44 
NATURE STUDY. 
circled by a more or less perfect ring of membranous texture at 
a point a little below the lower edge of the cap. Sometimes 
this little ring is free from the stem and movable upon it. In 
old age the cap loses its egg-shape, cracks and becomes ragged 
and at length begins to be turned upward, while its edges drip 
with the ink from its liquifying gills. 
Coprinus comatus is common and is considered one of our 
best edible species and indeed one need have no fear of any 
Coprinus for no poisonous species is known. 
In the preparation of Coprinus it is recommended that the 
fungi be cooked with salt, pepper and butter, in a covered pan, 
over a slow fire for twenty five minutes and then served on 
toast. They are best when young, being far from tempting as 
food in their mature, inky condition. 
In our open woods through the Summer and Fall, appear the 
many hued, symmetrical caps of the mushrooms of the genus 
Russula. They are clean looking, attractive fungi and deserv¬ 
edly enjoy a good reputation as esculents. They are noticea¬ 
ble for their peculiarly brittle texture and exhibit none of the 
woody and leathery consistency noticed in many fungi. In 
color the gills, the flesh of the cap and the stem are ordinarily 
pure white or yellowish, but the upper surfaces of the caps of 
the various species exhibit a wide variety of tints including red, 
purple, yellow and green. They show no signs of any veil 
about the gill surface or of any ring about the stem. They 
have short, stout, brittle stems, filled with a spongy matter with¬ 
in. In the young state most russulae have somewhat hemis¬ 
pherical or globose caps which usually become flattened with 
advancing age gnd finally the edges curve upward somewhat 
cracked, leaving the center of the cap considerably depressed) 
and exposing the gill surface to view from above. 
Russula Virescens or Greenish Russula (Fig. 6) is a good 
representative of the genus, is not uncommon and is a good edi¬ 
ble species. The surface of the cap is distinctly greenish, some¬ 
times a bright bluish-green but more often of a more obscure or 
grayish green and sometimes verging toward brown but usually 
