174 CRYPTOGAMIA FUNGI. 



This is our common mushroom, which for long has been 

 esteemed an article of epicurean delicacy, and is exten- 

 sively used in making ketchup. When it has proved dele- 

 terious to those who eat it, the injury ought rather to be 

 attributed to some peculiar idiosyncrasy of the individual 

 than to any poisonous quality in the mushrooms. We, in- 

 deed, almost annually read of people being poisoned by 

 them, but other agarics .have been in these cases gathered 

 in place of the Ag. campestris. " I have seen," says Dr 

 CHRIST ISDN, " those who gather mushrooms near Edin- 

 burgh for the purpose of making ketchup, picking up 

 every fungus that came in their way." 



" As there is no critical mark to determine at once between 

 poisonous and salutary mushrooms, we may lay it down as 

 a general rule, that those should be suspected and avoided 

 that grow in moist and marshy grounds, and especially in 

 the shade ; that have a dirty looking surface, and whose 

 gills are soft, moist, and porous." Dr GOOD. " It ap- 

 pears that most fungi which have a warty cap, more espe- 

 cially fragments of membrane adhering to their upper 

 surface, are poisonous. Heavy fungi, which have an un- 

 pleasant odour, especially if they emerge from a vulva or 

 bag, are also generally hurtful. Of those which grow in 

 woods and shady places, a few are esculent, but most are 

 unwholesome; and if they are moist on the surface they 

 should be avoided. All those which grow in tufts or clus- 

 ters from the trunks or stumps of trees ought likewise to 

 be shunned. A sure test of a poisonous fungus is an 

 astringent, styptic taste, and perhaps also a disagreeable, 

 but certainly a pungent odour. Some fungi possessing 

 these properties have indeed found their way to the epi- 

 cure's table, but they are of very questionable quality. 

 Those whose substance becomes blue soon after being cut 

 are invariably poisonous. Agarics of an orange or rose- 

 red colour, and boleti which are coriaceous or corky in 

 texture, or which have a membranous collar round the 

 stem, are also unsafe: but these rules are not universally 

 applicable in other genera. Even the esculent mushrooms, 

 if they are partially devoured by insects, and have been 

 abandoned, should be avoided, as they have in all proba- 

 bility acquired injurious qualities which they do not usually 

 possess. These rules for knowing deleterious fungi seem 

 to rest on fact and experience, but they will not enable 

 the collector to recognise every poisonous species." Dr 

 CHRISTISON. 



' ' The meadow mushrooms are in kinde the best, 



It is ill trusting any of the rest." 



