INTRODUCTION 25 



plies to several edible species, but equally to the poi- 

 sonous. 



The notion that edible mushrooms have solid stem,s 

 (5) would be a very unsafe talisman for us to take 

 to the woods in our search for fungus- 

 Worthless food. Many poisonous species are thus 

 popular tests solid — the emetic Russula, for example 

 — while the alleged importance of the 

 morning specim-ens (6) is without the slightest foun- 

 dation. 



The passage quoted here (7), or a statement to the 

 same effect, was quite widely circulated in the news- 

 papers a dozen or more years ago, in an article which 

 bore all the indications of authoritative utterance, 

 the assumption being that the poisonous mushroom 

 would invariably give some forbidding token to the 

 senses by which it might be discriminated. 



Woe to the fungus epicure who should sample his 

 mushrooms and toadstools on such a criterion as this, 

 as the m.ost fatal of all mushrooms, the Amanita ver- 

 nus, would fulfil all these requisites. 



The discoloration of silver (8) is a test as old as 

 Pliny at least, a world-wide popular touchstone for the 

 detection of deleterious fungi, but useful only in the 

 fact that it will often exclude a poison not contem- 

 plated in the discrimination. On this point, especially 

 as it affords opportunity to emphasize a common dis- 

 appointment of the mushroom-eater, I quote from a 

 recent work by Julius A. Palmer (see Bibliography, 

 No. 3): " Mushrooms decay very rapidly. In a short 

 time a fair, solid fungus becomes a mass of mag- 

 gots which eat its tissue until its substance is honey- 



