INTRODUCTION 3 1 



quickly as possible. More than one case of supposed 

 mushroom poisoning could be directly traced to care- 

 lessness in this regard, when the species themselves, 

 in their proper condition, had been perfectly whole- 

 some. 



There can be no general rule laid down for the 

 discrimination of an edible fungus. Each must be 

 learned as a species, or at least famil- 

 "^rufHor*' i^"^^*^ ^s a kind, even as we learn to 

 identification recognize certain flowers, trees, or birds. 

 Within a certain range this discrim- 

 ination is practised by the merest child. How are 

 the robin, the chippy, and the swallow recognized, or 

 the red clover, and white clover, and yellow clover? 



Even in the instances of species which bear a very 



close outward similarity, how simple, after all, does 



the distinction become. Here, for in- 



Simple stance, is the wild-lettuce, and its mimic, 

 botanical ' . ' ' 



discrimination the mulgedium, growing side by side — 

 to ninety-nine out of a hundred observ- 

 ers absolutely alike, and apparently the same species. 

 But how readily are they distinguished, I will not say 

 by the botanist merely, but by any one who will take 

 the small pains of contrasting their specific botanical 

 characters — perfectly infallible, no matter how vari- 

 ous the masquerade of their foliage. The lettuce has 

 yellow blossoms, and a seed prolonged into a long 

 beak, to whose tip the feathery pappus is attached. 

 The mulgedium has dull bluish flowers, and its pap- 

 pus is attached to the seed by a hardly perceptible 

 elongation. As with the birds and wild-flowers, so 

 with the fungi: we must learn them as species, even 



