Part 2

CLXXIX. Bovista minor 610

CLXXX. Scleroderma vulgare 615

CLXXXI. Polysaccum pisocarpium 618

CLXXXII. Mycenastrum spinulosum 613

PREFACE

A score of years ago (1880–1885) I was living in the mountains of West Virginia. While riding on horseback through the dense forests of that great unfenced state, I saw on every side luxuriant growths of fungi, so inviting in color, cleanliness and flesh that it occurred to me they ought to be eaten. I remembered having read a short time before this inspiration seized me a very interesting article in the Popular Science Monthly for May, 1877, written by Mr. Julius A. Palmer, Jr., entitled “Toadstool Eating.” Hunting it up I studied it carefully, and soon found myself interested in a delightful study which was not without immediate reward. Up to this time I had been living, literally, on the fat of the land—bacon; but my studies enabled me to supplement this, the staple dish of the state, with a vegetable luxury that centuries ago graced the dinners of the Cæsars. So absorbing did the study become from gastronomic, culinary and scientific points of view, that I have continued it ever since, with thorough intellectual enjoyment and much gratification of appetite as my reward. I hope to interest students in the study as I am myself interested.

For twenty years my little friends—the toadstools—have been my constant companions. They have interested me, delighted me, fed me, and I have found much pleasure in making the public acquainted with their habits, structure, lusciousness and food value.

My researches have been confined to the species large enough to appease the appetite of a hungry naturalist if found in reasonable quantity; and my work has been devoted to segregating the edible and innocuous from the tough, undesirable and poisonous kinds. To accomplish this, because of the persistent inaccuracy of the books upon the subject, it was necessary to personally test the edible qualities of hundreds of species about which mycologists have either written nothing or have followed one another in giving erroneous information. While often wishing I had not undertaken the work because of the unpleasant results from personally testing fungi which proved to be poisonous, my reward has been generous in the discovery of many delicacies among the more than seven hundred edible varieties I have found.

For ten years I have planned to publish in book form what I know about toadstools; each effort to compile my information has shown me how much more I ought to know before going into print. Even now my work is still unfinished.

I am urged by my many toadstool friends (as I lovingly call those who, from all over the land, send me specimens for identification, and grow interested with me in the work), to publish what I already know upon the subject, that they, and others, may have a helpful book to guide them to a goodly portion of the edible species, and away from those that are inedible or poisonous.

In this book I comply with these requests. I have selected over seven hundred of the most plentiful and best varieties for the table, from my toadstool bill of fare; and I describe and caution against several species, some of which are deadly in their effects, if eaten; others of which induce ill-effects more or less serious. One thousand species and varieties are named and described.

Birds, flowers, insects, stones delight the observant. Why not toadstools? A tramp after them is absorbing, study of them interesting, and eating of them health-giving and supremely satisfying.

CHARLES MCILVAINE.

INTRODUCTION

America is without a text-book of the American species of Fungi, among which the edible and poisonous varieties are found. Many excellent but expensive foreign volumes describe species common to both continents, and several special but widely scattered monographs have been published here. The need of the mycologist, mycophagist and amateur toadstool student is a book giving the genus, names and descriptions of the prominent American toadstools whose edibility has been tested, or whose poisonous qualities have been discovered. The absence of such a book, and the universal and rapidly-growing interest all over the United States in edible fungi, have led to the publication of the present work, which includes every species known to be esculent in North America. As a precautionary measure, full explications of all those known or suspected to be poisonous are included.

Many species found in this country only have been described and named by various authors, from the time of Schweinitz (1822) to the present day. These have been published in the botanical magazines and in the papers of scientific societies and colleges. The greater number have as author Professor Charles H. Peck, New York State Botanist, who has contributed an annual report each year from 1868. These appear in the reports of the State Museum of New York, and coming from the pen of our ablest mycologist are of great value to everyone interested in the study. The classifications and (in many instances) modified descriptions by such an eminent authority upon fungoid growth should therefore be the guides to American forms, that the confusion created by numerous descriptions of the same fungus by different observers may be avoided.

Professor N.L. Britton, editor of the Torrey Botanical Club, has courteously given permission to use the descriptions of new species given in its instructive Bulletins.

Professor A.P. Morgan and Laura V. Morgan, with equal courtesy, grant the use of text and illustrations contained in the most complete monograph published upon the Lycoperdaceæ (puff-balls, etc.) of America.

While the scientific classifications and descriptions have been strictly followed, the language has been simplified—with no sacrifice of scientific accuracy—that this volume may be fully adapted to popular use.

Professor Peck has given his valuable assistance in the identification of many species, all that were difficult or obscure having been submitted to him, and the writer is deeply indebted to him for many and long-continued courtesies, aiding in study and in the preparation of this work.

Several new species have been found by the writer, the greater part of excellent food value. He preferred that these should be named, described and placed in their proper genus and section by Professor Peck, believing it to be best for the discoverers of new species to defer to one whose vast experience enables him to name and classify in accordance with the demands of American species.

Where a species is vouched for as edible, it has been personally tested by the author and his willing undertasters up to eating full meals of it, or at least beyond all doubt as to its safety. Where others have eaten species which he has not had the opportunity to test, their names and opinions are given. When species heretofore under the ban of suspicion are in this volume, for the first time, announced to be edible (there are many of them), personal tests have not been considered sufficient, as idiosyncrasy might have affected the results. Others, at the writer’s request, have eaten of the species until their innocence was fully established. In some cases, where the reputation of the fungi eaten was especially bad, scientists of note have made elaborate and exhaustive physiological tests of their substances, and in every instance confirmed the human testing.

While species which contain deadly poisons are few, their individuals are produced in great number. Nicety in distinguishing their botanic variance from edible species closely resembling them is necessary. No charm will detect the poison. Eating toadstools before their certain identification as belonging to edible species, is neither bravery nor common sense. The amateur should go slow.

The question often asked is: By what rule do you distinguish between edible and poisonous mushrooms? The answer usually surprises the questioner—there is no general rule. All such rules which have been given are false and unreliable. The quality of each was learned, one at a time. Sweet and sour apples alike grow on large and small trees, may be red or green, large or small, oblong or globular, and no visible appearance gives the least clue to the quality.

In a few genera certain rules may be applied, as in Clavaria--all not bitter or tough are edible. But such generalizations are each limited to its own genus.

The toadstools containing deadly poisons are thought to be confined to one genus of the gilled kind—Amanita, and to Helvella esculenta, now Gyromitra esculenta, to which are charged fatal results. The poisonous qualities of Gyromitra esculenta are not proven. Recent testings of this species prove it to be harmless and of good quality. By far the greater number of species contained in Amanita are notable for their tender substance and delicious flavor. By their stately beauty and unusual attractiveness both the poisonous and harmless kinds are seductive. _Any toadstool with white or lemon-yellow gills, casting white spores when laid—gills downward—upon a sheet of paper, having remnants of a fugitive skin in the shape of scabs or warts upon the upper surface of its cap, with a veil or ring, or remnants or stains of one, having at the base of its stem—in the ground—a loose, skin-like sheath surrounding it, or remnants of one, should never be eaten until the collector is thoroughly conversant with the technicalities of every such species, or has been taught by one whose authority is well known, that it is a harmless species._ This rule purposely includes the renowned Amanita Cæsaria, everywhere written as luscious. I regard it as the most dangerous of toadstools, because of its close resemblance to its sister plant—the Amanita muscaria—which is deadly. In the description of these species, other forcible reasons are given.

Another deadly species—the Amanita phalloides—is frequently mistaken by the inexperienced for the common mushroom. Safety lies in the strict observance of two rules: Never eat a toadstool found in the woods or shady places, believing it to be the common mushroom. Never eat a white- or yellow-gilled toadstool in the same belief. The common mushroom does not grow in the woods, and its gills are at first pink, then purplish-brown or black.

If through carelessness, or by accident, a poisonous Amanita has been eaten, and sickness results, take an emetic at once, and send for a physician with instructions to bring hypodermic syringe and atropine sulphate. The dose is 1⁄180 of a grain, and doses should be continued heroically until the 1⁄20 of a grain is administered, or until, in the physician’s opinion, a proper quantity has been injected. Where the victim is critically ill the 1⁄20 of a grain may be administered.

In every case of toadstool poisoning, the physician must be guided by the symptoms exhibited. Professor W.S. Carter, by numerous exhaustive trials upon animals, has proved that atropine, while valuable as against the _first_, is not an antidote for the _late_ effects of the greater toadstool poisons. (See his chapter on toadstool poisons, especially prepared for this work.)

There are other species which contain minor poisons producing very undesirable effects. These are soon remedied by taking an emetic, then one or two doses of whisky and sweet oil; or vinegar may be substituted for the whisky. A few species of fungi are innocuous to the majority of persons and harmful to a few. So it is with many common foods—strawberries, apples, tomatoes, celery, even potatoes. The beginner at toadstool eating usually expects commendation for bravery, and fearfully watches for hours the coming of something dreadful. Indigestion from any other cause is always laid to the traditionary enemy, fright ensues, a physician is called, the scare spreads, and a pestilential story of “Severe Poisoning by Toadstools,” gets into the newspapers. The writer has traced many such publications to imprudences in eating, with which toadstools had nothing to do.

The authoritative analysis of several common food species by Lafayette B. Mendel, of Sheffield Laboratory of Physiological Chemistry, Yale University, is given, and will correct the popular error about the great nutritive value of fungi, arising from previous erroneous analyses.

While species are reported as found in certain localities, it by no means follows that their growth is confined to these places. A species reported as found in the Adirondack mountains, unless belonging to the few peculiar to northern regions and high altitudes, is reasonably sure to be more plentiful in a like habitat south and west of them. South it will appear earlier and its season last longer.

Size is largely dependent upon latitude and may vary greatly in the same group. Temperature, moisture, favorable nourishment are important factors in growth.

Each species has its favorite habitat, and will thrive best upon it. There are few things under the sun upon which fungi do not grow. Their mission is particularly directed toward converting decaying matter, or matter which has accomplished its work in one direction, into usefulness in another. They are the wood-choppers, stewards, caterers of the forest, converters in the fields and chemists everywhere. They can not assimilate inorganic matter because of the absence of chlorophyl in their composition, but in organic matter they are omnivorous. When they feed on dead substances they are called saprophytes; when their support is derived from living tissues, parasites.

Scores of species of fungi were found in the forests, ravines and clearings of the West Virginia mountains from 1881 to 1885 inclusive, and eaten by the writer years before he had the opportunity to learn their names from books or obtain the friendly assistance of experts in identifying them. He knew the individuals without knowing their names, as one knows the bird song and plumage before formal introduction to the pretty creatures that charm him.

After he was able to get European publications upon the subject, and by their aid trace the species he had eaten to their names, descriptions and qualities, he was surprised to read that many of them were warned against as deadly. As informed by these books, he properly ought to have died several times. It soon became evident that authors had followed one another in condemning species, some because they bore brilliant hues, others because they were unpleasant when raw (just as is a potato), rather than investigate their qualities by testing them. Here was a realm of food-giving plants almost entirely unexplored. The writer determined to explore it. Instead of the one hundred and eleven species then recorded by the late Doctor Curtis as edible, my number of edible species now exceeds his by over six hundred.[A]

Footnote A:

This book contains one hundred and fifty pages more than were originally estimated and promised to the subscribers. That all known edible and poisonous species might be fully described and published within one volume, the author was compelled to cut fifty thousand words from his manuscript. The localities from which species have been reported and the names of the reporters have been taken out, excepting where it was desirable to show that foreign species have been found in the United States, and where tested species have been found by the author. The principal cut has been from the notes of the author and of enlarged descriptions.

Let us clear away the rubbish and superstition that have so long obscured the straight path to a knowledge of edible toadstools. Let us bear in mind that a mushroom is a toadstool and a toadstool is a mushroom—the terms are interchangeable. If toads ever occupied the one-legged seat assigned them from time immemorial, they have learned in this enlightened age that the ground is much more reliable, and so squat upon it, except when exercising their constitutional right to hop. Snails, slugs, insects of many kinds, mice, squirrels and rabbits prey upon good and bad, each to its liking, notwithstanding oft-repeated assertion that snails and slugs infect noxious varieties only, or that animals select the innocuous only. We are warned against those which grow in the dark or damp; the mushroom of commerce is grown by the ton in the subterranean quarries of France, and everywhere in vaults and cellars for domestic use. The valued truffle never sees the light until it is taken from darkness to be eaten, and other varieties of the best prefer seclusion.

The wiseacres tell us that they must have equal gills, must not have thin tops, must not turn yellow when sprinkled with salt, must not blacken a silver spoon, that we must not eat of those changing color when cut or broken, of those exuding milk, or those which are acrid, hot, or bitter, and give many other specifics for determining the good from the bad. These tests are all worse than worthless, for if confidence is placed in them they will not only lead us away from esculent and excellent varieties but directly into eating venomous ones.

There are whole genera of fungi which are innocuous; but in the Family of Agaricaceæ, where the greatest variety of the edible and poisonous species are found, it is necessary to master one by one the details of their construction and learn to distinguish their differences as one does those of the many kinds of roses, or pinks, or hundreds of bright-faced pansies, and in the mastery of them lies the only charm that will safely guide.

Carefully remove the first toadstool found from whatever it is growing upon, and with it a portion of that from which it springs. If it is the earth a curious white network is discernible, fine as the delicate spinning of the spider, spreading its meshes throughout the mass. It will often remind of miniature vines climbing over miniature lattices. This is the mycelium from which the toadstool grew. In many instances it penetrates the earth to a considerable depth, and takes possession of large territory. It is often seen as the gardener turns up the soil or its fertilizer, and is perhaps taken for a mold. If the specimen is gathered from mat of wood leaves, the same white vine is observable slipping in between its layers. If taken from a tree, the decaying wood is traversed by it. From wherever a toadstool is plucked, it is removed from its mycelium.

This mycelium is but a thread-like mass of simple cells joined together at their ends and interlacing in a way a thousand-fold more intricate than a Chinese puzzle. Nothing in its structure indicates what its special product will be. The fungus which is plucked from it is in all its parts simply a mass of these threads—cells strung together, interlacing and ramifying.

When the season favors, the mycelium—which has, winter and summer and from year to year, lived its hidden life, or has sprung from a germinating spore—develops a number of its cells in a minute knob, small as a pin head. At this point the cells make special growth efforts to bring themselves within the favoring influences of heat and moisture; this tiny knob labors within itself, producing cell after cell, which takes shape and function for the future toadstool.

As it rapidly enlarges it pushes its way toward the surface of the ground, becomes more or less egg-shaped in this stage of its growth, and if cut in half longitudinally and examined, it will display what it is going to be when it grows up.

Suppose that it belongs to the first of the two great sections into which fungi are divided under the classification of Fries, who modified that of Persoon. The first has the spores—which represent the seeds in plants—naked, and it is called sporifera or spore-bearing. The second, which has the spores enclosed in cells or cysts, is called sporidifera or sporidia-bearing. If the cap of a gill-bearing toadstool be laid, gills downward, on a watch crystal or piece of white paper for a few hours, or, in some instances, a few minutes, a complete representation of the spaces between the gills will be found deposited as an impalpable powder. These are the spores.

The first section is divided into four cohorts. Two of these have hymeniums or spore-bearing surfaces more or less expanded. These are Hymenomycetes and Gastromycetes. In Hymenomycetes the hymenium is always exposed in matured plants, as with the common mushroom. When young, some plants are covered with a membrane. In Gastromycetes the hymenium is always concealed within a covering which bursts at maturity, as with the Lycoperdons or puff-balls. Cohort Coniomycetes includes rusts, smuts, etc., formed for the most part on living plants. There is no hymenium present. The spores are produced on the ends of inconspicuous threads, free or enclosed in a bottle-like receptacle called a perithecium. Cohort Hypomycetes is composed of those species of fungi commonly called molds. The spores are produced, naked, from the ends of inconspicuous threads.

In the Agaricaceæ—the first family in Hymenomycetes—the young plant is completely enveloped. (Plate III, fig. B, p. 2.) Its head is as yet undefined and its body may be classed as dumpy, but shut in and protected are a great quantity of knife-like plaits (Plate III, fig. C., p. 2), on the outer surface of which, when the plant matures, will be borne its spores. It therefore belongs to the Hymenomycetes, and to the Family Agaricaceæ—gill-bearing.

If the ground becomes moist or there comes a heavy dew or a rain, the young plant, closely compacted and very solid, which has been under the surface for many days waiting its chance to get forth to light and air, rapidly swells, breaks through the moistened earth, goes rapidly to cell-making, ruptures its outside covering, the head expands and in so doing spreads out its gills or hymenium. (Plate III, figs. C, D, E, p. 2.) The membrane which covered the gills either vanishes, or gathers round the stem in the form of a ring or circular apron, or it may partially adhere to the edges of the top, cap or pileus and hang as a fringe from it; the stem elongates; the whole plant assumes the colors of its species and in a few hours or days at most it stands forth, a marvel of beauty, structure and workmanship.

But little is known of how these spores reproduce themselves. The microscope fails to completely penetrate the mystery. A whole fungus is but a mass of cells, the spore is but one of them. That these simple cells do produce after their kind there is no doubt, but so minute is the germ and hidden its methods that science has failed to solve them.

The first Family of Hymenomycetes is Agaricaceæ. Its members always have gills or modifications of them. In some cases—notably in Cantharellus—the gills have the appearance of smooth, raised veins over which is the spore-bearing surface. The hymenium is but an extension of the fibers of the cap, folded up like the plaits and flutings of ruffles, and laundered with exquisite neatness. If it is carefully detached and spread out like a fan it will cover a large surface, many times the size of the cap from which it has been taken, and will show that what is a consumption of material in dress ornamentation is utilized by economical Dame Nature to increase the spore-bearing surface within a small space and for purely business purposes—spore-bearing. The color of these spores has much to do with the classification. The microscope with high light reveals the delicate shades of their coloring, but the main colors are readily distinguished by the naked eye when the spores are collected in a mass on glass or paper.