MUSHROOMS, EDIBLE AXD POISONOUS. 171 



gather mushrooms in safety? There is but one way — we must 

 learn to know them; that is, we must learn to iinow at sight certain 

 edible mushrooms, and in the same way learn to know the poison- 

 ous species ; there is no other way to pluck the flower safety 

 from the nettle danger. This knowledge is not so difficult of 

 acquisition as it seems ; it is much easier than it was a few years 

 ago. In recent years upwards of two hundred species of mush- 

 rooms have been tested, identified, and branded for all time and 

 for all climates as edible, but perhaps the most notable service in 

 this direction is the running to earth of the archenemy of all, the 

 " deadly Amanita." To this species all the fatal results of 

 mushroom poisoning are traced ; it follows that if we can banish 

 this species from our diet comparative safety is assured. It is due 

 to Capt. Julius A. Palmer. Jr., to say that this segregation of the 

 Amanita as the one cause of all mushroom poisoning has been for 

 many years the burden of his speech and writings upon mush- 

 rooms ; we owe much to him that it is now generally admitted 

 that the Amanita is the one particular genus to be avoided, tracing 

 to it most, of the fatalities. This has come, too, not only from 

 tracing to this species most of the cases of mushroom poisoning, 

 but from failure to trace such fatalities to other species. This is 

 not to say that all other mushrooms are edible ; there are others 

 that will be injurious, and others unfit for food ; therefore it 

 remains that those which are edible must also be learned '' by 

 heart," as we used to say in school ; that is, to be known at sight. 

 It would seem that if we have learned to know the Amanita, half 

 our battle with ignorance is already won, and we are on the road 

 to safety in gathering mushrooms. Let us see what progress we 

 can make in this knowledge today and now. 



Before turning to the photographs as aids in identifying the 

 various species of mushrooms both edible and poisonous, let me 

 recall the principal divisions of fungi which are to furnish this 

 abundant food product of the twentieth century. There are the 

 mushrooms with gills, laminae, or plates, the most abundant and 

 common form being the Agarici, known to all ; mushrooms with 

 pores on the under surface, the Boleti and Polyporae ; mushrooms 

 with spines ; and the miscellaneous, such as the Puffballs and 

 Coral mushrooms. The Amanita belongs to the first class, the 

 Agarici ; it follows therefore that in the other species we are free 

 from its dangers, thouah we shall have still to learn which of the 



