MUSHROOMS AT ROME. 53 



Funguses to look after the safety of the London lieges ; 

 but the " Ispettore dei Funghi " at Kome is an important 

 functionary, as our readers will perceive from one of his 

 rules for the fungus market : " The stale funguses of 

 the preceding day, as well as those that are mouldy, 

 bruised, filled with maggots, or dangerous, together 

 with any specimen of the common mushroom detected 

 in the baskets, shall be thrown into the Tiber." 



We think a few species of mushrooms the only safe 

 fungi, while at Rome their character is so suspicious 

 that they are under a Papal ban. We have a few 

 things to learn yet, it would appear, not from the Pope 

 alone, but also from the Emperor of China, whose care 

 of " the Flowery Land " is evinced in the yearly gra- 

 tuitous distribution of a six-volume treatise, entitled 

 ' The Anti-Famine Herbal.' It contains descriptions 

 and representations of 515 different plants, whose leaves, 

 rinds, stalks, or roots are fitted to furnish food for the 

 people. Not knowing the language of the Celestial 

 empire, we cannot depone as to the funguses eaten by 

 the omnivorous Chinese ; that their number is legion we 

 doubt not. 



On the authority of Badham we state that the annual 

 revenue of Rome is benefited by the sale of fungi to 

 the amount of at least four thousand pounds sterling. 

 What, then, must be the receipts from funguses through- 

 out all the marketplaces of all the Italian states ! 



We shall indicate a few British species with which it 

 will be for their advantage that our readers make them- 

 selves acquainted. Agaricus prunulus, growing in rings 

 about the same time in spring, not in autumn, like 

 most fungi, is generally destroyed by the British farmer, 

 as injurious to his grass crops. In the Roman market 

 it easily fetches 15d. a pound, and is sent in little bas- 

 kets as presents to patrons, fees to medical men, and 

 bribes to lawyers. Tolerable proof this of its edible 

 value ! Badham places it first in his series of plates, 

 as the most savoury fungus with which he is acquainted. 



