EDIBLE FUNGI 



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Free- cap Morel : Morchella semilibera (Persoon). 



This is a smaller species, with a longer stern and a conical cap, free 

 from the stem at its base, so as to be more like a pointed cap or hood. It 

 is equally good, and is found at the same period of the year, but with us 

 is not so common. 



Smith's Morel : Morchella Smithiana (Cooke). 



This is the largest species, and apparently has only been found hitherto 

 in this country. It attains as much as a foot in height and seven inches 

 in diameter. The cap or head is nearly globose, of a warm tawny colour, 

 sculptured with large deep pits. It need hardly be added that it forms 

 a most delicious article of food. 



Other British species need not to be enumerated, as they are com- 

 paratively rare. 



(19) Morel Substitutes. 



We possess in our native woods two or three excellent substitutes for 

 the Morel, both in flavour and facility for preservation, which might well 

 be commended if they could be obtained in any quantity. Unfortunately 

 the species of Helvella, to which we allude, are scattered in numbers, and 

 only two or three specimens vvill perhaps be met with during a stroll in 

 the woods. They have this advantage, however, that they can always be 

 gathered and hung up to dry, and thus preserved for winter use. In 

 flavour they are hardly to be distinguished from the Morel, and they are 

 autumnal species, whereas all the Morels are vernal. The dark grey 

 Helvella (H. lacunosa) seems to be more gregarious in its habits than the 

 white Helvella (H. crispa), although perhaps not quite so delicate. Of 

 this species we have in some years collected fully fifty specimens during 

 an afternoon stroll in Monk's Wood, Epping Forest, within an area of a 

 few score yards, but the white kind is rarely met with except in single 

 specimens (fig. 158). 



(20) Great Puffball : Lycoperdon bovista (Linnaeus). 



No enumeration of the best and most popular of edible Fungi could be 

 complete without the addition of the Puffball, and yet it is nothing like 

 the Mushroom either in form, structure, or flavour, but in all these 

 features it is a phenomenon by itself. As to form it is almost globose, 

 often as large as a man's head and sometimes larger ; but, although we 

 have seen them a foot in diameter, never so large as a recumbent sheep 

 as reported from North America. The surface is of a creamy whiteness 

 when fresh, and smooth and soft as a kid glove. In structure it has no 

 gills or pores, but the whole interior is a spore-bearing mass. In the 

 edible condition, when cut through, it is wholly of the same colour as 

 externally, moist, juicy, and firm, so that it may be sliced like a Turnip. 

 After a time it becomes yellowish, then greenish, and at last snuffy brown, 



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