10 



The plants of this species vary very much in size and in the color of the 

 cap. The latter is sometimes a bright scarlet and again it is orange color, 

 more frequently ochraceous yellow, fading to a very pale yellow tint. In 

 the variety albiis it is white. The stem is stuffed with webby fibrils and 

 varies very much in thickness ; sometimes in young specimens it is very 

 stout, with a thick ovate bulb reaching well up towards the cap, and 

 again it is comparatively slender and nearly equal from the cap down to 

 a very slight bulb at the base. The very young plant is completely en- 

 veloped in a white or yellowish egg-shaped wrapper or volva, which, be- 

 ing friable, generally breaks up into scales, forming warts upon the upper 

 surface of the cap. When the plant is young and moist the cap is slightly 

 sticky. A thickish white veil extends from the stem to the inner margin 

 of the cap. This breaks away with the growth and expansion of the plant 

 and falls in lax folds, forming a deflexed ring round the upper portion of 

 the stem. 



This mushroom is very common in woods and forests in summer 

 and autumn, and has a wide geographical range. It is recorded by all 

 mycologists as poisonous. One author states that when eaten in very 

 small quantities it acts as a cathartic, but that it causes death when eaten 

 freely. Flies find in it a deadly poison, and the poisonous alkaloids are 

 not destroyed by drying. 



Although cases are cited where this mushroom has been eaten without 

 injury, its fatally poisonous effects have been too well and too often tested 

 to allow of any doubt as to the danger of eating it, even in small quan- 

 tities. 



Amanita Frostiana, Frost's Amanita, is a much smaller species than A. 

 muscaria. ' It bears a very close resemblance to the Fly Amanita, and 

 might easily be taken for a small form of the same. The cap is yellowish 

 and warted, and specimens occur in which the stem and gills are slightly 

 tinged with yellow. It is poisonous. 



Plate XV. 



FiG.8. — Ag. ( AmanitaJ phalloides Fries (Amanita phalloidesj A. vernalis Bolt.. A. 

 verrucosus Curtis. " Poisonous Amanita,''' '■^ Death Cup."' 



Poisonous. 



Cap bell-shaped or ovate at first, then expanded, smooth, obtuse, viscid, 

 margin even, creamy-white, brown, or greenish, without warts ; flesh 

 white ; stem white, hollow or stuffed, bulbous at the base, annulate ; 

 gills rounded and ventricose, coarse, and persistently white, free from the 

 stem; volva conspicuous, large, loose, adhering to the base, but free from 

 the stem at the top, with the margin irregularly notched. In the white 

 forms there is frequently a greenish or yellow tinge at the disk or centre 

 of the cap. The white form is most common, but the brownish is often 

 found in this country. I have not yet found the green-capped variety some- 



