46 Rev. W. Houghton's Notices of Fungi 



Majores. Tibi habe frumentaim, Alledius iuquit, 

 O Li bye ; disjunge boves, dum tubera mittas !" — Sat. v. 116-110. 

 " Then if the spring its genial influence shed 

 And welcome thunders call them from their bed, 

 Large truffles enter ; ravish'd with their size, 

 ' O Libya, keep your grain !' Alledius cries, 

 ' O bid your oxen to your stalls retreat, 

 Nor, while you boast such truffles think of wheat !' " 



If Libya will only supply its splendid and far-famed truffles, 

 Alledius cares nothing for its corn. African truffles, as we 

 have seen, were supposed to be of the best quality. 



Martial says that truffles are inferior only to boleti : — 

 " Rumpimus altricem tenero quae vertice terrain 



Tubera, boletis poma secunda sumus." — Ep. xiii. 50. 



" We who, with tender head, burst through the earth that 

 nourishes us are truffles, a fruit second only to boleti." But 

 here one would rather suppose that tubera denotes some 

 fungus, not entirely subterranean, but growing, partly at least, 

 on the surface. 



Apollonius (Hist. Mir. 8. 46) quotes Theophrastus as 

 saying that truffles (vSvov) grow harder in continued thunder 

 weather. 



Galen (De alim. facult. 2. 68, and elsewhere) says that 

 truffles must be considered to be roots or bulbs, and that they 

 possess little flavour, should be eaten with spices, and are 

 harmless; have a thick but not a noxious juice. Different 

 species of truffles were doubtless known to and eaten by 

 the Greeks and Romans, among which, most probably, 

 would be Tuber cestivum, T. magnatum, T. bi.tuminalum } and, 

 perhaps, Melanogaster variegatus (Hypogcei), which grows 

 half out of the soil, and is eaten at Bath under the name of 

 the " red truffle," and Terfeyia Leonis*. 



Mr. Bicknell often noticed truffles in the markets in N. 

 Italy, as the T.cesttvum, and the " Tartufi bianchi," "white 

 truffle," which at Bologna was selling at 4 francs per pound, 

 and is highly esteemed ; this, he says, is the T. magnatum, 

 Pico. 



Coelius Apicius, whoever the author of the work ' De Re 

 Coquinaria Libri Decern ' may have been, or whenever he 

 may have lived, has not omitted fungi from his treatise. We 

 have seen that both among the Greeks and Romans fungi 



* The tubera of the ancients doubtless included subterranean or semi- 

 subterranean edible fungi which do not belong to the order Tuberacei. 

 Tulasue is inclined to refer the misu to the Terfeyia Leonis, which grows 

 in April and May in oak-woods of the promontory Ciroeium, in Campania, 

 which the people dig for and eat approvingly under the name of " Tartufo 

 bianco :" it occurs plentifully in the sandy seashores about Terralba and 

 Oristano in Sardinia. Tulasue adds, " Nil nisi radix quaedaui crassa fere 

 videtur et veresimiliter immerito pro Tubere s. fungo subterraneo nonnul- 

 lis habetur." Ilydnotrya Tulasnei is dug up and eaten near Prague. 



