MISCELLANEOUS FUNGI 273 



of a connoisseur: " Sliced and seasoned in butter and 



salt, and fried in the pan, no French omelette is half 



as good in richness and delicacy of 



Esculent flavor." M. C. Cooke, the British au- 



qualities thority, says of it : " In its young and 



pulpy condition it is excellent eating, 



and indeed has but few competitors for the place of 



honor at the table." Other epicurean suggestions 



will be found in a later page. Occasionally in its 



plenitude, especially during August and September, 



single clusters will be found which would afford a 



meal for a large family. 



Other species, more or less frequent, are the Z. 

 separans, whose outer epidermis cracks off in flakes 

 at maturity ; L. cyathiforme, or cup-shaped Lycoper- 

 don, a large species with distinctly purplish smoke 

 so familiar to us all, the final cup -shaped remnant 

 of its case having suggested its name. The larger 

 specimens will be found the more fully flavored. 



There is but one danger which would seem to be 

 possible with reference to the use of the Puff-ball as 

 food within the restrictions already 

 Closing words given, and that is, the remote contin- 

 of caution gency — assumable only on the suppo- 

 sition of most careless observation — of 

 confounding the white ball with the globular condi- 

 tion of the Amanita (see Plate 2, fig. i), or other 

 fungi of the same deadly group, which are similarly 

 enclosed in a spherical volva in their early stages. 



But inasmuch as this spherical period of the Ama- 

 nita is usually spent underground and out of sight, 

 and the merest glance at its contents would at once 



