36 Transactions British Mycological Society. 



Adams. His wife and son gathered some examples of a fungus 

 and insisted on the father alone partaking of it at the evening 

 meal: next morning after ascertaining from the prover that no 

 ill-effect had resulted the son exclaimed, "Hurrah, mother, we 

 have discovered another edible fungus." This story I fancy is 

 older than Adams and like many others related about Mr Glad- 

 stone were previously applied to Talleyrand. In my recent 

 work on the British Basidiomycetae I have enumerated all 

 those that were known to be edible and in the majority of 

 cases this was based on personal experience. I consider a fungus 

 described as edible should also connote that it is palatable. 

 Some years ago we had the good fortune to find a few examples 

 of the rather rare Hygrophorus russula, and after we had duly 

 studied the same we ventured on cooking it, as it is considered 

 quite a dainty on the Continent. Guess our surprise to find when 

 served at dinner it had a most disgusting bitter taste and we 

 proceeded no further with it, although I revel in the taste of 

 quinine and am not adverse to a gin or sherry and bitters as 

 an appetiser. Either foreigners have a different palate to my 

 own or the fungus has a different flavour in foreign climes. 

 This may be true because we know of several cases in systematic 

 mycology, especially amongst the Russulae, where such a varia- 

 tion is attributed to the habitat. I am not quite certain that 

 all our tastes are alike and perhaps that is lucky, as otherwise, 

 as Punch said, " they would all have wanted to marry my old 

 woman." I know of no standard of taste and until the British 

 Association have settled our colour standard referred to them 

 by us many years ago I see no useful purpose in asking them 

 to deal with this as a matter of pressing, national importance. 

 Until a saporometre is invented I fear we shall have only to record 

 our individual appreciation of the qualities each fungus possesses 

 from a gastronomic point of view. Our common mushrooms in 

 my opinion are coarse in flavour, and not to be compared with 

 the delicate taste of Amanitopsis vaginata, a dish fit for the 

 most fastidious epicure. In a review that I read lately the 

 writer complained of the absence of any English names for 

 our fungi and I admit that I cannot give you one for the 

 Amanitopsis. But what do I mean when I use the word com- 

 mon mushrooms? I fear I have no special one in view, but 

 generally the collective assortment exposed for sale in our shops 

 and markets. When I address a learned body like yourselves 

 I can assert that Psaliota haemorrhoidaria and exserta have a 

 much finer flavour than either Psaliota campestris or arvensis 

 and are easily recognised by the sanguineous coloured juice, 

 but I should hesitate to popularise their name by the term 

 used by Bernard Shaw in his "Pygmalion." With regard to 



