Chapter I: Part 1

THE ESCULENT FUNGUSES OF ENGLAND.

A TREATISE
ON THE
ESCULENT FUNGUSES
OF
ENGLAND,

CONTAINING

AN ACCOUNT OF THEIR CLASSICAL HISTORY, USES, CHARACTERS,
DEVELOPMENT, STRUCTURE, NUTRITIOUS PROPERTIES,
MODES OF COOKING AND PRESERVING, ETC.

BY
CHARLES DAVID BADHAM, M.D.

EDITED BY FREDERICK CURREY, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S.

Πολλὰ μὲν ἔσθλά μεμιγμένα πολλὰ δὲ λυγρά.—HOMER.

LONDON:
LOVELL REEVE & CO., HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
1863.

PRINTED BY
JOHN EDWARD TAYLOR, LITTLE QUEEN STREET,
LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

My lamented friend Dr. Badham having died since the first publication of this work, my advice was asked upon the subject of the preparation of a new edition. It was wished that the text of the work should be altered as little as possible, and that the price of the book should be materially lessened. The latter object could not be effected without reducing the number of the Plates; but it appeared to me that some plates relating to details of structure might very well be omitted, as well as the figures of a few Italian species which, although interesting in themselves, are quite unnecessary in a book on British Esculent Fungi. With the exception of the omission of the description of these latter species, and the addition of the description of two other species hereafter referred to, the alterations in the text are too trifling to require notice. With regard to the Figures in this edition, most of them are those of the former plates, somewhat reduced; a few have been taken from the plates of Mr. Berkeley’s ‘Outlines of British Fungology,’ and a few from original and other sources.

By a re-arrangement of the whole, the reduction in the number of the Plates has been effected, and, at the same time, figures of all the Fungi represented in the first edition have been given, as well as of two other species not there noticed. I should observe, however, that by a mistake of the artist an extra figure of the Horse Mushroom has been inserted in Plate IV. instead of one of the Common Mushroom.

The two species above alluded to which were not figured in the first edition, are _Tuber æstivum_ and _Helvella esculenta_. The former must have been inadvertently omitted by Dr. Badham, as it has long been known as abundant in certain parts of England. _Helvella esculenta_, although alluded to by Dr. Badham, was not at that time known to be a British species. It has since been observed near Weybridge in Surrey, where it occurs almost every spring. The plant figured in Pl. XV. fig. 6 of the first edition under the name of _Lycoperdon plumbeum_, is not that species, but _Lycoperdon pyriforme_; it will be found at Pl. VIII. fig. 5. Dr. Badham states that all puff-balls are esculent, but, judging from the smell of _Lycoperdon pyriforme_, I should much doubt whether it would make an agreeable dish. _Lycoperdon plumbeum_ is now better known as _Bovista plumbea_, and _Lycoperdon Bovista_ as _Lycoperdon giganteum_.

There is some confusion about the synonymy of the plants described by Dr. Badham as _Agaricus prunulus_ and _Ag. exquisitus_. It is unnecessary to discuss the matter here, and I have thought it not desirable under the circumstances to alter Dr. Badham’s nomenclature. They appear to be described in Mr. Berkeley’s work as _Ag. gambosus_, Fr., and _Ag. arvensis_, Schœff.

Dr. Badham’s observations on the spores of Fungi must be read in connection with the note added by him at the conclusion of the work; and to those who are interested in that part of the subject I should recommend the perusal of the seventh chapter of Mr. Berkeley’s ‘Outlines of British Fungology,’ and Tulasne’s recent work, ‘Selecta Fungorum Carpologia.’

Mr. Cooke, in his ‘Plain and Easy Account of British Fungi,’ recently published, mentions some species as esculent which are not noticed in this work. I have however no experience of their qualities, and must refer the reader to Mr. Cooke’s book for further information. He mentions Mr. Berkeley as an authority for considering _Agaricus rubescens_ as suspicious; but, from long experience, I can vouch for its being not only wholesome, but, as Dr. Badham says, “a very delicate fungus.”

F. C.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

TO THE RIGHT REVEREND THE LORD BISHOP OF NORWICH.

MY LORD,

I had two reasons for desiring that this humble performance should appear under the sanction of your Lordship’s name. Nothing could be more favourable to a Treatise on any department of Natural History, than the approval of one who has been so eminently successful in his cultivation of the same field.

But it is with much greater confidence that I dedicate a work, whose chief object it is to furnish the labouring classes with wholesome nourishment and profitable occupation, to a high functionary of that kingdom, which is distinguished from all others by recognizing the claims and furthering the interests of the poor.

I have the honour to be, my Lord,

With great respect, your Lordship’s

Obliged and humble Servant,

C. D. BADHAM.

CONTENTS.

Page

ETYMOLOGIES 1

THE RANGE OF FUNGUS GROWTHS 7

OF THEIR GENERAL FORMS, COLOURS, AND TEXTURE 10

ODOURS AND TASTES 13

EXPANSIVE POWER OF GROWTH 14

REPRODUCTIVE POWER 16

MOTION 16

PHOSPHORESCENCE 18

DIMENSIONS 18

CHEMICAL COMPOSITION 20

USES 21

MEDICAL USES 25

FUNGUSES CONSIDERED AS AN ARTICLE OF DIET 27

MODES OF DISTINGUISHING 40

CONDITIONS NECESSARY TO THEIR PRODUCTION 47

FAIRY RINGS 52

ON THE GROWTH OF FUNGUSES 53

ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SPORES, OR QUASI-SEEDS[1] 58

OF THE ANNULUS, THE VELUM, AND THE VOLVA 66

OF THE STALK, AND OF THE PILEUS 68

OF THE GILLS, TUBES, PLAITS, AND SPINES 69

METHODICAL DISTRIBUTION OF BRITISH ESCULENT FUNGUSES 72

DESCRIPTION OF SPECIES:—

_Agaricus acris minor_ 120

_Agaricus alutaceus_ 117

_Agaricus atramentarius_ 111

_Agaricus campestris_ 94

_Agaricus castaneus_ 143

_Agaricus comatus_ 112

_Agaricus deliciosus_ 102

_Agaricus Dryophilus_ 107

_Agaricus emeticus_ 118

_Agaricus exquisitus_ 100

_Agaricus fusipes_ 141

_Agaricus heterophyllus_ 113

_Agaricus melleus_ 139

_Agaricus nebularis_ 108

_Agaricus Orcella_ 129

_Agaricus oreades_ 106

_Agaricus ostreatus_ 121

_Agaricus personatus_ 105

_Agaricus piperatus_ 144

_Agaricus procerus_ 88

_Agaricus prunulus_ 85

_Agaricus ruber_ 115

_Agaricus rubescens_ 123

_Agaricus sanguineus_ 120

_Agaricus semiglobatus_ 108

_Agaricus ulmarius_ 140

_Agaricus vaginatus_ 142

_Agaricus violaceus_ 143

_Agaricus virescens_ 116

_Agaricus virgineus_ 145

_Boletus edulis_ 90

_Boletus luridus_ 104

_Boletus scaber_ 103

_Cantharellus cibarius_ 110

_Clavaria coralloides_ 135

_Fistulina hepatica_ 127

_Helvella crispa_ 130

_Helvella lacunosa_ 131

_Helvella esculenta_ 131

_Hydnum repandum_ 126

_Lycoperdon Bovista_ 138

_Lycoperdon plumbeum_ 136

_Morchella esculenta_ 123

_Morchella semilibera_ 124

_Peziza acetabulum_ 133

_Polyporus frondosus_ 133

_Tuber æstivum_ 145

_Verpa digitaliformis_ 132

CONCLUSION 146

DESCRIPTION OF PLATES.

PLATE I.

Fig. 1. Agaricus prunulus.

” 2. Agaricus personatus.

PLATE II.

Agaricus procerus.

PLATE III.

Fig. 1, 2. Boletus edulis.

” 3, 4. Agaricus heterophyllus.

PLATE IV.

Fig. 1. Polyporus frondosus.

” 2. Agaricus nebularis.

” 3, 4, 5. Agaricus exquisitus.

PLATE V.

Fig. 1. Helvella lacunosa.

” 2. Clavaria amethystina.

” 3. Clavaria coralloides.

” 4. Agaricus deliciosus.

” 5. Clavaria cinerea.

” 6. Clavaria rugosa.

PLATE VI.

Fig. 1, 2. Boletus scaber.

” 3, 4, 5. Boletus luridus.

PLATE VII.

Fig. 1, 2, 3. Agaricus comatus.

” 4. Agaricus oreades.

” 5. Agaricus Dryophilus.

PLATE VIII.

Fig. 1. Cantharellus cibarius.

” 2. Tuber æstivum.

” 3, 4. Hydnum repandum.

” 5. Lycoperdon pyriforme.

PLATE IX.

Fig. 1, 2. Agaricus atramentarius.

” 3. Agaricus melleus.

PLATE X.

Agaricus ostreatus.

PLATE XI.

Fig. 1, 2. Agaricus Orcella.

” 3, 4, 5. Agaricus rubescens.

PLATE XII.

Fig. 1, 2. Fistulina hepatica.

” 3, 4, 5. Helvella esculenta.

” 6. Morchella esculenta.

INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.

No country is perhaps richer in esculent Funguses than our own; we have upwards of thirty species abounding in our woods. No markets might therefore be better supplied than the English, and yet England is the only country in Europe where this important and savoury food is, from ignorance or prejudice, left to perish ungathered.

In France, Germany, and Italy, Funguses not only constitute for weeks together the sole diet of thousands, but the residue, either fresh, dried, or variously preserved in oil, vinegar, or brine, is sold by the poor, and forms a valuable source of income to many who have no other produce to bring into the market. Well, then, may we style them, with M. Roques, “_the manna of the poor_.” To call attention to an article of commerce elsewhere so lucrative, with us so wholly neglected, is the object of the present work, to which the best possible introduction will be a brief reference to the state of the fungus market abroad.

The following brief summary was drawn up by Professor Sanguinetti, the Official Inspector (“_Ispettore dei Funghi_”) at Rome; let it speak for itself:—“For forty days during the autumn, and for about half that period every spring, large quantities of Funguses, picked in the immediate vicinity of Rome, from Frascati, Rocca di Papa, Albano, beyond Monte Mario towards Ostia and the neighbourhood of the sites of Veii and Gabii, are brought in at the different gates. In the year 1837, the Government instituted the so-called _Congregazione Speciale di Sanità_, which, among other duties, was more particularly required to take into serious consideration the commerce of Funguses, from the unrestricted sale of which during some years past, cases of poisoning had not unfrequently occurred. The following decisions were arrived at by this body:—

“1st. That for the future an ‘Inspector of Funguses,’ versed
in botany, should be appointed to attend the market in place
of the peasant, whose supposed practical knowledge had been
hitherto held as sufficient guarantee for the public safety.

“2nd. That all the Funguses brought into Rome by the different
gates should be registered, under the surveillance of the
principal officer, in whose presence also the baskets were to
be sealed up, and the whole for that day’s consumption sent
under escort to a central depôt.

“3rd. That a certain spot should be fixed upon for the
Fungus market, and that nobody, under penalty of fine and
imprisonment, should hawk them about the streets.

“4th. That at seven o’clock A.M. precisely, the Inspector
should pay his daily visit and examine the whole, the contents
of the baskets being previously emptied on the ground by the
proprietors, who were then to receive, if the Funguses were
approved of, a printed permission of sale from the police, and
to pay for it an impost of one baioccho (a halfpenny) on every
ten pounds.

“5th. That quantities under ten pounds should not be taxed.

“6th. That the stale funguses of the preceding day, as well
as those that were mouldy, bruised, filled with maggots,
or dangerous (_muffi_, _guasti_, _verminosi_, _velenosi_),
together with any specimen of the common mushroom (_Ag.
campestris_) detected in any of the baskets, should be sent
under escort and thrown into the Tiber.

“7th. That the Inspector should be empowered to fine or
imprison all those refractory to the above regulations; and,
finally, that he should furnish a weekly report to the Tribunal
of Provisions (_Il Tribunale delle Grascie_) of the proceeds of
the sale.

“As all fresh Funguses for sale in quantities _exceeding_ ten pounds are weighed, in order to be taxed, we are enabled to arrive at an exact estimate of the number of pounds thus disposed of. The return of _taxed_ Mushrooms in the city of Rome during the last ten years, gives a yearly average of between _sixty and eighty thousand pounds_ weight; and if we double this amount, as we may safely do, in order to include such smaller _untaxed_ supplies as are disposed of as bribes, fees, and presents, and reckon the whole at the rate of six baiocchi, or threepence per pound (a fair average), this will make the commercial value of fresh Funguses very apparent, showing it here to be little less than £2000 a year.”

But the fresh Funguses form only a small part of the whole consumption, to which must be added the dried, the pickled, and the preserved; which sell at a much higher price than the first.[2] Supposing, however, that with these additions the supply of all kinds only reached a sum the double of that given above, even this would furnish us with an annual average of nearly _four thousand pounds sterling_; and this in a single city, and that, too, by no means the most populous one in Italy![3] What, then, must be the net receipts of all the market-places of all the Italian States? For as in these the proportion of the price of esculent Funguses to butchers’ meat is as two to three, it is plain that prejudice has deprived the poor of this country, not only of many thousand pounds of the former but also of as much of the latter, as might have been purchased by exchange, and of the countless sums which might have been earned in gathering them.[4]

ON THE ESCULENT FUNGUSES OF ENGLAND.

“Quos ipsa volentia rura
Sponte tulere sua carpsit.”—_Virgil._

“He culls from woods, and heights, and fields,
Those untaxed boons which nature yields.”

ETYMOLOGIES.

By the word μύκης, ητος or ου, ὁ, whereof the usually received root, μῦκος (_mucus_), is probably factitious, the Greeks used familiarly to designate certain, but indefinite species of funguses, which they were in the habit of employing at table. This term, in its origin at once trivial and restricted to at most a few varieties, has become in our days classical and generic; Mycology, its direct derivative, including, in the language of modern botany, several great sections of plants (many amongst the number of microscopic minuteness), which have apparently as little to do with the original import of μύκης as smut, bunt, mould, or dry-rot, have to do with our table mushrooms. A like indefiniteness formerly characterized the Latin word _fungus_, though it be now used in as catholic a sense as that of μύκης; this, in the classic times of Rome, seems to have been confined (without any precise limitation, however) to certain sorts which might be eaten, and to others which it was not safe to eat. The

“Fungos colligit albos,”[5]

which occurs in Ovid’s ‘Fasti,’ alludes to the former; the

“Sunt tibi boleti, fungos ego sumo suillos,”

of Martial, points to an inferior kind, but still esculent; whilst the word not unfrequently designated, if not actual toadstools, at least very equivocal mushrooms; of which character were those “ancipites fungi” presented by Veiento to his poor clients. Some melancholy etymologists, upon whom good mushrooms are really thrown away, would beget fungus out of _funus_, but Voss[6] judiciously rejects so harsh and forced a derivation, mentioning together with it others that are still more so.

The word _Boletus_, which now stands for a large genus of the section _Pileati_, was used in ancient Rome to designate that particular mushroom which had the honour, under Agrippina’s orders and Locusta’s cookery, of poisoning Claudius; in memory of which event it is now called _Amanita Cæsarea_, the Cæsar’s mushroom. It occurs frequently both in the poets and prose writers of those days, and was in high esteem, as we collect from Pliny, who, though no mushroom-fancier himself, calls this “Boletus optimi cibi.” Nero, in playful allusion to his uncle’s death, of which it was the occasion, designates it the ‘food of gods,’ βρῶμα θεῶν; and Martial celebrates it in many a convivial epigram; in one, for instance, where he asks his hard-hearted patron, “what possible pleasure it can be for his guests to sit at his table, and see him devour boletuses;” in another, “gold and silver and dresses may be trusted to a messenger, but not a boletus, (_subaudi_) because he will eat it on the way.” This is the only ancient mushroom which we at once recognize by the description of it; “it originates,” says Pliny, “in a volva, or purse, in which it lies at first concealed as in an egg; breaking through this, it rises upwards on its stalk; the colour of its cap is red; it takes a week to pass through the various stages of its growth and declension.” The _suillus_—probably the same as the modern _porcino_ (a word of analogous import), which was, and is, eaten by men as well as pigs, and not always by these[7]—was, according to Pliny, the fungus which most readily lent itself to poisoning by mistake; a remark so far consonant to modern experience, that it is liable, without some attention, to be confounded with the _Boletus luridus_, _B. cyanescens_, and others, which in their general shape and external hue resemble it, though it is not by any means certain that any of these species, with which it may be confounded, are themselves poisonous.[8] The word _tuber_, though it occasionally (as in Juvenal) meant the _truffle_, seems to have been used with considerable latitude. Thus the _tubers_ said to spring up after those _optatos imbres_, those “long-wished-for showers of spring,” were, probably, not truffles, but puff-balls, which, at the season of warm rains grow with incredible rapidity, forming an esteemed article of luxury, not only in Italy, but also in India; whereas the truffle never makes its appearance in the markets at such times, nor comes up so immediately after rain. _Tuber_, like our ancient “_fusseball_,” seems a common appellation both for truffles and puff-balls. What the ancients understood by _hydnum_ is as little precise or discriminate as the last word; for Theophrastus declares it to have a light bark, λειόφλοιον εἶναι, in which case it is a puff-ball, while the plant called ὑδνοφίλον, which is said to indicate the whereabouts of _hydna_ in its neighbourhood, can only refer to the truffle. The truffle, however, which is now so much prized throughout Europe, seems not to have been known to the ancients, at least it is not described by them.[9] That which the Greeks called _misy_, and the Romans the Libyan truffle,[10] was white and of very delicious flavour, whilst by _hydnum_ (when this word really meant truffle) they usually designated a particular kind bearing a smooth red rind, and abounding in certain districts of Italy; but having no chance against the black, nodulated _tuber tuberum_, the truffle _par excellence_, found in such abundance in the vicinities of Rome, Florence, Siena, etc., and, above all, amongst the Nursian hills of Umbria, over against Spoleto, whence it is largely exported throughout and beyond Italy. Under the name _Peziza_, the ancients appear at times to describe, unconsciously, a _Scleroderma_ or species of puff-ball after it has evacuated its seed, when it presents a flattened surface, and so far looks like a _Peziza_, with which, in fact, it has no connection. By _Amanita_, Galen intended some kind of esculent fungus, but we know not which; this word has now come to have a more extensive import, and to designate, besides one or two species that are good, many of the most dangerous character. Whatever the ancient _Amanita_ may have been, it was formerly in high repute; Galen declares that, next to the _Boletus_, it is ἀβλαβέστατον to eat—in which good report of it he is abundantly borne out by the concurrent testimony of Nicander. What Dioscorides meant by ἀγαρικὸν is another uncertainty, to resolve which we have not sufficient data; one thing seems plain, that it could not have been our officinal _Agaric_, for that grows upon the _Larch_, whereas his _Agaricon_ grew upon the _Cedar_. Julius Scaliger amuses himself at the expense of Athenæus for saying that _Agaricus_ is so called from the country of Agaria, whence he would make out that it originally came; whereas there never was such a country, his Agaria being, like our Poiatia, only another synonym for Fancy’s fairyland.[11]

The words _champignon_ and _mushroom_ have both a French origin, though, like the corresponding derivatives from the Greek and Latin, they too have come to signify things different from what they originally designated; _champignon_, for example, of which _champ_ would seem to be the root, is _generic_ in France. The ‘Traités sur les Champignons’ of Bulliard, Persoon, Paulet, Cordier, and Roques, are treatises of funguses _in genere_; whilst in England we restrict the word _champignon_ to one small Agaric, which, as it grows in the so-called “fairy-rings,” is hence named _Ag. oreades_. Again, there can be no doubt that our word _mushroom_ (which, as contradistinguished from _toadstool_, is so far generic) comes from the French _mouceron_ (originally spelt _mousseron_), and belongs of right to that most dainty of funguses, the _A. prunulus_, which grows amidst tender herbage and _moss_ (whence its name), and which is justly considered, over almost the whole continent of Europe, as the _ne plus ultra_ of culinary _friandise_. It abounds in various parts of England, being everywhere trodden underfoot, or reaped down, or dug up as a nuisance, while the rings which it so sedulously forms are as sedulously destroyed. The very odour which it exhales under these injuries, which the French call “un parfum exquis aromatisé,”[12] and the Italians, “un odore gratissimo,”[13] is in England occasionally cited to its disadvantage in confirmation of its supposed noxious qualities. Thus, while we use the word _mushroom_, which is the proper appellation of _this_ species, for another (very good, no doubt, but wholly unlike it in its botanical characters, flavour, and appearance), this neglected, and ignorantly neglected, species, finds itself deprived of its rightful name, and proscribed as a toadstool. The origin of this last word, _toadstool_, which makes them seats or thrones for toads, does not quite satisfy me, I confess, though there be doughty authorities for it in Johnson’s Dictionary and in Spenser’s ‘Faery Queen’!

“The grisly todestool grown there mought I see,
And loathed paddocks lording on the same;”

and, though an anonymous Italian authority declares that, in Germany, they have actually been seen sitting on their stools,[14] still, even in Germany, it must be admitted that they do not use them as frequently as we might expect, had they been created for this end. In that most grisly and ghastly waxwork exhibition at Florence, representing a charnel-house filled with the recent victims to a raging plague, in every stage of decomposition, the toad and his stool are not forgotten; but the artist, who had here to deal with matter, and to consult what it would bear, has not put his toads upon these brittle stools, lest, giving way, both should come to the ground; he has been content to convert them into toad-umbrellas, and to spread them as an awning over their heads.[15]

THE RANGE OF FUNGUS GROWTHS.

The family of Funguses, in the comprehensive sense in which we now employ the term, is immense. Merely catalogued and described, there are sufficient to fill an octavo volume of nearly 400 pages of close print, of British species alone; altogether, there cannot be less than 5000 recognized species at present known, and each year adds new ones to the list. The reader’s surprise at this will somewhat diminish, when he considers, that not only the toadstools which beset his walks, whether growing upon the ground or at the roots of trees, belong to this class, but that the immense hordes of parasites which feed at his expense, and foul, like the Harpies, whatever they may not actually consume, belong to it also.

For the single mushroom that we eat, how many hundreds there be that retaliate and prey upon us in return! To enumerate but a few, and these of the microscopic kinds (on the other side are some which the arms can scarcely embrace): the _Mucor mucedo_, that spawns upon our dried preserves; the _Ascophora mucedo_, that makes our bread mouldy (“mucidæ frustra farinæ”[16]); the _Uredo segetum_, that burns Ceres out of her own cornfields; the _Uredo rubigo_, whose rust is still more destructive; and the _Puccinia graminis_, whose voracity sets corn-laws and farmers at defiance, are all funguses! So is the grey _Monilia_, that rots, and then fattens upon, our fruits; and the _Mucor herbariorum_, that destroys the careful gleanings of the painstaking botanist. When our beer becomes mothery, the mother of that mischief is a fungus. If pickles acquire a bad taste, if ketchup turns ropy and putrifies, funguses have a finger in it all! Their reign stops not here; they prey upon each other; they even select their victims! There is the _Myrothecium viride_, which will only grow upon dry Agarics, preferring chiefly, for this purpose, the _Agaricus adustus_; the _Mucor[17] chrysospermus_, which attacks the flesh of a particular _Boletus_; the _Sclerotium cornutum_, which visits some other moist mushrooms in decay. There are some _Xylomas_ that will spot the leaves of the Maple, and some those of the Willow, exclusively. The naked seeds of some are found burrowing between the opposite surface of leaves; some love the neighbourhood of burnt stubble and charred wood; some visit the sculptor in his studio, growing up amidst the heaps of moistened marble dust that have caked and consolidated under his saw. The _Racodium_ of the low cellar[18] festoons its ceiling, shags its walls, and wraps its thick coat round our wine-casks,[19] keeping our oldest wine in closest bond; while the _Geastrum_, aspiring occasionally to leave this earth, has been found suspended, like Mahomet’s coffin, between it and the stars, on the very highest pinnacle of St. Paul’s.[20] The close cavities of nuts occasionally afford concealment to some species; others, like leeches, stick to the bulbs of plants, and suck them dry; these (the architect’s and ship-builder’s bane) pick timber to pieces, as men pick oakum; nor do they confine their selective ravages to plants alone, they attach themselves to animal structures, and destroy animal life; the _Onygena equina_ has a particular fancy for the hoofs of horses and for the horns of cattle, sticking to these alone; the belly of a tropical fly[21] is liable, in autumn, to break out into vegetable tufts of fungous growth, and the caterpillar to carry about on his body a _Cordyceps_ larger than himself. The disease called Muscadine, which destroys so many silkworms, is also a fungus (_Botrytis Bassiana_), which in a very short time completely fills the worm with filaments very unlike those it is in the habit of secreting.[22] The vegetating wasp,[23] too, of which everybody has heard, is only another mysterious blending of vegetable with insect life. Lastly, and to take breath, funguses visit the wards of our hospitals, and grow out of the products of surgical disease.[24] Where, then, are they not to be found? do they not abound, like Pharaoh’s plagues, everywhere? is not their name legion, and their province ubiquity?[25]

OF THEIR GENERAL FORMS, COLOURS, TEXTURE, TASTES, SMELLS, ETC.

What geometry shall define their ever-varying shapes? who but a Venetian painter do justice to their colours?[26] or what modifications of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ convey an adequate knowledge of all their various crases and consistencies? As to shapes, some are simple threads, like the _Byssus_, and never get beyond this; some shoot out into branches, like seaweed; some puff themselves out into puff-balls; some thrust their heads into mitres;[27] these assume the shape of a cup,[28] and those of a wine-funnel;[29] some, like _A. mammosus_, have a teat; others, like the _A. clypeolarius_, are umbonated at their centre; these are stilted upon a high leg,[30] and those have not a leg to stand on; some are shell-shaped, many bell-shaped, and some hang upon their stalks like a lawyer’s wig;[31] some assume the form of the horse’s hoof, others of a goat’s beard: in _Clathrus cancellatus_ you look into the fungus through a thick red trellis which surrounds it. Some exhibit a nest in which they rear their young,[32] and, not to speak of those vague shapes,

“If shapes they can be called, that shape have none
Determinate,”

of such tree parasites as are fain to mould themselves at the will of their entertainer (the fate of parasites, whether under oak or mahogany), mention may be made of two, of which the forms are at once singular and constant; one exactly like an ear, and given for some good reason to Judas (_Auricula Judæ_), clings to several trees, and trembles when you touch it; the other, which lolls out from the bark of chestnut-trees (_Lingua di Castagna_), is so like a tongue in shape and general appearance,[33] that in the days of enchanted trees you would not have cut it off to pickle or to eat on any account, lest the knight to whom it belonged should afterwards come to claim it of you. The above are amongst the most remarkable of the many Protean forms assumed by funguses; as to their colours, we find in one genus only species which correspond to every hue! The _Agaricus Cæsareus_, the _A. muscarius_, the _A. sanguineus_, assume the imperial purple, the _A. violaceus_ a beautiful violet, the _A. sulphureus_ a bright yellow, the _A. adustus_ a dingy black, the _A. exquisitus_, and many others, a milk-white; whilst the _A. virescens_ takes that which, in this class of plants, is the rarest of all to meet with, a pale-green colour. The upper surface of some is zoned with concentric circles of different hues; sometimes it is spotted, at other times of a uniform tint. The bonnets of some shine as if they were sprinkled with _mica_;[34] these have a rich velvety, those a smooth kid-like covering stretched over them. Some _pilei_ are imbricated with brown scales, some flocked with white shreds of membrane, and some are stained with various-coloured milks secreted from within. The consistence of funguses is very different according to their sort, and the epithets of woody, corky, leathery, spongy, fleshy, gelatinous, pulpy, or mucous, will all find fitting application to some of them. Occasionally a fungus is secreted soft, but hardens by degrees into a compact and woody texture.

ODOURS AND TASTES.

Both one and the other are far more numerous in this class of plants than in any other with which we are acquainted. As to odours, though these be generally most powerful in the fresh condition of the fungus, they are sometimes increased by drying it, during which process too some species, inodorous before, acquire an odour, and not always a pleasant one. Some yield an insupportable stench; the _Phallus impudicus_ and _Clathrus cancellatus_ are of this kind. A botanist had by mistake taken one of the former into his bedroom; he was soon awakened by an intolerable fœtor, and was glad to open his window and get rid of it, as he hoped, and the _Phallus_ together. Here he was disappointed; “sublatâ causâ non tollitur effectus,” the fœtor remaining nearly the same for some hours afterwards. A lady, a friend of mine, who was drawing one in a room, was obliged to take it into the open air to complete her sketch. As to the _Clathrus_, I have found ten minutes in a room with it nine too many: it becomes insupportably offensive in a short time, and its infective stench has given rise to a superstition entertained of it throughout the Landes, viz. that it is capable of producing cancer—in consequence of which superstition the inhabitants, who call it Cancrou, or Cancer, cover it carefully over, lest by accident some one should chance to touch it, and become infected with that horrible disease in consequence.[35] Batsch has described an Agaric[36] of so powerful and peculiar a smell, that before he could finish his picture (for he was drawing it) a violent headache made him desist, “vehementi afficiebar capitis dolore.” Of the others, some are graveolent in a savoury or in an unsavoury sense. This smells strong of onions,[37] that of cinnamon,[38] from which it takes its name; the _A. ostreatus_ (_auct. nost._) most powerfully of Tarragon; _A. odoratus_, and the _Cantharellus_, like apricots and ratafia (Purton); _Boletus salicinus_, “like the bloom of May” (Abbott); the _A. sanguineus_, when dry, savours of a stale poultice; _A. piperatus_, of the _Triglia_, or red mullet; the _Hydna_ generally give out a smell of tallow; moulds have their own smells, which are mouldy and musty; some exhale the smell of putrid meat, many the odour of fresh meal; the spawn of _A. prunulus_ and of the puff-balls (_Lycoperdons_) exhale an odour similar to the perfect plants; but the _Pietra funghaia_, filled with the spores of its own _Polyporus_, is without smell. When fresh, there is scarcely any perceptible odour in _Boletus edulis_ or _B. luridus_, nor yet in the _A. Cæsareus_ when recently gathered. A word about their tastes will suffice: with so many smells, they must needs have flavours to correspond, and so they have; sapid, sweet, sour, peppery, rich, rank, acrid, nauseous, bitter, styptic, might be all found in an English “gradus” (though at present, I am sorry to say, without any lines from poets in whose writings they occur), after the word ‘Fungus.’ In a few, generally of an unsafe character, there is little or no taste in the mouth while they are being masticated, but shortly after deglutition, the fauces become dry, and a sense of more or less constriction is apt to supervene, which frequently continues for some time afterwards.

EXPANSIVE POWER OF GROWTH.

Soft and yielding as vegetable structures appear to the touch, the expansive force of their growth is almost beyond calculation. The effects of this power, of which the experience of every one will furnish him with some instances, are perhaps nowhere more strikingly exemplified than amidst the ruins of its own creation. Coeval with many old brick fabrics of earlier times, perhaps embedded in the very mortar which holds them together, it may lurk there for centuries in quiescence, till once arousing its energies, it continues to exert them in ceaseless activity ever after. It has at Rome planted its pink Valerians on her highest towers, and its wild fig-tree in the breaches of her walls; nor are the granite obelisks of her piazzas, nor the classic groups in marble on her Quirinal mount, entirely exempt from its encroachments. A conspiracy of plants, _one hundred strong_, have long ago planned the destruction of the Coliseum; their undermining process advances each year, and neither iron nor new brickwork can arrest it long. That old Roman cement, which the barbarians gave up as impracticable, and the pickaxe of the Barberini had but begun to disintegrate, will, ere the lapse of another century, be effectually pulled to pieces by the rending arm of vegetation. Here, as erst in Juvenal’s time, the _mala ficus_ finds no walls too strong to rive asunder, no tower beyond the reach of its scaling, no monument too sacred for it to touch. In the class of plants immediately under consideration, while the expansive effort of growth is equal to what it is in other cases, its effects are far more startling from their suddenness. M. Bulliard (to cite one or two instances out of a great many) relates, that on placing a _Phallus impudicus_ within a glass vessel, the plant expanded so rapidly as to shiver its sides with an explosive detonation as loud as that of a pistol. Dr. Carpenter, in his ‘Elements of Physiology,’ mentions that “in the neighbourhood of Basingstoke a paving-stone, measuring twenty-one inches square, and weighing eighty-three pounds, was completely raised an inch and a half out of its bed by a mass of toadstools, of from six to seven inches in diameter, and that nearly the whole pavement of the town suffered displacement from the same cause.” A friend has seen a crop of puff-balls raise large flagstones considerably above the plane of their original level; and I have myself recently witnessed an extensive displacement of the pegs of a wooden pavement which had been driven nine inches into the ground, but were heaved up irregularly, in several places, by small bouquets of Agarics, growing from below.

REPRODUCTIVE POWER.

Funguses have a remarkable power of re-forming such parts of their substance as have been accidentally or otherwise removed. Vittadini found that when the tubes of a _Boletus_ were cut out from a growing plant, they were after a time reproduced. Where deep holes have been eaten into these plants by snails, such holes, on the _Boletus_ attaining to its full growth, are partially refilled. If the tender _Polyporus_ be cut across, the wound immediately sets about healing by the first intention, leaving not even a cicatrice to mark the original seat of the injury. The _Lycoperdons_ (_Bovista_), which are often accidentally wounded by the scythe, have the same faculty of repairing the injury, remodelling afresh the parts that may have been excised from them.[39]

MOTION.

In a recent work on ‘Insect Life,’ I have discoursed somewhat at large on the insufficiency of any kind of movements as proofs of sensation, quoting, amidst other evidences to this effect, certain remarkable movements in plants. Some of the present family exhibit the phenomena of insensitive motion in a remarkable manner, and might have been added to the list already cited in that publication. Mr. Robson has given us a very interesting account of the movements he observed in the scarlet _Clathrus_, which is here transcribed in his own words. It is interesting to notice how an unbiassed observer uses the very terms to designate the movements of a plant which would have been minutely descriptive of those of an insect:—“At first I was much surprised to see a part of the fibres, that had got through a rupture in the top of the _Clathrus_, moving like the legs of a fly when laid on his back. I then touched it with the point of a pin, and was still more surprised when I saw it present the appearance of a little bundle of worms entangled together, the fibres being all alive. I next took the little bundle of fibres quite out, and the animal motion was then so strong as to turn the head halfway round, first one way and then another, and two or three times it got out of the focus. Almost every fibre had a different motion; some of them twined round one another, and then untwined again, whilst others were bending, extending, coiling, waving, etc. The fibres had many little balls adhering to their sides, which I take to be the seeds, and I observed many of them to be disengaged at every motion of the fibres; the seeds appeared like gunpowder finely granulated.” Instances from other authors abound. “An _Helvella inflata_, on being touched by me once, threw up its seeds in the form of a smoke, which arose with an elastic bound, glittering in the sunshine like particles of silver.”[40] “The _Vibrissea truncorum_, taken from water and exposed to the rays of the sun, though at first smooth, is soon covered with white geniculated filaments, which start from the _hymenium_, and have an oscillating motion.”[41] The _Pilobolus_, of which so accurate an account has been given us by the great Florentine mycologist,[42] casts, as its name imports, its seeds into the air; these also escape with a strong projectile force from the upper surface of Pezizas, the anfractuosities of the Morel, and from the gills of Agarics.[43]

PHOSPHORESCENCE.

Several kinds of funguses, and the spawn of the truffle, emit a phosphorescent light; of the first, the _Agaricus olearius_, not uncommon in Italy, is sometimes seen at night, feebly shining amidst the darkness of the olive grove. The coal-mines near Dresden have long been celebrated for the production of funguses which emit a light similar to a pale moonlight. Mr. Drummond describes an Australian fungus with similar properties; and another very interesting one, an Agaric, is noticed by Mr. Gardner, in his ‘Travels in Brazil.’[44]

DIMENSIONS.

Most funguses do not present great anomalies in their size, but retain nearly the same dimensions throughout the whole course of their being; some few species, however, seem to have a faculty of almost indefinite expansion. The usual size of a puff-ball, as we all know, is not much larger than an egg, but some puff-balls attain to the dimensions of the human head,[45] or exceed it. Mr. Berkeley quotes the case of a _Polyporus squamosus_, which in three weeks grew to seven feet five inches in periphery, and weighed thirty-four pounds; also of a _Polyporus fraxineus_, which in a few years measured forty-two inches across. Clusius[46] tells us of a fungus in Pannonia, of such immense size, that after satisfying the cravings of a large mycophilous household, enough of it remained to fill a chariot; this must have been the _Polyporus frondosus_, to which _Polyporus_ John Bapt. Porta[47] also alludes as that called _gallinace_[48] by the Neapolitans, which is so big, he says, that you can scarcely make your hands meet round it, “brachiis diductis vix homo complecti possit;” he had known it attain twelve pounds weight in a few days.[49] Bolton, in 1787, found an _Agaricus muscarius_, which, “after the removal of a considerable portion of its stalk, weighed nearly two pounds;” Withering, an _A. Georgii_, “which weighed fourteen pounds,” and Mr. Stackhouse another of the same species in Cornwall, “which was eighteen inches across, and had a stem as thick as a man’s wrist;” and I lately picked in the park at Buckhurst, a _Boletus edulis_ which measured twenty-eight inches round its pileus, and eight round the stem, and a few days later a _B. pachypus_, the girth of which was thirty-two inches.

CHEMICAL COMPOSITION.

Of all vegetable productions these are the most highly azotized, that is, animalized in their composition—a fact not only evinced by the strong cadaverous smell which some of them give out in decay, and by the savoury animalized meat which others afford at table, but on the evidence of chemistry also. Thus Dr. Marcet has proved that, like animals, they absorb a large quantity of oxygen, and disengage in return, from their surface, a large quantity of carbonic acid; all however do not exhale carbonic acid, but, in lieu of it, some give out hydrogen, and others azotic gas. They yield, moreover, to chemical analysis the several components of which animal structures are made up; many of them, in addition to sugar, gum, resin, a peculiar acid called fungic acid, and a variety of salts, furnish considerable quantities of _albumen_, _adipocire_, and _osmazome_, which last is that principle that gives its peculiar flavour to meat gravy. The _Polyporus sulphureus_ is frequently covered with little crystals of the binoxalate of potash;[50] the _Agaricus piperatus_ yields the acetate of potash,[51] and it is probable that other funguses of which we have as yet no recorded analysis will, on the institution of such, be found to contain some new and unexpected ingredient peculiar to themselves. When these several substances have been duly extracted from funguses, there is left behind for a common base the solid structure of the plant itself; this, which is called _fungine_, is white, flabby, insipid in its taste, but highly nutritious in its properties. If nitric acid be poured upon it, an immediate disengagement of azotic gas takes place, and several new substances are the result: a bitter principle, a reddish resinoid matter, hydrocyanic and oxalic acids, and two remarkable fatty substances, whereof one resembles tallow, the other wax. If dilute sulphuric acid be poured upon this fungine, no change ensues; but if muriatic acid be substituted, the result is a jelly.

USES.

The uses to which funguses have been put are various, and, had the properties of these plants been as extensively investigated as those which belong to the phanerogamic classes, they would probably by this time have proved still more numerous: some, as the _Polyporus sulphureus_, furnish a useful colour for dyeing;[52] the _Agaricus atramentarius_ makes ink; divers Lycoperdons, of which other mention will be made presently when we come to speak of such species as are esculent, have also been employed for stupefying bees, for stanching blood, and for making tinder; their employment in the first of these capacities, seems to have escaped the observation of the accurate author of ‘Les Jardins,’ who has mentioned the others:—

“Ce puissant Agaric, qui du sang épanché
Arrête les ruisseaux, et dont le sein fidèle
Du caillou pétillant recueille l’étincelle.”

The ‘caillou,’ alas, like the poet who struck this spark out of it, is now obsolete; but _amadou_ is still in vogue, being employed for many household purposes; in addition to which, a medical practitioner of Covent Garden has of late been in the habit of using extensive sheets of it to cover over and protect the backs of those bedridden invalids whose cruel sufferings make such large demands upon our sympathy,—for the alleviation of which so little is to be done!—as it is more elastic than chamois leather, it is less liable to crumple up when lain upon, and on this account has been preferred to it by several of our metropolitan surgeons of eminence; some employ it also as a gentle compress over varicose veins, where it supports the distended vessels without pressing too tightly upon the limb. Gleditsch relates, that the poorer inhabitants of Franconia stitch it together, and make dresses of it; and also that the Laplanders burn it in the neighbourhood of their dwellings, to secure their reindeer from the attacks of gadflies, which are repelled by the smoke; thus “good at need,” it really deserves the epithet of ‘puissant,’ given to it by Delille.[53]

The _Polyporus squamosus_ makes a razor-strop far superior to any of those at present patented, and sold, with high-sounding epithets, far beyond their deserts. To prepare the _Polyporus_ for this purpose, it must be cut from the ash-tree in autumn, when its juices have been dried and its substance has become consolidated; it is then to be flattened out for twenty-four hours in a press, after which it should be carefully rubbed with pumice, sliced longitudinally, and every slip that is free from the erosions of insects be then glued upon a wooden stretcher. Cesalpinus knew all this! and the barbers in his time knew it too;[54] and it is not a little remarkable that so useful an invention should, in an age of puffing, advertisement, and improvement, like our own, have been entirely lost sight of. Imperato employed and recommends it as an excellent detergent, with which to brush and comb out the scurf from the hair.

The _Agaricus muscarius_ is largely employed in Kamtchatka, in decoction with the _Epilobium angustifolium_, as an intoxicating liquor.[55] The Laplanders smear it on the walls and bedposts of their dwellings, to destroy bugs (Linn.); and Clusius relates, that it is sold extensively in the market at Frankfort, to poison flies; for this purpose, it is either cut into small pieces and thrown about the premises, or else boiled in milk and placed upon the window-sills; in either case it is vastly inferior in efficacy to that celebrated “mort aux mouches,” the impure oxide of cobalt, that is, to the arsenic which this contains. The above are a few of the uses, exclusive of the esculent or medical ones, to which funguses have been put; it is fair, however, to notice that they maintain a debtor, as well as a creditor, account with mankind, in which the balance seems to be occasionally quite against us; those that are most injurious are generally, as has been already stated, of the microscopic kinds; whereof some attack young plants still underground, emulging them completely of their juices, in consequence of which they perish; others, like the corn-blights, permit the plant to attain maturity before they begin their work of destruction, and destroy it just as it is beginning to fructify.[56] The fearful epidemics to which grain so infected has given rise are well known, though it is still a matter of question whether the ergoted corn owes its unwholesome qualities to the injury which it had sustained from the blight, or to the blight itself. Though the mischief produced by parasitic funguses be unquestionably great, this occasional and very partial evil is more than compensated by the much greater amount of good accomplished solely by their agency, in the assistance they afford to the decomposition of animal and vegetable tissues, which has procured for them the name, not unaptly applied, of “nature’s scavengers.” This decomposition they effect by assimilating, through the medium of their radicles, the juices of the decaying structure in which they are developed, loosening thereby its cohesion, and causing it to break up into a rapid dissolution of its parts.[57]

MEDICAL USES.

Of the funguses formerly employed in medicine few are now in vogue; the ergot of rye still keeps its ground, and in cases of protracted labour, when judiciously employed, is valuable in assisting nature when unequal to the necessary efforts of parturition. Another fungus, formerly much in fashion, though now put on the shelf, seems really to deserve further trial; I mean the _Polyporus suaveolens_ (Linn.), which in that most intractable disease, tubercular consumption, surely claims to be tried when there are such respectable authorities to vouch for its surprising effects, in cases where everything else had been notoriously unsuccessful.[58] Sartorius was the first to prescribe it as a remedy in phthisis, and its employment with this view, since his day, has at various times been præconized on the Continent; the dose generally recommended being a scruple of the powder two or three times a day. Of the cases published by Professors Schmidel and Wendst (which have an air of good faith in their recital, well entitling them to consideration), I abridge one as an example, though the others are not less interesting; and while it is certainly to be regretted that the absence of stethoscopic indications should prevent our having any positive evidence as to the precise condition of the diseased lung, or of the nature of the secretion expectorated, still, even supposing them to be simple cases of chronic bronchitis, with marasmus the efficacy of the remedy is scarcely less striking or instructive. “A young man, ætat. twenty-one, was seized at the beginning of autumn with inflammatory cough and hæmoptysis, which were partially subdued by V. S. and the ordinary antiphlogistic treatment; but the cough, coming on again with renewed severity during the winter, was accompanied with the expuition of glairy mucus, which was sometimes specked with blood. Towards the spring the young man had become much thinner, and was continuing to waste away; the expectoration also had changed its colour, and had become fetid and green; his nights were feverish and disturbed; he had no desire for food, and ate but little; his ankles had begun to swell; he had copious night-sweats and diarrhœa. A teaspoonful of an electuary of the _P. suaveolens_ in honey was given him three times a day, and _nothing else_; and, extraordinary as it may appear, under this treatment the sweats speedily began to diminish with the cough, and after a three months’ continuance of the medicine the patient entirely recovered.”[59]

The _Polyporus laricis_, the so-called Agaric of pharmacy, is a powerful but most uncertain medicine, and has been also recommended in consumption. I once administered a few grains of it in this disease, when violent pains and hypercatharsis supervened, which lasted for several hours. MM. B. Lagrange and Braconnot found it to contain a large quantity of an acrid resin, to which it no doubt owes its hypercathartic properties. To judge from this single case, which, however, tallies with the experience of others, I should say that this fungus was, in medicine, to be looked upon as a very suspicious ally.[60] The _A. muscarius_ has also been used in medicine. Whistling, so long ago as 1778, wrote on its healing virtues, in Latin, recommending its powder as a valuable application with which to sprinkle sanious sores and excoriated nipples. Plenck gave drachm doses of it internally in epilepsy, and, together with Bernhard and Whistling, attests its success. It appears that the _Phallus mucus_ in China, and the _Lycoperdon carcinomale_ near the Cape of Good Hope, are used also by the inhabitants of those countries as external applications for cancerous sores. The _Phallus_, rubbed upon the skin, is said to deaden its sensibility, like the _narke_, or electric skate.

FUNGUSES CONSIDERED AS AN ARTICLE OF DIET.

If all the good things ever said about the stomach since the days of Menenius Agrippa, or before his time, could be collected, they would doubtless form an interesting volume; Aretæus has somewhere quaintly, but not unaptly, called it the “house of Plato;” in another place he speaks of it as the “seat” (as if κατ’ ἐξοχὴν) “of pleasure and of pain;” and so it is indeed, and it has moreover a notorious tendency, when provoked, to cool our charity and to heat our blood; its sympathies by nervous attachments, both of “continuity” and of “contiguity,”[61] with the other organs of the body, are extensive and complicated; no wonder then that it should have enlisted ours in its behalf, and that few of us would offend it wittingly, though by indiscretions we do offend it continually.