254 INTRODUCTION TO CETPTOQAMIC BOTANY. 



comfort of the peasantry. The mushroom, as said above, occurs 

 in all countries, though differing considerably in size and quality. 

 In Australia there is a variety or allied species which excels 

 the common mushroom in quality, as highly as the finest 

 modern varieties of pease do the old early frame. Spawn of 

 this has been communicated to me, but it was tried in vain. 

 In New Zealand the gelatinous volva of Ileodictyon affords 

 an execrable article of food, which would indeed be used 

 nowhere except under great scarcity of better sustenance. 



2-50. Mylitta Australis, or the native bread of the Austra- 

 lians, is a better article, and when dry in some conditions looks 

 like hard compacted limaps of sago. Gyttaria is quite the 

 staple of the Fuegians during many months of the year, being 

 produced in great abundance on the living twigs of the ever- 

 green beech. It may be proper, ia conclusion, to mention that 

 the Pachyma Cocos or TucJcahoo of the Americans is not a 

 true fungus. It is evidently some state of the roots of some 

 Phasnogam, in which everything is replaced by pectic acid. 

 It affords in consequence an excellent article of food, and may 

 be used like isinglass to make jelly, resembling ia fact the 

 principle of currants and other fruit, to which their property 

 of forming a jelly when boiled is due. 



251. Many fimgi are possessed of deleterious constituents which 

 enter probably into the composition of all, though in the inno- 

 cent species in so small a proportion as to make them harmless. 

 Fatal accidents are by[no means uncommon. The best account 

 perhaps of such an accident is that given by Lenz, an excel- 

 lent writer on esculent and deleterious Fungi, who describes 

 the symptoms which he himself underwent from partaking 

 inadvertently of Boletus Satanas. In a case which happened 

 at Cambridge some years ago, the principal species was Ag. 

 personatus, a species commonly sold in Covent Garden 

 Market under the name Blewits, and similar instances have 

 occurred with species reported wholesome. Dr. Badham has 

 reported a case which did not end fatally from eating Agaricus 

 euosmus by mistake for A. ostreatus. Some species are so 

 extremely tough when cooked, that without any especial 

 poisonous properties, their own indigestible qualities are quite 



