286 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [SEPTEMBER 
availability of these plants as subjects for nature study and in the desire to 
add to the dietary a wholesome and palatable food growing without cultivation 
in forest and field. Here it is almost totally wasted as an article of food, 
because the comparatively small number of poisonous species cannot be 
distinguished from the many edible ones, for lack of the elementary knowledge 
necessary to recognize the more common forms. For this reason, and particu- 
larly at this time when there is a worthy desire to conserve every available item 
of food, nutritious or appetizing, it is gratifying that public institutions devoted 
to research and to the dissemination of useful information are recognizing the 
growing demand for popular instruction in the identification of edible and 
poisonous mushrooms. 
One of the most recent pamphlets =o to this subject is from the 
Illinois State Laboratory of Natural Histo There is an introductory 
chapter treating in a simple and clear manner ae the nature, structure, life- 
Dp 
described and illustrated by photographs. The arrangement of descriptive 
text and illustrations is such as to make the work very convenient for practical 
use by the amateur, and it is to be hoped that the effort of the author will 
succeed in a further stimulating interest in this group of fungi, often despised 
under the name of “musheroons,” and in leading its users to the desired 
knowledge of a satisfactory number of edible and poisonous kinds. Following 
the introductory chapter, two pages generally are devoted to a single species, 
one page to the descriptive text, and the opposite page to the photograph. As 
one reads the text the eye easily turns to the photograph in which most of the 
specific features can be verified 
he photographs are in general good, for many of the specific as well as the 
generic ne siieton as baw in pede To the reviewer, however, they 
seem to lack th hould be obtained from these plants. 
Whether this is due in all cases to a lack of care in the original photographs, or 
to faulty reproduction, is uncertain. The background in a number of cases is 
unnecessarily spotted, and in general the photographs appear ‘‘flat”’ and not 
well shaded. It is perhaps a matter of taste in which there may be reasonable 
differences of opinion, but it would appear preferable that the scale in the photo- 
graph should not occupy such an obtrusive position as it does in covering up 
parts of the plants, when it would serve as good a purpose if placed by the side. 
It appears that a few of the plants are not correctly named. For example, 
pl. 137 does not appear to be Clavaria cristata; pl. 119 is probably all Craterellus 
cantharellus; pl. 113 does not resemble Pholiota squarrosa, but rather a Hypho- 
loma, related we or identical with H. lachrymabundum. ‘The omission of Ama- 
nita ‘‘muscaria”’,a bi, poisonous species of wide distribution, should be noted. 
—GEo. F. ATKINSO 
§ McDovcatt, W. B., Some edible and poisonous mushrooms. III. State Lab. 
Nat. Hist. Bull. 11:413-551. pls. 85-143. 1917. 
