and shew a tendency to deliquesce sooner ; 

 in the flesh never turning yellow even when rubbed with salt, and in having a solid stem. It is usual to 

 describe the spores as purjde-hrown, which is certainly the hue of the gills in maturity, for being of a laky 

 chocolate colour in themselves, they have then a purplish general tinge : " liver-colour " (Sir J. E. Smith) 

 describes it exactly ; but the spores when deposited on a sheet of white paper, will appear as they truly are, 

 of a rich umber-brown shade ; in A. arvetisis they are blacker and colder in tone, but not materially so ; 

 the gills being much more persistent in that species, grow extremely dark with age ; those of Campestris 

 spontaneously make themselves into ketchup at an earlier period, and this melting state of the gills retains 

 the spores, so that they are never so copiously deposited as in the varieties of A. arvensis. 



The English "Musliroom" proper takes two different forms, according to soil and other conditions 

 of site. The first case is that of rich cool loam districts, such as the extensive grazing pastures where the 

 dairymen of Bucks herd their cows, and which have not been ploughed or mowed within the scope of the 

 remotest tradition ; the herbage is kept down by the cattle, and neither rude gravel below, nor rank matted 

 grass above, offers obstacles to the regular developement of the fairest and most fragile of mushrooms, the 

 very perfection of the thing ! no freckles deface the white silky pileus, no tliick cottony screen swathes a 

 clumsy stem, betokening coarse over-feeding ; a light soft veil is all the protection the gills ever had, and 

 they have expanded so rajiidly even that has disappeared, or left only a few lacerated fragments on the 

 stem ; tender, succulent, friable and digestible, noui-ished on pure earth, in air redolent of wild thyme and 

 the breath of kine, by dew which might be Fairies' nectar it is so free from the impurities of city miasma, the 





