branons or tomentose wrapper, which is ruptured by the groAvth 

 of the plant. In some species the remains of the mptiired 

 wrapper or volva form a kind of cnp or sheath about the base of 

 the stem of the extruded plant; in others a part of the wrapper is 

 carried up on the surface of the cap, and remains on it in small 

 irregular patches, or in the shape of numerous small warts or 

 prominences, which are easily separable from it. It thus some- 

 times hajjpens that the warts arewashed off bv heavy rains. The 

 cap is regular, convex or quite flat when mature, and often a 

 little sticky when moist. The gills are free from the stem, and 

 the stem is furnished with a collar. 



Inasmuch as some of the most dangerously poisonous species 

 known belong to this genus, it is very important that the specific 

 characters of the edible ones should be clearly understood by 

 those who would use them for food. Mistakes here are attended 

 with too much risk to be lightly made. And yet some of our 

 best mushrooms belong to this genus, and it is therefore unwise 

 to de])rive ourselves of their use through lack of confidence in 

 our aljility to recognize a good thing when we see it. 



The Orange Amanita or Orange mushroom, Amanita caesarea, 

 is a large and attractive species. Its cap is at first commonly 

 bright-red or brownish-red, but with advancing age it fades to 

 yellow on the margin, and sometimes becomes entirely yellow. 



The margin even in the 

 young plant, is marked by 

 distinct impressed parallel, 

 radiating lines or striations. 

 The flesh is white, tinged 

 with yellow just beneath 

 the separable epidermis, 

 and also close to the gills. 

 The gills are yellow, a very 

 good mark of distinction in 

 this species. The spores, 

 A.ruTescens. A. virKinata- howcver, arc whltc. The 



Amanita cjesarea. 



stem is also yellow, as well 

 as its collar, but the distinctly membranous wrapper at its base is 

 Avhite. The stem is either stuffed with a soft cottony pith or 

 hollow. The expanded cap is 3 to 6 inches or more broad, and 

 the stem 4 to 6 inches long and -J inch or more thick. The plant 

 grows in woods and groves, or their borders, and may be found 

 during warm, showery weather from July to September. Some- 

 times it grows in arcs of large circles. 



42 



