154 EDIBLE MUSHROOMS 



yellow or buff, smooth in the younger specimens, be- 

 coming disfigured by spots and fissures with age. 

 The flesh is white, as also are the gills, though more 

 dingy, becoming tawny- tinted with maturity, when 

 the entire mushroom becomes quite leathery in sub- 

 stance, and might well awaken doubts as to its di- 

 gestibility. The spores are white. 



This fungus is known in some sections as the 

 " Fish Mushroom," referring to its peculiar flavor, the 

 appropriateness of which appellation is suggested in 

 the incident related by Mr. Palmer, and quoted in 

 my last chapter. 



SHAGGY-MANE MUSHROOM 

 Coprinus comatus 



Upon a certain spot on the lawn of one of my 

 neighbors, year after year, without fail, there springs 



up a most singular crop. For the first 

 A plebeian two seasons of its appearance it was 

 toadstool looked upon with curious awe by the 



proprietors of the premises, and usually 

 ignominiously spurned with the foot by the undis- 

 criminating and destructive small boy. One day I 

 observed about five pounds of this fungus delicacy 

 thus scattered piecemeal about the grass, and my 

 protest has since spared the annual crop for my sole 

 benefit. It usually makes its appearance in late 

 September, and continues in intermittent crops until 

 November. A casual observer happening upon a 

 cluster of the young mushrooms might imagine that 

 he beheld a convention of goose eggs standing on 

 end in the grass, their summits spotted with brown. 



