158 BRITISH EDIBLE FUNGI. 



weeks or a month you will find mycelium on the 

 surface of each pot ; about three weeks afterwards it 

 disappears. There is no occasion to be alarmed, for 

 five weeks after its disappearance you will find on all 

 your pots hundreds of morels of the size of pins' 

 heads ; you have then only to give frequent sprink- 

 lings with soft water. The most suitable temperature 

 is 47° F. at the beginning of the culture, and 50° to- 

 wards its close. 



In the autumn two or three excellent substitutes 

 for the morel may be found not uncommonly in our 

 woods. We have witnessed them by scores in Epping 

 Forest, growing undisturbed, for hundreds of Bank 

 Holiday visitors have not the remotest idea of their 

 gastronomic value. The white helvella {Helvetia 

 crispd) is two or three inches high, almost entirely 

 white, with a fluted, irregular stem, more than half an 

 inch thick, and a twisted, contorted cap, smooth on 

 both sides, not much thicker than brown paper, and 

 about two inches across. No description would give 

 so good an idea of its appearance as a figure (plate 12, 

 fig. 42), for it would be difficult to describe the con- 

 volutions of its flexile cap. For the benefit of the 

 botanical student we may add that it is allied to the 

 true morels, and has its spores contained in asci, 

 packed side by side in the flesh of the upper surface 

 of the cap. It is amusing sometimes, when the spores 

 are ripe, to see them jerked out in little white clouds 

 from the surface of the cap, either under the influence 



