55 



from y?, inch to 2 inches wide, fleshy, convex to flat, smooth. 

 Flesh white or with a slight shade of lemon. The gills are at- 

 tached to stem (adnate), but separate easily, are broad and close 

 together, and of a purplish-slate color when mature and covered 

 by the spores, though light colored before the spores darken 

 them. 



The Chestnut-Colored Boletus. 



(Boletus Clintonianus}. Plate VII. 



On referring to the plate, it will be seen that this plant is radi- 

 cally different, when viewed from below, from any of the mush- 

 rooms so far described. While all of the previous kinds had gills 

 radiating from the center to the circumference, these have pores 

 scattered irregularly over the lower surface of the cap, or in one 

 genus radially arranged though definite pores. Still this distinc- 

 tion is more apparent than real, for some of the Agaricacese have 

 gills approaching pores, while some of the Polyporaceae, to which 

 belongs the Boletus, have the pores radially arranged and longer 

 than wide, thus approaching the first family. Both have "basid- 

 ia", with the "spores" placed on "sterigmata", and accompanied 

 by sterile bodies called "cistidia". 



The Boleti give us probably more edible and at the same time 

 larger mushrooms than any other genus. Prof. Peck, who has 

 made an exhaustive study of this genus, enumerates about 120 

 species in America, the greater part of which are edible, though 

 some are intensely bitter, and a few are poisonous. Though 

 the poisonous species are mainly limited to species possessing red 

 mouths to the tubes, there are some intensely bitter and even sus- 

 picious kinds outside of this section of Luridi, as it is called; so 

 it best to test each individual carefully by the rules laid down 

 previously. This has been my method of procedure with this 

 species and with others, and I have found that when I collected 

 the caps of this Boletus, cleaned them carefully and removed the 

 tubes (which cook slimy), it is very fine fried or broiled. This is 



