Part 1

Produced by WebRover, Peter Vachuska, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

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]