Chapter V: Part 5

Having thoroughly cleansed away the earth, which is apt to adhere to them, they are to be sweated with a little butter, over a slow fire, afterwards to be strained, then (throwing away the liquor) to be replaced to stew for an hour, with salt, pepper, chopped chives and parsley, moistening with plain stock, and dredging with flour occasionally. When sufficiently cooked, to be thickened with yolks of eggs and cream.

_Another Mode._

Proceed as before; after sweating the _Clavarias_, wrap them in bacon and stew in a little broth seasoned with salt, pepper, parsley, and ham; cook for an hour, then serve in white sauce, or with a _fricassée_ of chicken.

N.B.—The saucepan should be covered with a sheet of paper under the lid, which keeps the _Clavarias_ white and also preserves their flavour.

There can be little doubt that our woods, properly explored, would be found to abound in funguses hitherto considered rare, and this would probably be one of them. At present the weald of Kent, within forty miles of London, remains, so far as Mycology is concerned, nearly as unexplored as the interior of Africa.

Plate V. fig. 2, represents _Clavaria amethystina_, Bull. Plate V. fig. 5, represents _C. cinerea_, Bull. Plate V., fig. 6, represents _C. rugosa_, Bull.

LYCOPERDON PLUMBEUM, _nob._

_Puff-balls._

Subdivision GASTEROMYCETES, _Fries_.

Tribe 3. TRICHOSPERMI.

Family 1. TRICHOGASTRES. GENUS 1. LYCOPERDON, _Tournef._

“Il Licoperdo piombino è uno dei funghi mangiativi più delicati
che si conoscano. Il suo uso è pressochè generale.”—_Vitt._

All these more or less spherical white funguses furnished with a membranaceous covering, and filled when young with a white, compact, homogeneous pulp, which we call Puff-balls, are good to eat; those in most request for the table abroad, and the best, have no stem, _i. e._ no sterile base, but are prolific throughout their whole substance. One of the most common of these is the _Lycoperdon plumbeum_, of which the following excellent description is chiefly taken from Vittadini.

_Bot. Char._ Body globose; when full-grown about the size of a walnut, invested with two[189] tunics, the outer one white, loosely membranaceous and fragile, sometimes smooth, at others furfuraceous; the innermost one (peridium) very tenacious, smooth, of a grey-lead colour externally, internally more or less shaggy with very fine hairs; these hairs occupy the whole cavity, and in the midst of them a prodigious number of minute granular bodies, the sporules (each of which is furnished with a long caudiform process), lie entangled. The whole plant, carefully removed from the earth, with its root still adhering, is in form not unlike one of its own seeds vastly magnified.

The _L. plumbeum_ abounds in dry places, and is to be found in spring, summer, and autumn, solitary or in groups. “This,” says Vittadini, “is one of our commonest Puff-balls, and after the warm rains of summer and of autumn, myriads of these little plants suddenly springing up will often completely cover a piece of ground as if they had been sown like grain, for a crop; if we dig them up we shall find that they are connected with long fragile threads, extending horizontally underground and giving attachment to numerous smaller Puff-balls in different stages of development, which, by continuing to grow, afford fresh supplies as the old ones die off.”

LYCOPERDON BOVISTA, _Linn._

Subdivision GASTEROMYCETES, _Fries_.

Tribe 3. TRICHOSPERMI. Family 1. TRICHOGASTRES.

“Vescie buone da friggere” (Tuscan vernacular name).

“La sua carne candida compatta si presta facilemente a tutte le
speculazioni del cuoco.”—_Vitt._

This differs from the last-mentioned Puff-ball in many particulars; in the first place it is much larger (sometimes attaining to vast dimensions), its shape is different, being that of an inverted cone; never globular, the flesh also is more compact, while the membrane which holds what is first the pulp and afterwards the seed, is very thin and tender; the seed, moreover, has no caudal appendage; and finally, a considerable portion of the base is sterile, in all which additional particulars it is unlike the _Lycoperdon plumbeum_. The plant is sessile, a purple-black fragile membrane contains the spores, which are also sessile,[190] and of the same colour as the peridium.

No fungus requires to be eaten so soon after gathering as this; a few hours will destroy the compactness of the flesh and change its colour from delicate-white to dirty-yellow;[191] but when perfectly fresh and properly prepared, it yields to no other in digestibility. It may be dressed in many ways, but the best method is to cut it into slices and fry these in egg and bread-crumbs; so prepared, it has the flavour of a rich, light omelette.[192]

AGARICUS MELLEUS.

PLATE IX. FIG. 3.

Subgenus 3. AMILLARIA.

This is a nauseous, disagreeable fungus, however cooked, and merely finds mention here, as its omission in a work on the esculent funguses of England might seem strange to those unacquainted with its demerits; it is really extraordinary how some Continental writers, speaking from their own experience, should ever have recommended it for the table. Pliny’s general _apage_ against all funguses really finds an application to this, which is so repugnant to our notions of the savoury, that few would make a second attempt, or get dangerously far in a first dish. Not to be poisonous is its only recommendation; for as to the inviting epithet _melleus_, or honeyed, by which it is designated, this alludes only to the colour, and by no means to the taste, which is both harsh and styptic.

_Bot. Char._ In tufts, near or upon stumps of trees, or posts. Pileus dirty-yellow, more or less hairy; _stem_ fibrous, varying greatly in length, from one inch to nine or ten; enlarged above and below, thinner in the middle; _ring_ thick, spreading, rough or leathery; _gills_ somewhat decurrent, deeper than the pileus; _spores_ white, appearing like fine dust on the gills.

AGARICUS ULMARIUS, _Bull._

Subgenus PLEUROPUS. Subdivision ÆGERITARIA.

“Fungo mangiativo sommamente ricercato e di ottima
qualità.”—_Vitt._

_Bot. Char._ Solitary or connected to others by a common root; the _pileus_ presenting a dirty-white surface, turning afterwards to a pale rust-colour, and sometimes tessellated; varying like all parasitical funguses in shape, but generally more or less orbicular; flesh continuous with the stalk, white, compact; _stalk_ very thick, solid, elastic, smooth towards the summit, tomentose at the base; _gills_ of a yellowish tint, broad, thick, ventricose, emarginate, _i. e._ terminating upon the surface of the stem in a receding angle; the imperfect gills few; _taste_ and _smell_ agreeable; _spores_ white.

This Agaric which takes its name from the tree where it is most commonly found, grows also, though less frequently, on the Poplar and Beech. Mr. Berkeley reports it rare; perhaps, however, as it is eminently local, it may here, as in Italy, be common in some places though of unfrequent general occurrence. No country being so rich in Elm-trees as our own, we should probably find _A. ulmarius_ more often if the height at which it grows among the branches did not frequently screen it from observation.[193] Though registered in the Flora of Tunbridge Wells, I have not met with a single specimen of it this autumn.

This Agaric dries well and may be kept (not, however, without losing some of its aroma) for a long time without spoiling; the gills, after a time, assume the same hue as the pileus.

AGARICUS FUSIPES, _Bull._

Subgenus CLYTOCYBE. Subdivision CHONDROPODES.

“Il a le même goût quo le Champignon de Couche, quoique un peu
plus prononcé.”—_Persoon._

_Bot. Char._ Gregarious; _pileus_ fleshy, loose, of a uniform brown colour, sometimes marked with dark blotches, as if burnt; _gills_ nearly free, serrated, at first dirty-white, afterwards a clear bistre; easily separable from the stalk; _stalk_ hollow, ventricose, sulcate, rooting, spindle-shaped, slightly grooved, tapering at the base, sometimes cracked transversely, varying singularly both in length and breadth.

This excellent fungus is very abundant throughout summer and autumn, coming up in tufts at the roots of old Oak-trees after rain. It may be easily recognized by its peculiar spindle-shaped stalk.

Vittadini does not mention it, nor does its name occur in the list of esculent funguses in the Diz. di Med. Class.; notwithstanding which the young plants make an excellent pickle; while the full-grown ones may be stewed or dressed in any of the usual modes adopted for the common mushroom.

AGARICUS VAGINATUS, _Bull._

Series 1. LEUCOSPORUS. Subgenus 1. AMANITA.

“La Coucoumèle grise (_Ag. vag._) est une des espèces les plus
délicates et les plus sûres à manger.”—_De Candolle._

_Bot. Char_. “Margin of the pileus sulcate, gills white, stuffed with cottony pith, fistulose, attenuated upwards, almost smooth; volva like a sheath. Woods and pastures, August and October; not uncommon. _Pileus_ four inches or more broad, plane, slightly depressed in the centre, scarcely umbonate, fleshy, but not at the extreme margin, which is elegantly grooved in consequence, viscid when moist, beautifully glossy when dry; epidermis easily detached, more or less studded with brown scales, the remnants of the volva, not persistent; _gills_ free, ventricose, broadest in front, often imbricated, white; _sporules_ white, round; _stem_ six inches or more high, from half to an inch thick, attenuated upwards, obtuse at the base, furnished with a volva, this adnate below to the extent of an inch, with the base of the stem, closely surrounding it above as in a sheath, but with the margin sometimes expanded; within and at the base marked with the groovings of the pileus, brittle, sericeo-squamulose, scarcely fibrillose, but splitting with ease longitudinally, hollow, or rather stuffed with fine cottony fibres; the very base solid, not acrid, insipid. _Smell_ scarcely any. It occurs of various colours, the more general one is a mouse-grey” (_Berkeley_).

The perfect accuracy of the above description will strike every one familiar with this species. Vittadini speaks of it as a solitary fungus, but I have found it on more than one occasion in rings. Its flesh, being very delicate and tender, must not be over-dressed. When properly fried in butter or oil, and as soon after gathering as possible, the _Ag. vaginatus_ will be found inferior to but few Agarics in its flavour.

AGARICUS VIOLACEUS, _Linn._

Subgenus 18. INOLOMA.

_Bot. Char._ _Pileus_ from four to six inches broad, obtuse, expanded, covered with soft hairs, colour deep violet; _stem_ spongy, grey, tinged with violet, minutely downy, about four inches high; _veil_ fugacious, composed of fine threads; _gills_ deep violet when young, but turning tawny in age; _flesh_ thick, juicy.

This is a handsome fungus, not very common, but plentiful where it occurs; it grows in woods, particularly under Pine and Fir trees, and may be dressed either with a white or a brown sauce.

AGARICUS CASTANEUS, _Bull._

Subgenus 19. DERMOCYBE.

_Bot. Char._ _Pileus_ slightly fleshy, convex when young, at length umbonate, chestnut colour, from one to three inches broad, glabrous; _gills_ rather broad, easily detached from the stem, ventricose, changing from light-purple to a ferruginous hue; _stem_ rather thin, from one and a half to three inches long, hollow, silvery, light-lilac or white; _veil_ delicate, composed of floccose threads; in _taste_, when raw, it somewhat resembles the _Ag. oreades_, but it has no smell.

This _Agaric_ may be distinguished from others by its chestnut or bistre colour; it is probably not uncommon; growing all the summer and autumn in woods, and under trees in meadows. Mr. Berkeley reports it esculent; I have no experience of it.

AGARICUS PIPERATUS, _Scop._

Subgenus 7. GALORRHEUS.

“Ed è veramente commestibile e saporoso quando se ne levi il
latte.”—_Bendiscioli._

_Bot. Char._ “_Pileus_ infundibuliform, rigid, smooth, white; gills very narrow, close; milk, and the solid blunt stem, white. In woods, July and August. _Pileus_ 3-7 inches broad, slightly rugulose, quite smooth, white, a little clouded with umber, or stained with yellow where scratched or bruised, convex, more or less depressed, often quite infundibuliform, more or less waved, fleshy, thick, firm but brittle; margin involute at first, sometimes excentric, milk-white, hot. _Gills_ generally very narrow (1/20 of an inch broad), but sometimes much broader, cream-colour, repeatedly dichotomous, very close, ‘like the teeth of an ivory comb,’ decurrent from the shape of the pileus, when bruised changing to umber. _Stem_ 1-3 inches high, 1½-2 inches thick, often compressed, minutely pruinose, solid, but spongy within, the substance breaking up into transverse cavities.”[194]

Though very acrid when raw, it loses its bad qualities entirely by cooking, and is extensively used on the Continent, prepared in various ways. It is preserved for winter use by drying or pickling in a mixture of salt and vinegar (_Berkeley_).

I have frequently eaten this fungus at Lucca, where it is very abundant, but as it resembles the _Ag. vellereus_ in appearance, with the properties of which we are unacquainted, too much caution cannot be exercised in learning to discriminate it from this and neighbouring species.

AGARICUS VIRGINEUS, _Wullf._

Subgenus 8. CLITOCYBE. Subdivision CAMAROPHYLLI.

_White Field-Agaric._

_Bot. Char._ _Pileus_ from one to two inches broad, margin involute when young, then expanded, depressed in the centre. _Gills_ deep, connected with veins, sometimes forked, broadly adnate, but breaking away from the stem as the pileus becomes depressed. _Stem_ six lines broad at the top, tapering downwards, not more than two at the base; at first stuffed with fibres, then hollow, excentric; the whole plant white, with occasionally a tinge of pink. _Taste_ pleasant, odour disagreeable.

These graceful little Agarics grow in pastures, and are extremely common in the autumn. They are so small that it requires a great many of them to make a dish, but as they occur frequently in the same fields with puff-balls, and may be dressed in the same manner, it is not unusual when the supply is scarce to serve them together, with the same sauce. The flavour of _Ag. virgineus_ is not unlike that of _Ag. oreades_.

TUBER ÆSTIVUM, _Vitt._

PLATE VIII. FIG. 2.

Peridium warty, of a blackish-brown colour, the warts polygonal and striate, flesh traversed by numerous veins; asci 4-6-spored; spores elliptical, reticulated.

This plant, the common truffle of our markets, is abundant in Wiltshire and some other parts of England, and probably occurs in many places where it escapes observation, from its subterranean habit.

CONCLUSION.

Italy is not the country for the English florist; he will find twenty times as many petals at home. Trim parterres are not inventions of the South; summer-houses would be no luxuries in a climate that never knows winter; the only Conservatories that flourish there are not for flowers, but for music. In few northern regions is Flora worse off for a bouquet than at Rome or Naples; regarded merely as the herald of Spring and not appreciated for her own sake, as soon as she has waved her wand over the land and covered it with the March blossoms of Crocuses, Cyclamens, and Anemones, her reign is over. All scents are held in equal abhorrence save those of frankincense and garlic, for which there seems to be a prescriptive toleration; but every other odour, fetid or fragrant, musk[195] or mignonette, is equally proscribed; and an Italian Signora would as soon permit a Locusta to cook for her, as a violet to scent her boudoir. To pick wild flowers is as dangerous as it is difficult to find cultivated ones; a _coup de soleil_ or a fever is easily procured by imprudent exposure before sunset, while the interval between that and night is too brief to be employed for the purpose; but when the season for flowers is long past, and Autumn with her fruits is come round again, when the stranger can wander forth where he lists without an umbrella, he will be able to luxuriate amidst the lovely scenery, and to delight himself in the natural history of the district: the season of the periodical rains has ceased; the repose of the forest is no longer troubled by the Power of the waters; the mountain Pines borne for miles down into the valleys are stranded on the broad shingly bed of the exhausted torrent; broken bridges are safely repaired; the maize is receiving the last mellowing touches as it festoons the cottage fronts, the prickly chestnut-pods are beginning to gape and the brown chestnuts to leap out shining from their envelopes; the last reluctant olive has been beaten from the bough; the vintage has nearly ceased to bleed; night fires[196] already begin to nicker on the mountains, and the hemp stubble is daily crackling on the plain. This is indeed the time for enjoying Italy; nature has revived again, and with nature, man. The feverish torpor, I had almost ventured to call it the summer hybernation, has ceased with September, and Autumn has come round with the vivifying influence of a new Spring; then if we go abroad to wander, whether our walk be across plains or through upland woods, we shall not stroll a mile without stopping a hundred times to admire what is to many of us a nearly new class of objects which have sprung up suddenly and now beset our path on every side. These are the Fungus tribe, which are as beautiful as the fairest flowers, and more useful than most fruits; and now that butchers’ meat is bad, that the beans have become stringy, and the potatoes are hydrated by the rain, they appear thus opportunely to eke out the scantiness of autumnal larders in the South and give a fresh zest to the daily repast. Well may their sudden apparition surprise us, for not ten days since the waters were all out, and only three or four nights back peals of thunder rattled against the casements and kept the most determined sleepers in awful vigil; and now—behold the meadows by natural magic studded with countless fairy-rings of every diameter, formed of such species as grow upon the ground, while the Chestnut and the Oak are teeming with a new class of fruits that had no previous blossoming, many of which have already attained their full growth. We recollect with gratitude the objects of a pursuit, which has accidentally brought us to such an acquaintance with the diversities of Italian scenery as we never should have experienced without it. In fishing, it is not the fish we catch, which alone repays us for our toil; it is the wandering as the rivulet wanders, “at its own sweet will,” the exercise and the appetite consequent upon it, the prize in natural history, the reciting aloud, or reflecting as we walk, and when it is pleasantly warm the “molles sub arbore somni,” which console us for the lack of sport. On the same principle, mushroom-hunting may be recommended to the young naturalist not only for the beauty of the objects which he is sure to come upon (if he do but hunt at the right season), but also because in that most beautiful of months, whether at home or abroad, it brings the wanderer out of beaten paths to fall in with many striking views which he would not otherwise have explored. The extremely limited time during which funguses are to be found, their fragility, their infinite diversity, their ephemeral existence, these, too, add to the interest of an autumnal walk in quest of them. At Lucca, leaving idleness and indigestion in bed, just as the sun was beginning to shoot his first rays on the white convents and the spires of the village churches on the mountains, making morning above, while the deep valley beneath was still in twilight, it was pleasant to pass the little opening coffee-house with its two or three candidates for early breakfast, and crossing the noiseless trout-stream over the little bridge, to enter one of those old chestnut-forests and begin clambering up the laddery pathway, to reach the summit just as he poured his full effulgence on the magnificent rival of the Lucchese and Modenese territories. Pleasant, too, was it on the road Romeward, pausing a few days to enjoy the exquisite scenery about Spoleto, to climb the steep streets to the cathedral, and thence, passing the giddy viaduct several hundred feet above the white ravine which it traverses, to issue upon those Nursian Hills then fragrant with the breath of morning, “le beau matin qui sort humide et pâle,” and with the scent of sweet herbs; but above all other hills renowned for the fragrance of those ever-reproductive mines of coal-black subterranean truffles! It is a pleasant remembrance to have plucked the crimson Amanite, that ministered to a Cæsar’s decease, in the very neighbourhood of the Palatine Hill; to have collected mushrooms amidst the meadows of Horace’s farm, where he tells us they grew best; and to have watched along the moist pastures of the Cremera a stand of the stately _Ag. procerus_ nodding upon their stalks; or, standing on the heights above Sorrento, just as the setting sun flashed upon the waters of the bay ere they engulfed him, and left us to his sister the evening star, to have come upon that wonderful _Polyporus tuberaster_ whose matrix is the hard stone, from which it derives strength and luxuriance as if from a soft and genial soil.

But not only in Italy, in our own country also, the Collector in Mycology will have to traverse much beautiful and diversified scenery; amid woods, greenswards, winding lanes, rich meadows, healthy commons, open downs, the nodding hop-grove and the mountain sheep-path; and all shone upon by an autumnal sunset,—as compared with Southern climes “obscurely bright,” and unpreceded by that beautiful rosy tint which bathes the whole landscape in Italy, but with a far finer background of clouds to reflect its departed glories: and throughout all this range of scenery he will never hunt in vain; indulgent gamekeepers, made aware of what he is poaching, may warn him that he is not collecting mushrooms, but will never warn him off from the best-kept preserves. In such rambles he will see, what I have this autumn (1847) myself witnessed, whole _hundredweights of rich wholesome diet rotting under the trees; woods teeming with food and not one hand to gather it_; and this, perhaps, in the midst of potato blight, poverty and all manner of privations, and public prayers against imminent famine. I have indeed grieved, when I reflected on the straitened condition of the lower orders this year, to see pounds innumerable of extempore beef-steaks growing on our oaks in the shape of _Fistulina hepatica_; _Ag. fusipes_ to pickle, in clusters under them; Puff-balls, which some of our friends have not inaptly compared to sweet-bread for the rich delicacy of their unassisted flavour; _Hydna_ as good as oysters, which they somewhat resemble in taste; _Agaricus deliciosus_, reminding us of tender lamb-kidneys; the beautiful yellow Chantarelle, that _kalon kagathon_ of diet, growing by the bushel, and no basket but our own to pick up a few specimens in our way; the sweet nutty-flavoured _Boletus_, in vain calling himself _edulis_ where there was none to believe him; the dainty _Orcella_; the _Ag. heterophyllus_, which tastes like the craw-fish when grilled; the _Ag. ruber_ and _Ag. virescens_, to cook in any way, and equally good in all;—these were among the most conspicuous of the _trouvailles_. But that the reader may know all he is likely to find in one single autumn, let him glance at the catalogue below.[197] He may at first alarm his friends’ cooks, but their fears will, I promise him, soon be appeased, after one or two trials of this new class of viands, and he will not long pass either for a conjuror or something worse, in giving directions to stew _toadstools_. As soon as he is initiated in this class of dainties, he will, I am persuaded, lose no time in making the discovery known to the poor of the neighbourhood; while in so doing he will render an important service to the country at large, by instructing the indigent and ignorant in the choice of an ample, wholesome, and excellent article, which they may convert into money, or consume at their own tables, when properly prepared, throughout the winter.

NOTE ON THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE SPORES IN HYMENOMYCETOUS FUNGUSES.

On the authority of Link, Fries, Vittadini, and other Continental mycologists, I have, in speaking of the spores of the genera _Agaricus_, _Boletus_, _Cantharellus_, _Hydnum_, and _Clavaria_, represented them as enclosed in cases (thecæ or sporanges). But from an interesting memoir, published by Mr. Berkeley in the ‘Annals of Natural History,’ “On the Fructification of the Pileate and Clavate tribes of Hymenomycetous Fungi,” which I had not then perused, it would appear that this arrangement only holds good with respect to _Pezizas_, _Helvellas_, and _Morels_, and not with respect to the above-mentioned genera, the spores of which are attached (generally in a quaternary and star form) to the ends of tubes, to which Mr. Berkeley has given the name of _sporophores_; a disposition which, as he observes, had been long ago pointed out by the great Florentine mycologist, Micheli. M. Montagne, in his ‘Recherches Anatomiques et Physiologiques sur l’Hymenium,’ while he confirms the fact of a quaternary disposition of the spores in general, thinks that during the _first_ stage of their development they are lodged _within_ the sporiferous tubes, to the mouths of which they afterwards adhere by means of short spiculæ or branchlets.

These, like all other questions connected with the minute reproductive granules of funguses, require for their solution not only the most dexterous manipulation and the aid of the finest modern microscopes, but are likely even then to exercise the ingenuity of the curious.

FOOTNOTES

[1] The word _seed_ here, or wherever else introduced into the present work, is to be understood in its popular acceptation; correctly speaking, spores differ from seeds in the absence of an apparent embryo; but in a more catholic sense spores are seeds, since both are germinating granules, producing each after their kind.

[2] At from twenty to thirty baiocchi, _i. e._ at about 1 _s._ 3 _d._ a pound.

[3] The population of Rome is only 154,000; that of Naples, 360,000; and that of Venice, 180,000.

[4] The Chinese present a striking contrast with ourselves in the care which they bestow on their esculent vegetation. “Some days since, M. Stanislas Julien presented to the Academy of Sciences, at Paris, a Chinese work, which merits a word or two of notice in the present circumstances of agricultural Europe. It is a treatise, in six volumes, with plates, entitled ‘The Anti-Famine Herbal;’ and contains the descriptions and representations of four hundred and fourteen different plants, whose leaves, rinds, stalks, or roots are fitted to furnish food for the people, when drought, ravages of locusts, or the overflow of the great rivers have occasioned a failure of rice and grain. Of this book the Chinese Government annually prints thousands, and distributes them gratuitously in those districts which are most exposed to natural calamities. Such an instance of provident solicitude on the part of the Chinese Government for the suffering classes may be suggestive here at home. A more general knowledge of the properties and capabilities of esculent plants would be an important branch of popular education.”—_Athenæum_, Nov. 16, 1846.

[5] There are three kinds of esculent funguses in Italy to which the epithet _albus_ might apply, viz. the _Amanita alba_, of Persoon, the _Lycoperdon Bovista_, Linn. (or common puff-ball), and _Agaricus campestris_, Linn. (our common mushroom). The first kind grows in woods, and the second in dry uncultivated spots, whereas Ovid mentions these in conjunction with the Mallow (_Malva_), which grows in moist meadow-land; it is probable, therefore, that he here alludes to the _Pratajolo_, or meadow mushroom, or to that variety of it called from its whiteness “boule de neige.”

[6] Etymol. _ad locum_.

[7] Well-fed domestic pigs, on the authority of a friend, refuse it; but possibly, in the absence of full supplies of corn, they might be less dainty.

[8] Vittadini assures us that the “slips of dried boletus, sold on strings, are as frequently from these kinds as from the _Boletus edulis_ itself; notwithstanding which, no accident was ever known to happen from the indiscriminate use of either.”

[9] Dioscorides, who lived in the time of Nero, says that pigs dig up “truffles” in spring. Matthiolus, in his commentaries, speaks of an inferior, smooth-barked, red truffle known to the ancients, to which the above remark of Dioscorides perhaps applies; certainly it does _not_ apply to the black truffle, which begins to come into the Roman market in November, and is over long before the spring.

[10] The Thracians are said to have intended this same _misy_ under the new epithet of κεραύνιον, as though it were produced by thunder, unless indeed, as in Theoph. lib. i. cap. ix., we should read κρανίον, in which case they meant the _Lycoperdon giganteum_, a fungus frequently as big as, and in the form of, the human head: whence its name of _cranium_.

[11] Whoever has time to waste on the unprofitable speculations of the ancients concerning the parentage of funguses, and would like so to waste it, may consult Pliny, lib. xvi. cap. 8, lib. xxii. cap. 23; Hist. Nat. Dioscorides, lib. iii. cap. 78; Athenæus, lib. ii. in the Deipnosophisti; and after them Galen, Clusius, Portæ (Villæ, lib. x.), Imperato (Hist. Nat.), etc. The first really philosophical treatise which ascribes their origin, like that of other plants, to seeds, was published by Micheli, at Florence, in 1720.

[12] Roques.

[13] Vittadini.

[14] ‘Trattati dei Funghi.’ Roma, 1804.

[15] Have not both the words _Tode_ and the stool called after him some etymological, as they have undoubtedly a fanciful, connection with the word _tod_, death?

[16] Juvenal.

[17] Few minute objects are more beautiful than certain of these mucedinous _fungi fungorum_. A common one besets the back of some of the _Russulæ_ in decay, spreading over it, especially if the weather be moist, like thin flocks of light wool, presenting on the second day a bluish tint on the surface. Under a powerful magnifier, myriads of little glasslike stalks are brought into view, which bifurcate again and again, each ultimate twig ending in a semilucent head, or button, at first blue, and afterwards black; which, when it comes to burst, scatters the spores, which are then (under the microscope) seen adhering to the sides of the delicate filamentary stalks like so many minute limpets.

[18] _Vide_ the London Docks, _passim_; where he pays his unwelcome visits, and is in even worse odour than the exciseman.

[19] “Sir Joseph Banks having a cask of wine, rather too sweet for immediate use, he directed that it should be placed in a cellar, that the saccharine it contained might be more decomposed by age; at the end of three years he directed his butler to ascertain the state of the wine, when, on attempting to open the cellar-door, he could not effect it, in consequence of some powerful obstacle; the door was consequently cut down, when the cellar was found to be completely filled with a fungous production, so firm, that it was necessary to use an axe for its removal. This appeared to have grown from, or to have been nourished by, the decomposing particles of the wine, the cask being empty, and carried up to the ceiling, where it was supported by the fungus.”—_Chambers’s Journal._

[20] Withering found one of these plants on the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral; the first he had seen!

[21] _Sporendonema Muscæ._

[22] “When healthy caterpillars are placed within reach of a silkworm that has been destroyed by the Botrytis, they, too, contract the disease, and at last perish.”—_Chambers’s Journal_, October, 1845.

[23] A species of _Polystrix_ is affected, whilst alive, with a parasitic kind of fungus, called _Sphæria_, which grows out of it, and feeds upon it.

[24] Several of the French surgeons have given recitals of cases where, on removal of the bandages from sore surfaces, they have found a collection of funguses growing upon them, generally about the size of the finger (Lemery); one of them adds, that having reapplied the wrappings, a second batch came out in the course of twenty-four hours, and this for several days consecutively.

[25] For an accurate description of these funguses, the reader is referred to the excellent work of Mr. Berkeley.

[26] These, beautiful, but fleeting as beauty’s blush, generally perish within a few hours; but I have seen some which, after a potting of 2000 years, retained their original hues unblemished, for they had been potted with the town of Pompeii, and are preserved with the other frescoes upon its walls.

[27] The _Mitrati_ are not a very numerous class, of which the _Morel_ may be taken as the type.

[28] The _Cupulati_, so called in consequence.

[29] _A. piperatus._

[30] _A. procerus._

[31] _Agaricus comatus_, in allusion no doubt to which Plautus says of the Lord Chancellor of his day, “Fungino genere est, capiti se totum tegit,”—that his wig was so long as to hide his whole person.

[32] The _Nidularias_ do so.

[33] The surface is rough with elevated papillæ, the structure fibrous, the flesh softly elastic, the colour bright red, looking like the tongue in the worst forms of gastro-enterite, with which its cold clammy surface when touched offers no correspondence.

[34] _A. micaceus._

[35] Thore.

[36] _Agaricus narcoticus_, Batsch, Fascic. vol. ii. pl. 81.

[37] _A. alliaceus._

[38] _A. cinnamomeus._

[39] Fries.

[40] Bolton.

[41] Persoon.

[42] Micheli.

[43] These last, placed in a wineglass, over a sheet of white paper, frequently disperse the seminal dust over a ring of twice the natural dimensions of the Agaric.

[44] “One dark night, about the beginning of December, while passing along the streets of the Villa de Natividade, I observed some boys amusing themselves with some luminous object, which I at first supposed to be a kind of large fire-fly; but, on making inquiry, I found it to be a beautiful phosphorescent fungus, belonging to the genus _Agaricus_, and was told that it grew abundantly in the neighbourhood, on the decaying leaves of a dwarf palm. Next day I obtained a great many specimens, and found them to vary from one to two and a half inches across. The whole plant gives out at night a bright phosphorescent light, of a pale greenish hue, similar to that emitted by the larger fire-flies, or by those curious, soft-bodied, marine animals, the _Pyrosomæ_; from this circumstance, and from growing on a palm, it is called by the inhabitants ‘Flor do Coco;’ the light given out by a few of these fungi in a dark room, was sufficient to read by. It proved to be quite a new species, and, since my return from Brazil, has been described by the Rev. M. J. Berkeley under the name of _Agaricus Gardneri_, from preserved specimens which I brought home.”—_Travels in the Interior of Brazil_, 1846.

[45] Hence it was called κρανίον (_vide_ Theoph. Lib. vol. i. cap. 9) by the ancients. Cesalpinus describes it under the name of _Peziza_, and reports that it is common in the woods of Pisa, whence men gather to eat them. We read also, in an ancient Italian writer (Cicinelli), that the environs of Padua produce enormous puff-balls, of which one (unless this author was given to _puffing_) measured not less than two feet across, in one direction, being upwards of a foot and a half in its least diameter. It was big enough, he says, to have written on its rind the celebrated inscription attributed by Dion Cassius to the Dacians, which they presented to the Emperor, “in quo scriptum erat Latinis literis Burros sociosque omnes eum hortari ut domum reverteretur pacemque coleret.” Other authors also (Alph. de Tuberibus,—not truffles, but puff-balls,—cap. xvii.; Imperato, Hist. Nat. Hol. vol. xxvii. cap. 5) speak of puff-balls of sixty and one hundred pounds weight.

[46] Hist. Plant. vol. ii. p. 275.

[47] Villæ, Lib. vol. x. cap. 80.

[48] By this word, however, the vulgar generally understood the _Cantharellus cibarius_.

[49] This species, which is somewhat rare in England, occurred in abundance this year (1847) in the neighbourhood of Tunbridge Wells. I found four specimens of it on the oak-roots in the Grove, one of which rose nearly a foot from the ground, measured considerably more than two and a half feet across, and weighed from eighteen to twenty pounds; the other specimens were of much smaller dimensions.

[50] Robert Scott, Act. Linn. Soc. vol. viii. p. 202.

[51] Dufresnoy.

[52] Roques.

[53] _Amadou_ is largely used in Italy, where it is called _esca_; the Latins likewise knew it by this name, though their more common appellation for it was _fomes_; the Byzantine Greeks hellenicized _esca_ into ὕσκα, which was their word for it; the ancient Greeks called it ζώπυρον. Salmasius tells us how it used to be made in his time, which indeed was the same as now: the fungus was first boiled, then beaten to pieces in a mortar, next hammered out to deprive it of its woody fibres, and lastly, being steeped in a strong solution of nitre, was left to dry in the sun. It appears, on the testimony of the anonymous author of the article “Fungo” in the ‘Dizionario Classico di Medicina,’ that it is also eaten when young; but I cannot speak of it from personal experience:—“In prima età mangiasi colto di fresco affettato e condito d’ogni modo; specialmente nelle provincie di Belluno ed Udine, o salasi per la quadragesima.”

[54] “Di questo fungo servavanosene i barbieri in cambio delle strugghie dette più volgaremente _codette_, atte a far riprendere il perduto filo a loro rasoi.”

[55] “This is the ‘Moucho more’ of the Russians, Kamtchadales, and Koriaks, who use it for intoxication; they sometimes eat it dry, but more commonly immersed in a liquor made from the _Epilobium_, and when they drink this liquor, they are seized with convulsions in all their limbs, followed with that kind of raving which accompanies a burning fever. They personify this mushroom, and, if they are urged by its effects to suicide, or any other dreadful crime, they pretend to obey its commands; to fit themselves for premeditated assassination they recur to the use of the Moucho more.”—_Rees’s Cyclopædia, art. “Agaric.”_

[56] In such cases the minute fungus is probably absorbed _in ovo_ and disseminated with the sap through the plant; as this ascends from the root, it remains undeveloped however till the corn is in ear, at which time it finds in the nascent grain the necessary conditions for its own development.

[57] The mischief thus produced by dry-rot may be arrested by steeping the affected timber in a solution of corrosive sublimate, which, forming a chemical union with the juices of the woody fibre, prevents their being abstracted by the dry-rot, that would else have maintained itself and spread at their expense.

[58] A reputation that revives may not be so good as one that survives, but the very fact of such revival shows that the good opinion formerly entertained was not altogether groundless.

[59] Enslin was in the habit of uniting this _Polyporus_ with Peruvian Bark, and obtained from it the happiest results: “Omnium mihi arridet connubium ejus cum cortice Peruviano”—to which “connubium,” no doubt, some of its good effects are to be attributed.

[60] Haller relates, that the inhabitants of Piedmont are in the habit of swallowing a small piece of this Agaric, when they have drunk with their water some of those small leeches in which it abounds. Bomare mentions of this same Agaric, that the inhabitants of Balcu use it in powder to heal blains in their cattle.

[61] Hunter.

[62] It is the Frenchman’s _heart_! “J’ai mal au cœur” means, as every one knows, in the French tongue, not ‘I am sick at heart,’ as it professes to say, but ‘I am sick at stomach’!

[63] Walpole.

[64] The phrase “I like it, but it does not like me,” which one sometimes hears at table, having a reference to some particular idiosyncrasy of the party who makes the remark, does not invalidate the truth of this general proposition.

[65] Pope. Mead, if anybody, ought to have been good authority on the subject of this particular diet. He had written, _ex professo_, upon poisons; and the Florentine mycologist Micheli had dedicated several newly-discovered funguses to him. He was therefore both a Toxicologist and a Mycologist.

[66]

“No thought too bold, no airy dream too light,
That will not prompt your Theorist to write;
No fact so stubborn, and no proof so strong,
Will e’er convince him he _could_ argue wrong.”—_Crabbe._

[67] Broussais divides inflammatory dyspepsia into _five_ parts or acts. That Leach of leeches, whose word once passed for more than it was worth, came at last to see himself and his _sangsues_ utterly abandoned, and to have the mortification of lecturing in his old age to empty benches. “Quantum mutatus ab illo” of less than twenty years before, and who had been the cause of as much innocent bloodshedding as Napoleon himself, and used to kill his patients that his leeches might be fed!

[68] “Fungus qualiscunque sit semper _malignus_.”—_Kirker, Lib. de Pest._

[69] “_Apage_ ergo perniciosa isthæc gulæ blandimenta.”

[70] “Quot colores tot dolores, quot species tot pernicies.”

[71] M. Roques gives at the end of his treatise on funguses a long list of his mycophilous friends, including in the number many of the most eminent _medical_ men of the French capital—if medical men are more careful of what they eat than their neighbours, which, however, is exceedingly doubtful.

[72] “To eat raw mushrooms” was a proverbial expression among the Greeks, as is shown by the passage which Athenæus quotes out of a play of Antiphanes, called the ‘Proverbs’:—Ἔγω γάρ ἂν τῶν ὑμετέρων φάγοιμί τι, μύκητας ὠμοὺς αὔτικ’ ἂν φαγεῖν δοκάω.

[73] Those who themselves know better, smile to read such passages as the following, which is to be found in old Gerard’s ‘Herbal’:—“Galen affirms that they (_i. e._ funguses) are all very cold and moist, and therefore do approach unto a venomous and mothering facultie, and engender a clammy and pituitous nutriment; if eaten, therefore, I give my advice unto those that love such strange and new-fangled meates, to beware of licking honey among thorns, lest the sweetnesse of the one do not countervaille the sharpnesse and pricking of the other.”

[74] A life of labour, no doubt, will make the sorriest fare sit more lightly on the healthy stomach, than the most dainty viands which have been received into an organ that is weakened and goaded by a life of dissipation and excess; but this does not prove sorry fare to be more wholesome than that of a richer kind. No! Dyspepsia is a disease of the rich; not because they live upon the fat of the land, but plainly because they indulge in too large a quantity at a meal. Let the peasant and the lord change places for a week; place the healthy rustic at the rich man’s table, and Dives again at the other board, what would be the results to both? Would not the poor man, think you, find indigestion in ragoût, fricassees, truffles, with light wine _ad libitum_ to drink with them? and would not the rich man find that the fat pork and hard beer were worse poison than any of the made-dishes, against which he has been so lavish in his blame? In general, no doubt, to be “the happiest of mortals—to digest well” (Voltaire), men should look more to the _quantum_ and less to the _quale_ of what they eat; but they should pay some attention to this too.

[75] Ἢν δὲ πάντα ὅμοια ποιήσῃ οὐκ ἔχει τέρψιν. Π.Δ. Α. 10.

[76] That I did not always hold such an opinion as the above, to which I have since given in my adhesion, the following ode to Eupepsia, written in the days of theoretical inexperience, will sufficiently testify. I am now convinced that Hippocrates was right!—

Happy the man whose prudent care
Plain boiled and roast discreetly bound;
Content to feed on homely fare,
On British ground!
Sound sleep renounces _sugared_ peas!—
No nightmares haunt the modest ration
Of tender steak, that yields with ease
To mastication!
From stews and steams that round them play,
How many a tempting dish would floor us,
Had nature made no toll to pay
At the pylorus!

He dines unscathed, who dines _alone_!
Or shuns abroad those _corner_ dishes;
No Roman garlics make him groan,
Nor matelotte fishes.
Then let not Vérey’s treacherous skill,
Nor Véfour’s, try thy peptic forces;
One comes to swallow many a pill
Where many a course is!
With _mushroomed_ dishes cease to strive;
Nor for that _truffled crime_ inquire,
Which nails the hapless goose alive,
At Strasburg’s fire.

[77] Heberden wisely left it to his patients, except in acute cases of disease or when they were gluttons, “to eat what pleased them, finding that many apparently unfit substances” (_which funguses are not_) “agreed with the stomach merely because they were suitable to its feelings.” Why quote Abernethy?—but that good sense, backed by personal experience in such matters, are always worth quoting—who says, “Nothing hurts me that I eat with appetite and delight;” or Withers, unless for a like reason, who is “of opinion that the instinct of the palate, not misguided by preconceived opinion, may be satisfied, not only with impunity, but even with advantage.” It is the rule by which the brute creation is taught to shun its poison and to choose its food: to a considerable extent, it should be ours also.

[78] Roques, ‘Traité sur les Champignons.’

[79] Æschines.

[80] “Pratensibus optima fungis Natura est.”—_Horace._

[81] Locality has a great effect upon almost all that we eat: our very mutton varies in different counties; compare the town-bred gutter-fed poultry of London with that of twenty miles around; fish vary, the tench out of different ponds are different; fruits vary with the soil; are potatoes everywhere the same?

[82] Persons have fancied themselves poisoned when they were not; indigestion produced by mushrooms is looked upon with fear and suspicion, and if a medical man be called in, the stomach-pump used, and relief obtained, nothing will persuade either patient or practitioner that this has not been a case of poisoning. “You have saved my life,” says the one. “I think you will not be persuaded to eat any more mushrooms for some time,” says the other: and so they part, each under the impression that he knows more about mushrooms than anybody else can tell him.

[83] It grows not only throughout Europe, but in India also.

[84] We should apply the same rules of discrimination here as elsewhere. Have we not picked potatoes for our table out of the deadly family of _Solana_? selected with care the _garden_ from the _fool’s_ parsley? And do we not pickle gherkins, notwithstanding their affinity to the _Elaterium momordicum_, which would poison us if we were to eat it?

[85] “N’est-il pas bien plus simple et bien plus sûr en même temps, _puisqu’on le peut_, de prévenir les maux, que de spéculer sur les moyens si souvent incertains de les guérir?”—Bull. Pl. Vénén. p. 11.

[86] _Vide_ Vittadini and Roques.

[87] Roques fell in with two soldiers at St. Cyr, who had gathered and were in the act of carrying off twice the quantity of this fungus necessary to kill the regiment, when he interfered, and no doubt saved many lives in doing so. The soldiers, it appears, had mistaken the _Ag. necator_ for the _Hydnum repandum_, to which it bears some slight resemblance in colour, and in nothing else.

[88] The _converse_ of this remark by no means holds true; the _Amanita verna_, the _Am. phalloides_, the _Ag. semiglobatus_, _dryophilus_, and _muscarius_, though amongst the most deadly of this class of plants, do not change colour on being cut; the flesh of the first two is, moreover, of a tempting whiteness, like that of the common puff-ball, than which there is not a safer or a better fungus. “Omnino ne crede colori” is our only safe motto here.

[89] Johnson’s Dictionary.

[90] He was wrong here: the oak produces both the _Fistulina hepatica_ and the _Agaricus fusipes_, two excellent funguses, particularly the last, which, properly dressed or pickled, have not many rivals.

[91] As was known to the Greeks, ‘Prepare your funguses with vinegar, salt, or honey, for thus you will rob them of their poison,’ οὕτω γὰρ αὐτῶν τὸ πνιγώδες ἀφαιρεῖται.

[92] Vittadini, however, ate largely of this fungus, which he describes as very disagreeable, though it did not prove poisonous to him.

[93] Puccinelli.

[94] In a whole family, cut off in the year 1843, at Lucca, by dining on some poisonous Boletuses, drawn and first described by Professor Puccinelli under the ominous name of _Boletus terribilis_, besides most extensive ulceration of the mucous coat of the intestines throughout a very considerable portion of their extent, together with injection of the vessels of the brain, the lungs were found congested, and the cavities of the heart distended, with coagula of blood.

[95] For a most interesting record of all the more recent poisonings from funguses in Italy, the reader may consult Professor delle Chiaje’s work on Toxicology. The following, the only one I shall give, is to be found in Vittadini’s excellent work on funguses:—

“Giovanna Ballerini, montanara, d’ anni 26, moglie di Luigi Dodici, nativa di Brugnello, Stato Sardo, e domiciliata in Lardirago, distretto di Belgiojoso, provincia di Pavia, mangiò la sera del 19 maggio, 1831, in compagnia di due suoi nipoti, Giuseppe Ballerini d’ anni 6, e Maria, d’ anni 12, buona copia d’ agarici di primavera, cotti nella minestra. Erano dessi stati colti nel vicin bosco della Rossa, e da quella sventurata probabilmente scambiati coi Prugnuoli (_Ag. mouceron_, Bull.), funghi generalmente conosciuti da quegli alpigiani sotto il nome di Spinaroli, o Maggenghi. All’ indomani allontanossi Giovanna da casa, come era suo costume, onde provvedere ai proprj bisogni, ma trascorse alcune ore venne assalita da forte oppressione all’ epigastrio, da nausee, da conati di vomito, ecc., e costretta infine verso il meriggio dalla gravezza del patire a tornarsene a casa, ove trovò dallo stesso male tormentati anche i nipoti. I principali fenomeni morbosi che presentavano quegli infelici all’ arrivo di Giovanna erano: nausee continue, dolori acutissimi allo stomaco ed alle intestina, deliquj frequenti, convulsioni, ecc. Poco dopo Maria ed in seguito Giovanna vennero prese da vomito ostinato di materie bigio-nerastre, a cui s’accoppiava bentosto, per colmo di sventura, un’ abbondante soccorrenza della stessa materia, e più innanzi di pretto sangue. Impotente a recere, Giuseppe si struggeva in vani conati di vomito. Chiamato verso sera in loro soccorso il sig. dott. Luigi Casorati, medico condotto del luogo, mio collega ed amico, s’ adoperò ma invano per sostare il vomito ed il colera, che specialmente in Maria ed in Giovanna andavano sempre più imperversando. Le bevande mucilaginose, il latte, gli oppiati, le fomentazioni ammollienti sull’ addome a nulla giovarono. Si tentò la sanguigna, ma anche questa senza effetto. Alle ore 7 del mattino del giorno 21, 38 ore circa dall’ ingestione del fungo, Giuseppe, chi si era ostinatamente rifiutato ad ogni medicina, non era più; nè miglior sorte incontravano Maria e Giovanna, chi, tradotte all’ ospedale di Pavia, non ostante i soccorsi che vennero loro prodigati, perivano nella stessa giornata fra le più terribili angosce, e senza perdere gran fatto l’ uso dei sensi, la prima verso il meriggio, l’ altra verso le ore sette pomeridiane. All’ autopsia del cadavere di Giuseppe Ballerini, eseguitasi in Lardirago, sotto i miei occhi, dallo stesso Dottor Casorati che gentilmente me ne fece invito, ed alla quale assisteva pure il sig. dott. G. Galliotti, si trovò lo stomaco zeppo di un liquido verdastro, entro cui nuotavano ancora, unitamente a buona porzione di riso e di erbe, varj pezzetti del fungo non ancora decomposti, e che potei agevolmente riconoscere a qual parte della pianta appartenessero; la mucosa di quel viscere sensibilmente injettata, e coperta, specialmente lungo la piccola curvatura ed in vicinanza del piloro, di grandi macchie di color roseo-livido intenso. Le intestina tenui pur esse ove più ove meno injettate, e del color dello scarlatto, le crasse morbosamente ristrette, ma meno delle tenui ingorgate; sì le une che le altre vuote d’alimenti, e non contenenti che poca quantità di muco bigio-nerastro e qualche lombrico. Le meningi erano anch’ esse sommamente injettate, specialmente la pia; la sostanza del cervello meno consistente del naturale, punteggiata di rosso, e la base dello stesso nuotante in una quantità considerabile di siero sanguinolento.”—_Vitt._ p. 340.

[96] When dried, gr. xx.-xxv. will scarcely produce the effects of gr. v. of the fungus when first gathered.—_Vitt._

[97] The total quantity of moisture absorbed by funguses, during development and growth, is great; thus, if a number of small Agarics, still in their wrappers, be placed in wineglasses half filled with water, this will be rapidly absorbed, even before they break through their membrane. Moreover, if Agarics or Boletuses, already developed, be placed in glasses containing so many ounces of water, the amount of which has been previously ascertained, and equal to that in another glass, by which to make allowance for what has been lost by evaporation, the result will generally be that a quantity of water, equal to from one-fourth to one-third of the full weight of each fungus, will have been absorbed and exhaled again in two days. The redundant moisture of those plants is rendered conspicuous if we place a Boletus on a watch-glass, the surface of which is speedily beaded with drops of water, as if it had been in the rain; while the quantity of fluid is sometimes so great as to defeat the object we had in placing it there, viz. that of collecting the spores.