22 OMENSETTER : 



ingly unfortunate that these deadly poisonous toadstools do 

 not give some warning either in an unpleasant taste or contain 

 an irritant which would act locally to cause emesis and purga- 

 tion, for in that case the patient would get rid of the poison 

 before such large quantities were absorbed and fatal poisoning 

 would be less frequent. They are not at all unpalatable, and 

 sometimes large quantities are eaten by mistake." 



Professor Charles H. Peck, New York State Botanist, in 

 his Forty-eighth Report gives the following very explicit direc- 

 tions for distinguishing between the poisonous Amanita and 

 the common mushroom : — 



" Poison iVmanita — Gills persistently white. Stem equal to 

 or longer than the diameter of the cap, with a broad, distinct 

 bulb at the base. 



"Common Mushroom — Gills pink, becoming blackish- 

 brown. Stem shorter than the diameter of the cap, with no 

 bulb at the base. The mushroom does not grow in the woods. ' ' 



An extremely poisonous species found in this locality, the 

 fl)' agaric {Amanita miiscaria) , formerly grew in great luxuri- 

 ance beneath coniferous trees in Media cemetery. It attains 

 a larger size than A. phalloides, and the top of the cap is at 

 first red, turning to orange and becoming paler with age. 

 Warty excrescences, the remnants of the universal veil origi- 

 nally enclosing the young fungus, are also plentiful. 



The particular toxic principle of these plants is known as 

 muscarine, a well-known alkaloid isolated by Schmideberg 

 and Koppe in 1869. Its chemical formula has been re])re- 

 sented as follows : — 



■ (OH), 



An enthusiastic mj-cophagist has described his experience 

 in testing the fly agaric : "A raw piece of the cap, the size of 



* Known technically as oxy-clioline. It may I)e prepared syntheti- 

 cally through the oxidation of choline by nitric acid. Small wonder 

 that snch a compound plays havoc with the interior. 



