112 VARIOUS FOOD-PLANTS 
ge ee P 
Fic. 118.—Carrageen (Chondrus crispus, Carrageen Family, Gigartinacee.) 
Various forms of the seaweed, about natural size, the form a showing 
the ‘‘fruit’’ as oval masses embedded in the branches. The whole 
plant is dark red or purplish when alive. (Luerssen.) 
harmless by cooking. Unless one is well acquainted with the 
peculiarities by which edible and poisonous sorts may at once 
be distinguished, it is surely both foolish and dangerous to 
gather wild mushrooms to eat; nevertheless, such knowledge 
is not difficult to acquire with the aid of good pictures and 
careful descriptions, and to those who spend much time in the 
country the information may be of not a little value. 
On the subject of poisonous plants we shall have more 
to say in a subsequent chapter. The only safe rule is for a 
person to avoid touching, and on no account to eat, any part of 
a plant which he does not surely recognize and know to be harm- 
