62 



Minnesota Plant Life. 



Yet a single rule, which I believe to be the best, is to eat no 

 mushrooms of any sort unless quite sure that they are edible, for 

 some of the deadliest poisons known to students of plant chem- 

 istry are contained in the plants of this genus. One in partic- 

 ular, which grows from a little cup at the base and spreads out 

 a rather thin cap is so fatal that a small portion of it is sufficient 

 to cause death. Still on the other hand, it is true that a great 

 many edible species are to be obtained in the woods and fields 

 of Minnesota, and it seems a pity that such excellent food should 

 go to waste when there are many people who would l)e glad to 

 avail themselves of this form of nature's bounty. 



Fig. 20. — Under side of two mushroom-fruits. After Atkinson." .Bull. 138, Cornell Ag. Exp. 



Station. 



All true mushrooms are characterized by the presence on the 

 under side of the cap, of radiating gills or plates, hanging down 

 like the ornamental tissue-paper decorations which are fancied 

 by proprietors of butchers' shops. Except for this general char- 

 acter their forms are various and some of them with long slender 

 stalks and thin conical or expanded caps present a very different 

 appearance from those with short, massive stalks and broad 

 hemispherical caps. A few are devoid of definite stalks and 

 protrude sideways from dead logs recalling (piitc exactly the 

 shelf-fungi in their general habit f)f growth. The largest mush- 

 rooms arc found in ])astures and along roadsides, lifting them- 



