222 EDIBLE FUNGI. 



thickness of the thumb, and very fat ; and though disgusting to the 

 sight, are regularly sold and considered a delicious treat. They are 

 dressed by frying in a pan with salt and butter, or by roasting them 

 on a skewer. They are said to partake of all the spices of India in 

 taste. 



THE CANE THEE of S. America is a valuable and curious tree, from 

 which the natives of the Cordilleras obtain a supply of rich milk. It 

 grows beside dry rocks and on dry rocky soil. Not a shower during 

 many months of the year, moistens its foliage, and its branches appear 

 withered ; but from its stems, when pierced, flows a sweet and nutri- 

 tious milk, most abundant at early dawn, affording a plentiful aliment 

 to the natives and slaves, who gather around it with wooden dishes to 

 catch the wholesome beverage. An abundant rneal is made at the 

 tree, or the overflowing vessels are taken home to supply the families. 



EDIBLE FUNGI. 



All the fungous plants belong to the 24th class of Linnaeus, and con- 

 stitute the cryptogamous plants. Many of these are the most re- 

 markable productions of the vegetable kingdom. Their peculiar or- 

 ganization and functions have given rise to much discussion among 

 physiologists and botanists. By some they are classed with animals, 

 and by others with minerals ; others, again, would exclude them from 

 both these and the vegetable kingdoms, and give them an intermediate 

 place. But they are now generally believed to be vegetable produc- 

 tions ; and although they yield, when analyzed, the odor and ele- 

 ments of animal matter, they have the habits of vegetables. These 

 elements, it might be supposed, from their analogy with those com- 

 posing animals, should be wholesome and nutritive, but they are sin- 

 gularly the reverse from this, and are, withal, the most indigestible of 

 food. All of them, in certain situations, are poisonous, and but few 

 are edible under particular circumstances. A remarkable difference 

 also exists between them and most other poisonous plants, as their 

 poison is not dissipated by boiling or distillation. 



Another peculiarity of these plants is that they are the common at- 

 tendants of animal and vegetable decomposition, as witnessed in the 

 diseases of grains, &c. Their minute seeds, undetected even by the 

 microscrope, infest the fluids and vessels, and perhaps the solids of 

 animals and plants, and start into activity the moment the vital prin- 

 ciple ceases. These, consequently, abound in low marshy and shady 

 places, where vegetation is most luxuriant, and especially in autumn, 

 when vegetables are in a state of decay, and during rainy weather. 



But notwithstanding the poisonous character of these plants gener- 

 ally, some are edible, and are even considered by some an article of 

 great luxury. The taste, however, which dictates their consumption 



