1896.] ESSAYS. 109 



a socket or cup from which the stem can be readily removed ; some- 

 times it is so ; but often is quite adherent or becomes part of the stem. 



In tlie spring or early summer the Amanita verna is among the first 

 to attract attention in the woods. Later, come other species up to the 

 season of frosts. 



Not all Amanitas contain the alkaloid wliicli is so fatal ; it seems 

 quite clear that a few species are quite harmless ; but it is a safe rule, 

 indeed the only safe rule for beginners, to shun all mushrooins which 

 have the remains of a socket or sheatli at the base, a little veil or riug 

 on the stem, and white spores. 



Now why is it that these Amanitas are so dangerous? While, as I 

 have said, the substance of mushrooms is made up (^f simple minute 

 cells crowded together, when viewed chemically it is chiefly composed 

 of a form of cellulose, in which the proportion of nitrogen is so large 

 as to make it resemble tlesh more closely than most vegetable tissue. 

 I imagine that it is not far out of the way to say that the suhstance of 

 all mushrooms is good food ; it is the added qualities of hardness, of 

 acridity, or pungency, etc., which make them objectionable, just as 

 the special flavors of certain varieties make them particularly delicious 

 and desirable. But besides those added qualities which may be 

 moderately obnoxious to the digestion, there is developed in a few 

 specious a narcotic alkaloid, commonly called Amanitine, because, so 

 far as we know, it is only found in some of the Amanitas. The fact 

 that Amanitas are the only deadly mushrooms has been brought 

 most prominently before the American public by Mr. Julius A. 

 Palmer, who also edited a beautiful, accurate and most useful set of 

 colored plates of the mushrooms of America. I find, however, that 

 Mrs. Husse}' made the same statement in her magnificent work on the 

 English fungi, published forty-nine years ago. Speaking of the Fly 

 Amanita she says. "The poison it contains is that principle called 

 Amanitine, which is not dissipated by cooking, and is the poisonous 

 principle of Agarics (gilled mushrooms) ; other mischiefs arise from 

 acrimony or mere indigestibility and are quite secondary." 



Allow me here to express my indebtedness to the works of Mrs. 

 Hussey, of Mr. Palmer, and of Mr. Gibson, from whose plates very 

 many of my slides have been copied. 



In England and America but one species of fungus out of the many 

 thousand kinds has been cultivated and that is the Agaricus cam- 

 pestris. There are many varieties in cultivation, but all belong to the 

 same species, it is believed. On the continent of Eiu'ope and in Japan 

 a few other species have long been artificially produced. Whether we 



