FIELD BOOK OF COMMON GILLED MUSHROOMS 



from toadstools, the word "toadstools" indicating to them 

 poisonous or harmful species. Many attempts have been 

 made to answer this question and many rules have been 

 formulated by the observance of which, it has been claimed, 

 all difficulty and danger would be avoided. Some of these 

 rules are entirely unreliable and to others there are so many 

 exceptions that they are misleading and practically worthless. 

 The rules vary according to the standpoint of the one pro- 

 posing them. One who considers the common mushroom 

 the only edible species seeks to separate it from all others, and 

 says "avoid all which have white gills and a hollow stem." 

 This rule precludes the use of many mushrooms which are 

 just as good as the one it sustains, and at the same time, it is 

 not definite enough to limit the selection to the one intended. 

 Another, thinking of the delicious lactarius which has an 

 orange-colored juice, says "reject all such as have a white 

 milky juice." This rule forbids the use of several species of 

 lactarius that are no more harmful and scarcely less sapid 

 than the delicious lactarius. Again we are told by some one 

 who has in mind the poisonous amanitas, to "discard all mush- 

 rooms that have a warty cap or a membranous sheath at the 

 bottom of the stem." This would be a very good rule if we 

 might add to it the sentence, unless you know the species to be 

 edible and safe. The orange mushroom, which is deemed an 

 edible species of first quality has a membranous sheath at the 

 base of the stem, and the reddish amanita has a warty cap 

 and yet is not only harmless but very good, so that the rule 

 which would forbid the use of these species excludes more than 

 is necessary. The same may be said of those directions which 

 require the rejection of all mushrooms having a viscid cap or 

 an acrid taste or whose flesh on being broken quickly changes 

 to a blue color. And as to the old-fashioned silver spoon test 

 by which it was thought that a silver spoon thrust among 

 cooking mushrooms would be quickly tarnished if they were 

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