9ft 



CHAPTER X. 



THE COMMON MUSHROOMS. 



Agaricus campestris (True Meadow Mushroom). 



THE common meadow mushroom varies considerably, 

 but, " common to all are a fleshy pileus, which is some- 

 times smooth, sometimes scaly, in colour white, or of 

 different shades of tawny, fuliginous, or brown ; gills free, 

 at first pallid, then flesh-coloured, then pink, next purple, 

 at length tawny-black ; the stem white, full, firm, varying 

 in shape, furnished with a white persistent ring; the 

 spores brown-black, and a volva which is very fugacious." 

 Badham's Esculent Funguses of England. 



There is scarcely any one in England who does not 

 feel himself competent to decide on the genuineness of a 

 mushroom; its pin> gills easily distinguish it from a 

 kindred fungus, Ag. arvensis, the gills of which are of a 

 flesh-coloured grey, and out of the pickings often thousand 

 hands, a mistake is of rare occurrence ; and yet no fuDgus 

 presents itself under such a variety of forms, or such sin- 

 gular diversities of aspect ! The inference is plain ; less 

 discrimination than that employed to distinguish this 

 would enable anyone who should take the trouble to re- 



