Bibliographical Notice. 379 



The great object of Dr. Valenti-Serini, which has instigated his 

 labours and stimulated him to persevere in them, has been to avert 

 the sufferings occasioned by using these deleterious cryptogams as 

 articles of food. Although in our islands fungi are by no means so 

 commonly and so indiscriminately eaten, it is reported that the 

 Society of Arts is making efforts to show that, with some exceptions 

 which are easily identified, most of the fungi of England are safe 

 articles of diet ; so that it seems likely their use may be extended. 

 Those who may be induced to consult this excellent work of an 

 Italian physician, of great and long-continued knowledge and ex- 

 perience, will not be at all encouraged in this view with respect to 

 fungi said to be sanctioned by the Society of Arts. Indeed it may 

 be safely asserted that, except in the case of the well-known and 

 very distinct species universally found to be edible and wholesome, 

 they will receive at Dr. Yalenti-Serini's hands every kind of dis- 

 couragement. 



This is not, perhaps, the proper place in which to dweU upon 

 this momentous hygienic question ; nevertheless it seems desirable to 

 state some of the results obtained by Italian botanists. Dr. Yalenti- 

 Serini goes so far as to say that such are the changes these plants 

 undergo in their brief existence, and such the slight and fleeting- 

 nature of the peculiarities which distinguish one species from another, 

 that it is often exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to discriminate 

 the poisonous from the wholesome. And Dr. Garbiglietti states that 

 circumstances influencing the vegetation (such as soil and season), he 

 considers, may impart poisonous properties to fungi usually regarded 

 as edible. This may in some measure account for the diversity of 

 opinions held with regard to the qualities of one and the same spe- 

 cies in different countries. Agaricus necator may be taken as one 

 example. Dr. Yalenti-Serini takes the names of necator and tor- 

 minoswn as in themselves suspicious ; and Bulliard, Schaeffer, Roques, 

 and Larber call it poisonous. Still Letteillier says he has eaten it 

 without detriment ; and Yenturi states that in his province of Brescia 

 it is eaten ; yet it must be confessed that it is there the custom to 

 boil it in a large quantity of water, when it is quite innocent. It 

 should be known that the boiling of poisonous species and other 

 modes of cooking deprive them of their poisonous qualities, which 

 are probably volatile. If, as the author conjectures, these essentially 

 consist in the presence of pnissic acid, the fugacious nature of the 

 poison may be readily conceived. Boletus chryseutliereon, the sub- 

 ject of plate 53, is declared by Cordier to be innocent ; but both 

 Roques and Paulet prohibit the use of it. 



Every fungus is produced from a spore, as every plant is derived 

 from a seed. The aerial portion, which is commonly called the 

 fungus, is not a plant, properly speaking, but a more or less com- 

 pound fruit, formed of many parts. 



After a comprehensive and learned introduction, in which most 

 questions of interest relating to fungi are briefly discussed, the au- 

 thor passes to a description of the species and varieties which are 



