150 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



rooms by five minutes' boiling. The most important poison is 

 that found in Amanita phalloides and its allies, belonging' to the 

 genus Amanita. This poison causes the destruction of certain 

 cells of the body and does not begin to be noticeable until a 

 long time after the mushrooms have been eaten. At present 

 there is no known means of removing this poison, and one who 

 mistakes these for edible species invariably dies. The poisons 

 of the other groups often cause considerable distress, but rarely 

 cause death in healthy individuals. Finally it may be remem- 

 bered that there is no "test" by means of which the edible and 

 poisonous species may be distinguished. The harmless kinds 

 cannot be selected because they have an agreeable taste, or 

 because the cap "peels," or because they do not curdle milk, 

 or because they do not discolor silver when boiled with it, or 

 because they do not turn color when broken. The only way 

 to be sure is to know and recognize the species botanically. 



Toxylon in Nomenclature. — Anybody looking for 

 trouble should tackle botanical nomenclature. The name- 

 tinkers are a superstitious lot and more scrupulous in observing 

 dates than any banker, broker or loan shark. They are also 

 great sticklers for precedence and if a species is mentioned 

 twice on the sa*me page by different names, they insist upon the 

 first, though the last is the one in common use. One has to 

 know all the rules of the game to be a conspicuous success 

 and even then the most skillful player may sometimes slip and 

 give his antagonist a chance to occupy his first line trenches. 

 Something like this happened in the August issue of this mag- 

 azine when Prof. Nelson attributed the genus Toxylon to 

 Sargent. Dr. L. E. Everard of the United States Forest Serv- 

 ice writes: "I wish to call your attention to the fact that Prof. 

 Nelson has made a mistake, I might say a double mistake, in 

 the same article. Referring to bois d' arc he goes on to say 

 'this popular name was neatly put into Greek by Sargent who 

 called the genus Toxylon, now unfortunately superseded 

 according to the rules of priority by NuttaH's much more 

 prosaic Madura, in honor of the early geologist, William 



