346 A Few Remarks on Mushroom Phenomena. [Sess. 



The nutritious value of the mushroom is very great. It is 

 to be feared that even lovers of the mushroom do not 

 thoroughly understand how valuable it is as an article of food. 

 "While it holds a high place in the menu of the epicure as a 

 delicate and dainty dish, the fact must not be overlooked that, 

 as a wholesome and nourishing vegetable, it has no equal. 

 The chemical constituents which go towards the making of a 

 mushroom are as follows : — 



Few vegetables contain more flesh-forming material. Even 

 meat has 75 per cent of water, while milk has 86 per cent 

 and skimmed milk 89 per cent. Many vegetables contain 

 more water than mushrooms ; and celery, lettuce, cucumbers, 

 turnips, cabbage, and onions have not the flesh-forming nor 

 the heat-giving qualities of the despised Fungi. 



We hear a great deal of the advantages of a vegetarian diet, 

 and should the time ever arrive when meat will be tabooed, 

 the loss will be fully met by a more steady use of the mush- 

 room. In Fungi every taste is catered for, from the delicious 

 oyster to the canned meat of the Chicago factories, from the 

 walnut to the garlic. Even the wine-bibber can get sufificiently 

 elevated by the use of some of the Amanitas. In short, I 

 think I have abundantly shown that the mushroom is by no 

 means to be regarded as a cumberer of the ground. 



Dr Watson, in his very interesting summary of a large 

 variety of Fungi at our last meeting, devoted most of his time 

 to eulogising the more u.ncommon species, but on approaching 

 the A. campestris he brushed it aside as not worthy of the 

 attention of cryptogamists. I grant it is not one of the 

 aristocrats of the mushroom world : it is so common with us 

 that familiarity has bred contempt. We are apt to pay less 

 attention to those things with which we daily come in contact. 

 In my opinion, the field mushroom is an ideal mushroom : its 

 symmetrical form is not equalled by any other, and I have no 

 doubt that had it the bright colours of some of its confreres, it 



