386 



MUSHROOMS, EDIBLE AND OTHERWISE 



Fistulina hepatica. Fr. 



The Liver Fungus. Edibee. 



This is a beautiful plant, quite common where there are chestnut stumps and 

 trees. I have found it on chestnut oak, quite large specimens, too. It is one of my 

 favorite mushrooms ; one cannot afford to pass it by. Its beautiful color will 

 attract attention at once, and having once eaten it well prepared, one will never 

 pass a chestnut stump without examining it. 



Figure 317. Fistulina hepatica. One-half natural size. 



The pileus is fan-shaped or semicircular, red-juicy, flesh when cut somewhat 

 mottled like beet-root and giving forth a very appetizing odor ; the cap is moist 

 and somewhat viscid, the color varying from a red (somewhat beefy) to a 

 reddish-brown in older plants ; while the spore surface varies from strawberry- 

 pink through a light- and dark-tan to an almost chestnut-brown. 



In young plants the color is much richer and more vivid than in those of 

 greater maturity. The spore surface resembles nothing so much as a very fine 

 sponge, the spore-tubes being short, crowded, yet distinct. 



The marked peculiarity of its mode of growth is in the attachment of the stem ; 

 somewhat thick, fleshy, and juicy, coming from the side of the pileus like the 

 handle of a fan, it looks as if some one had taken hold of the cap and given 

 it a partial twist to the tight or to the left, as may he seen in Figure 317. 

 Vnother peculiarity 1 have noticed in this species consists of the nerve-like lines, 



