34 Notes on Fungi. 



fied on the subject. Variable as it is in colour, form, size, and 

 sculpture, the peculiar pink gills, and the tendency to be pink 

 when bruised if any change takes place, are in general dis- 

 tinctive characteristics. Many varieties of this occur both in 

 the field and under cultivation, and it is a mistake to suppose 

 that the brown pilose form is the only one that occurs in arti- 

 ficial beds. Several varieties were figured some years since in 

 the Gardeners' Chronicle, and one at least, from its prolific 

 nature, would have been an acquisition could it have been kept 

 distinct.* The artificial formation of mushroom spawn was 

 once considered a great mystery, and a powerful argument 

 in favour of spontaneous generation, but the key to the mystery 

 has been given above. At Belvoir Castle, where there is a 

 great riding- school, the comminuted straw, which is collected 

 from the pavement, when heaped up and occasionally turned, is 

 used with complete success for the growth of mushrooms, with- 

 out any artificial spawn. The stove mushroom, which is cul- 

 tivated in enormous quantities in the catacombs at Paris, is 

 almost the only one which is admitted into the Paris markets. 

 A mode of cultivating the mushroom from the spores, by making 

 them vegetate on glass under the influence of saltpetre, and 

 then removing the young brood into artificial beds, was, a few 

 years since, much talked of at Paris, and raised great expecta- 

 tions from the quickness of growth and the size of the sup- 

 posed produce. The whole, however, came to nothing. 



Mushrooms are subject to disease like other plants when 

 cultivated. Not only do they become deformed without any 

 apparent reason, but they are sometimes attacked by a minute 

 fungus belonging to the genus Hypomyces, which obliterates the 

 gills altogether, and entirely alters the texture. It would not 

 be safe to consume such individuals, even in an early stage of 

 growth without great caution, supposing their aroma not to be 

 affected. It is scarcely necessary to add that such maladies 

 are quite beyond control. In one instance, instead of mush- 

 rooms, a crop of shapeless dark bodies appeared, one of which, 

 when coaxed into its complete development, proved to be an 

 undescribed fungus of the genus Xylaria. A figure of this 

 has lately been published in the Transactions of the IAnncean 

 Society. 



It is not easy to conceive why such a prejudice against 

 A. campestris should exist in Italy. If the supposed cases of 

 poisoning are really due to the species, and not to something 

 mixed with it, which has sometimes happened in this country, 

 ve can only imagine that a larger quantity of amanitine is 



* Some spawn which, was prepared at Belvoir and sent to rne by Mr. Ingram, 

 produced exclusively a long stalked, pure white, nearly smooth variety of excellent 

 quality. 



