Report of the State Botanist. 9 



same family and having a similar general appearance. In the 

 Mghtshade family or Solonace£e we find such food plants as the 

 potato, tomato and eggplant associated botanically with such 

 inedible or hurttul species as tobacco, henbaae and thorn apple 

 or stramonium. If we would avoid accidents we must know each 

 species so well that no dangerous species will be mistaken for it. 

 So among fungi we find that really excellent esculent, the royal 

 mushroom, often called Caesar's mushroom, Amanita cmsarea, 

 associated not only in the same genus but even in the same group 

 or section with tbe delusive and deadly phalloid mushroom, 

 Amanita j)halloides. Both are attractive in appearence, tender 

 in substance and not at all repulsive in taste or odor, but to eat 

 one is health and life, to eat the other is sickness and death. 



But the species of fleshy fungi are so numerous and so similar 

 in structure that much greater care is required in discriminating 

 between the good and the bad, than is necessary in the case of 

 flowering plants. It is scarcely to be expected that people 

 generally will acquire sufiicient knowledge to enable them to do 

 this in all cases, but all who desire to use these plants as food may 

 easily acquire from faithful figures and simple descriptions a 

 sufiicient knowledge to enable them to distinguish the more com- 

 mon and important species. There are at least 75 edible species 

 found in our State, though many of them are rare or seldom seen 

 in abundance. Some are both common and abundant and these 

 may easily become familiar to those interested. In some countries 

 of Europe where mushroom eating is more common than it is 

 here, it has been found expedient to appoint inspectors of the 

 markets whose duty it is to see that no hurtful species is offered 

 for sale. But if people in the country see fit to run the risk of 

 collectinor and eating such as are not known to be safe and edible 

 they must suffer the consequences. 



There are certain rules that gui-le the mycologist and the 

 skilled experimenter in estimating the probable character or 

 edibility of untried species, but to ihese there are so man\ excep- 

 tions that they are not wholly reliable. 



One rule is to reject all which are tough leathery or corky in 



texture. Even in the absence of any deleterious quality they 



would at least be indigestible. The fairy ring mushroom, J/aras- 



mius oreades, is an 'exception to this rule, for though it is rather 



2 



