ARTICI.E \ II. — Sonic Edible and Poisonous Mushrooms. By 

 Wai^tiIr B. McDougai.Iv, Ph.D. 



Introduction 



The interest in wild niushrooms and the number of people who 

 collect wild mushrooms for the table are increasing rapidly. Numer- 

 ous inquiries are received by the Ijotany department of the University 

 of Illinois each season concerning the identification and edibilitv of 

 various species. At the same time, whenever there is a good mushroom 

 season, the newspapers report an increasing number of cases of mush- 

 room poisoning. These facts indicate the great desirability of a wider 

 dissemination of the knowledge necessary to distinguish intelligently 

 the common edible and poisonous mushrooms. It was with these facts 

 in mind that it w^as decided to prepare, for the people of the state, 

 photographs and descriptions of a limited number of species, in the 

 hope that it might help our friends to make use of the abundance of 

 excellent food material that annually goes to waste in the fields and 

 w^oods, without risking their lives in the act. 



The majority of the species included here were collected in Cham- 

 paign county in the vicinity of Urbana. Aid received from the State 

 Laboratory of Natural History, however, has enabled me to do some 

 collecting in Jackson, Union, and Wabash counties. I have indicated, 

 after the description of each species, in what counties it has been col- 

 lected. The fact that a species has not been collected in a certain place, 

 •however, does not indicate that it does not occur there, since nearly 

 every species included is likely to be found in any part of the state, as 

 w-ell as in adjoining states. 



Some of the photographs are natural size; others are somewhat 

 reduced. In nearly every photograph there is a scale which will en- 

 able one to see at a glance the relative size of the objects. The scale 

 used is ruled according to the metric system, and the figures on it, 

 therefore, indicate centimeters and not inches. Those who are not 

 familiar with the metric system will not be inconvenienced by this if 

 they merely remember that two and one-half centimeters very nearly 

 ec|ual an inch. 



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