435 



Mushroom Patties. — Cut the mushrooms into small pieces, cook 

 slowly in butter until tender, add cream or milk, pepper, and salt, and 

 thicken with flour. Fill the reheated patty shells. 



The Classification of Mushrooms 



The true fungi, excluding bacteria and slime-molds, are usually 

 grouped into three classes, the Phycomycetes, which includes the com- 

 mon molds, the Ascomycetes or sac fungi, and the Basidiomycetes. 

 With the first of these classes we are not concerned since it does not 

 include any fungi with fruit bodies large enough to be called mush- 

 rooms. 



The second class, that of the sac fungi, includes a very large num- 

 ber of species that are important as the causes of plant diseases but 

 are too small to be called mushrooms, and a relatively few species that 

 may be called mushrooms. The only edil^le ones that are common in 

 this state are the morels and some of their near relatives and a few 

 of the larger cup-fungi (see page 553). 



The third class, that of the basidia-producing fungi, is predomi- 

 nantly the mushroom group. The five groups of this class, to which 

 most of our edible mushrooms belong, are the puffballs (page 545). 

 the pore fungi (page 535), the hedgehog fungi (page 543), the cluli 

 fungi (page 541), and the gill fungi. Bv far the greater number of 

 both the edible and the poisonous forms are gill fungi. For this rea- 

 son we need to consider a little further the way of classifying these. 

 First, however, it will be necessary to understand the naming of mush- 

 rooms. 



It will be noticed that whenever we have mentioned the scientific 

 name of a mushroom we have used two words. This is because it is a 

 rule among botanists that every plant shall be given a name which con- 

 sists of two Latin or Greek words, or other words in Latin form, the 

 first of which is the genus or group name and the second of which is 

 the species or individual name. All those mushrooms that are indenti- 

 cally the same kind are given the same individual or species name, and 

 then all of those species that seem to be closely related are grouped to- 

 gether and given the same genus name. Therefore, just as there may 

 be a number of liumnn indixidurds all having the same "group" name, 

 as Tom Jones, Sam Jones, and John Jones, so there may be a number 

 of species of mushrooms all having the same genus name, as Agariciis 

 caiupcstris, Agaricus arvcnsis, Agariciis silz'icola, etc. The name of 

 the plant is usually followed by the name or initials of the person who 

 first described the species, as Agariciis campcstris Linn. 



The various genera of gill fungi are distinguished from each other, 

 in part, by the color of the spores. In some genera the spores are 



