1 88 [Proc. B. N. F. C, 



down the forests in great tracts on account of burnt soil pro- 

 ducing large crops, until a law was passed to put an end to so 

 ruinous a practice. 7. Hymenomycetes, or naked fungi, includes 

 the largest-sized and most useful and numerous species. In 

 them the spore-bearing part called the hymenium is the most 

 prominent object. The plant in this class consists of a stem 

 and cap. The mushroom has no root ; under the cap are gills, 

 tubes, pores, and spines that bear the spores. One of the sub- 

 orders, Agaricus, contains at least a thousand species, of which 

 two hundred are edible. If the soil at base of the stem of a 

 mushroom is carefully laid bare, a number of entangled threads 

 like a cobweb are seen : this is the mycelium or branches of the 

 plant. At certain points a little rounded protuberence at first 

 appears, which as it enlarges ruptures, and the young mushroom 

 may be seen with its cap and stem. The membrane which at first 

 enclosed the young mushroom is termed the volva or wrapper, 

 portions of which often remain permanently at the base of the 

 stem ; as the cap grows, its under surface ruptures, leaving in 

 many species a portion attached to the stem in the form of a 

 collar ; this exposes a series of plates like gills, called lamellae, 

 radiating from the stem ; these gills are covered with the fruc- 

 tifying surface which carries the spores. Our word mushroom 

 is derived from the French mucheron^ or mosseron^ given to the 

 St. George's mushroom, which is so highly esteemed in France 

 and Italy, that when dried it sells at i2s to 15s per lb. There 

 is no other country that can vie with Great Britain and Ireland 

 in the vast numbers of edible fungi that may be gathered from 

 one end of the land to the other during all seasons. Our fields 

 and woods literally teem with them, but they are overlooked, 

 or suspected and avoided. Instead of the one or two species 

 that appear in our markets, there are upwards of fifty which 

 might be easily discriminated, the majority of which are equal, 

 and some superior, to the common mushroom. To see, and to 

 learn the name at the same time, as is done on such an excur- 

 sion as the annual fungus foray into Epping Forest, is the only 

 sure way to distinguish a poisonous from an edible fungus. 



