37 



factory, it was called "Kalbs Roulade Morscliel Sauce." For 

 myself I may say that I am very fond of the morel, and have 

 eaten them cooked in various ways, and especially according to 

 the recipes of Mr. Cooke.f 



Some of the best I have met with were found in Oakley Park, 

 Cirencester, where, year after year, I got a supply from beneath 

 a cluster of fir trees. "Whether they grew after the burning of 

 wood, in the German fashion, I am unable to say. 



I meet with every year on a sandy hedge-bank at Bradford 

 Abbas, and for some years the specimens were as near as may 

 be of the size I have figured it, but last year, on the same hedge 

 bank and this year the same some enormous specimens have 

 been found, and, upon sending a sketch to Mr. Worthington 

 Smith, he concluded that it was an example of Morcliella 

 crassipes, Persoon, and he sent me a tracing of one he had 

 figured under this name in the " Journal of Botany," vol. vi., 

 1868. 



I have since had large and smaller specimens, i.e., the 

 M. esculenta and M. crassipes forms sent to me by the Rev. B. 

 Messiter from Caundle Marsh, and last year and to-day by C. 

 W. Dale, Esq., from Grlanvilles Wootton, and have partaken of 

 their them both in the large and small state, and canpronounce 

 qualities as being much on a par, the quality depending more 

 upon the condition in which the fungus is obtained than upon 

 its size ; it, anyhow, in as far" as a satisfactory result of fungus 

 as food is concerned, will depend more or less upon the cook. 



From these remarks, then, we cannot admit the two species, 

 M. esculenta and E. crassipes, but incline to the opinion that the 

 latter is but a large specimen of the former. 



Anyhow, I recommend these fungi as a luxury they are 

 agreeable and wholesome highly digestible, and nutritious. 

 Where known, as on the Continent and in good houses 

 in England, they are understood and appreciated, 

 though we can well understand that under the name of " Toad- 

 stools and Cankeroons" they are destroyed by rustics as though, 



fSee a plain and easy Account of British Fungi, p. 187. 



