THE MUSHROOM BOOK 
CHAPTER I: THE HOMES AND HABITS 
OF FUNGI 
For centuries epicures have used certain fungi for food. 
The Greeks and Romans esteemed them highly, and gave a great 
deal of consideration to favourable times and places for gathering 
them, and to choice methods of preparing them for the table. 
Juvenal tells us of one old Roman enthusiast who was so carried 
away by his love for them as to exclaim, ‘‘Keep your corn, O 
Libya, unyoke your oxen, provided only you send us mush- 
rooms!” Horace says that mushrooms which grow in the fields 
are the best, and that one can have but little faith in other kinds. 
Mushroom eaters of the present day would perhaps not agree 
with him, for they find edible species in every imaginable place 
where fungi grow, and are constantly adding to their list new 
varieties which they esteem delicious. 
Although for centuries it has been known that some fungi 
contain most virulent poisons, still, through ignorance of those 
points which distinguish the poisonous from the edible, frequent 
cases of poisoning occur in all classes of society. The mistakes 
resulting in death have been frequent enough to inspire the timid 
with an overpowering dread of all fungi, while the damp and 
grewsome places in which many fungi flourish have caused them 
to be despised by others. The following lines from Shelley very 
aptly express the general sentiment : 
“¢ And plants, at whose names the verse feels loath, 
Fill’d the place with a monstrous undergrowth, 
Prickly and pulpous, and blistering and blue, 
Livid, and starr’d with a lurid dew. 
I 
