68 Foop PLANTS. 
much used in this country in the manufacture of ketchup. Some 
large makers are said not to be over-careful in the species they 
use ; and that accidents do not oftener happen in consequence may 
be owing to the salt used in the manufacture. This mushroom, 
the only one most people in this country will use, is, very 
curiously, altogether prohibited in the Roman market. The 
chanterelli (Cantharellus cibarius), a beautiful fungus, is eaten and 
much esteemed in all countries where it is found, England alone 
excepted. It is of this fungus that a German mycologist observes 
that “not only did it never do anyone any harm, but that it might — 
even restore the dead.” There is a broad-sheet published contain- 
ing excellent coloured representations of all the British edible 
fungi, but I would again strongly advise everyone, save experts, to 
give the fungi, reputedly wholesome or not, a wide berth, some 
peculiarly noxious ones closely resembling others that are whole- 
some. Oneremarkable fungus (Cytharia Darwinii), of which there 
is a long notice in Charles Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle, is very 
abundant in Terra del Fuego, supplying the Fuegians with their 
only bread. Another of the same genus is used in Chili; and 
Mylitta australis, the Australian “native bread,” is largely used by 
the natives of Australia. Other closely-allied species are also used 
in China both.as food and medicine. 
Many of the algz are eaten. Alavia esculenta, bladder, or 
perhaps, more correctly, balder-locks, which Berkley considers the 
best of all esculent algze when eaten raw, is employed for food in 
Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, and other northern countries. Carra- 
geen, or Irish moss, is, or ought to be, derived from Chondrus 
crispus. It may interest the ladies to know that bandoline, used 
for stiffening the hair, is commonly prepared from carrageen. 
Durvillea utilis is much used for food by the poorer inhabitants of 
the western coast of South America. The fuci, especially vesicu- 
losus, the bladder wrack, is employed in feeding horses and cattle 
in winter in certain Scottish islands. Gelidium correum, a British 
seaweed, is a favourite article of food in Japan. The gracillarias 
are similarly utilized in many parts. The young shoots of lamin- 
aria are eaten in Scotland under the name of tangle. Rhoderrenia 
palmata (dulse) and laurantia pinnah fida (pepper dulse) and 
ulva riphyra are also used with us, but more, perhaps, as 
a relish than as food. Many other alge are eaten all over the 
world. The edible birds’ nests, so highly valued as food in China 
