The Earlier Study of Fungi in Britain. David Paul. 93 



doeth not. They that be not deadly have a gross gleymy 

 moystur, that is disobedient to nature and digestion, and be 

 perilloiis and dredful to eate, and therefore it is good to eschewe 

 them, such as eate them and fear not to fall inconvenience, 

 seeth them in water and medle them with gyngcr, peper, 

 caruy, calamint, or orygan and such other, and then drinke 

 olde wyne, pure and stronge. And they that be of olde com- 

 plexion, after the take grene gynger, dyaterion, pyperion, 

 solergenne and tryacle. The deadly muscherons ben of diuers 

 actions after their diversitie and sleeth by their exceeding great 

 cold and moysture ye is in the fourth degre. Some slee by the 

 evell quality of the place that they grow in as by rusty yron, 

 rotten cloth or wood or nigh the hole that serpets brede in, or 

 thei that grow by great trees that have glewmy humours and 

 frothc. The signs of them that be deadly is a slymye softenesse 

 as they were puffed and be of thick substaunce, and if they lye 

 a whyle broken they will rotte." 



I have given this at length as shewing the style of the book, 

 and as being the first notice of Fungi I have met with in the 

 English language. Evidently the writer has in view only the 

 larger and gilled Fungi, and just as clearly he has not even a 

 rudimentary knowledge of them. 



Passing from that book, the next that claims attention is 

 The Herbal of Wni. Turner, Doctor in Phisick, as he is called 

 on the title page, which was first published in 155 1, and after- 

 wards in an enlarged edition in 1568. This shews a great 

 advance on the Create Herball, and if one were dealing with 

 flowering plants it would be necessary to consider it at some 

 length, but it contains no notices of Fungi. Among the many 

 woodcuts are some of ferns which are not separated from 

 flowering plants. Turner was a theologian and a church 

 dignitary, a scholar and a Reformer, who wrote much on 

 religious questions, but he is now known only as a botanist 

 who was an original observer, and who had shaken himself 

 clear of most of the medieval fancies. It would have been 

 interesting to know what were the views on Fungi of this "first 

 of English botanists," as he is deservedly called. 



A very important work was published in 1597, the well- 

 known Gerard's Herball. However interesting it may be from 

 a general botanical point of view, the day of Fungi had not 

 yet arrived. Gerard does not indeed omit Fungi altogether, 

 for he devotes one chapter to them. He calls them "bastard 

 plants" and speaks of them as "earthy excrescences called 

 mushrumes or toadstooles, whereof some are very venomous 

 and full of poison, others not so noisome, .and neither of them 

 very wholesome meate; wherefore for the avoiding of the 



