Cheesman : Jew's Ears Pie and other Dainties. 275 



The Morel {Morchella esculenta) is a rare fungus in this 

 district, but I occasionally have a dish sent to me from Par- 

 ling-ton Park by a woodman who tells me they readily fetch 

 half a crown a pound at Leeds. Some time ago I examined 

 under the microscope a drop of ' commercial ' ketchup and found 

 it consisted almost entirely of the spores of a Copri7ius, probably 

 C. comatus, certainly not Agaricus campestris or A. arvensis. 



The Helvellas {Helvetia crispa and H lacunosa) and Hydnam 

 repandum, all well-known edible fungi, are only found sparingly 

 here, and it is many years since I tasted them cooked ; but they 

 make an agreeable bonne bouche during- a long- tramp on a 

 fungus foray, when the sandwich-box is empty and the flask 

 is dry. 



If anyone has the courage to ask his cook to prepare a 

 breakfast dish of young puff-balls (all species are good) they 

 will be found equal to button Mushrooms, only they must be 

 young and slice up white ; when brownish and old, and when 

 the spores are formed, they acquire a musty flavour. 



I have tried a mixed dish of Clavariei (club and coral-shaped 

 fungi), with the result that I have great faith in the possibilities 

 of the whole family as a food product. 



As Nature has with such a lavish hand scattered fungi over 

 our land, and indeed over all our globe, it seems a pity that our 

 knowledge of the edible properties of fungi is so scanty and 

 uncertain. It is true there is no royal road to the discrimination 

 of the esculent from the poisonous species ; but, as we find 

 amongst the Phanerogams Orders like Ranunculacece, Papa- 

 veracece, Umbelliferce , Solanacece, Scrophularinece , Euphorbiacece , 

 etc., containing some distinctly poisonous species, and nearly all 

 the species of those orders of a suspicious character, so we 

 find other natural orders like Crnciferce, Rosacece, Composite?, 

 Boraginece, producing species none of which are poisonous, but 

 all innocuous, and many valuable as food plants. Cannot in 

 like manner the fungi be divided into Divisions, Orders, 

 Families, or at least Genera having poisonous or non-poisonous 

 properties ? Of the former we have Amanita, Russula, Boletus, 

 etc., and of the latter the genera Psalliota, Coprimis, MarasmiuSj 

 Hydnum, Fisiulina, Hirneola, Tuber, Morchella, Helvetia, etc., 

 and the Orders Clavariei, Trichogastres , etc. 



May I suggest to the Chairman and Secretary of our M wo- 

 logical Committee of research that this branch of economic 

 botany be considered at the next Fungus Foray, which lakes 

 place at Arncliff, near Whitby, in September.. 



1902 September i. 



