Mushrooms and Toadstools (Third Edition) — Furrowed Clavaria to Horse Mushroom

(_Clavaria rugosa.

_) 827. This species, common in woody places, is usually pure white, pale grey, or shaded with cream-colour; the clubs are irregular, somewhat wrinkled and tough.

Treated in the same way as _C.

vermiculata_, it will prove equally acceptable, agreeable, and novel.

All the white-spored species are believed to be esculent.

I have not tried _C.

coralloides_, an allied species, which is greatly branched, but it is esteemed as an esculent.

=Chantarelle.

= Fig. 8. (_Cantharellus cibarius.

_) 539. The chantarelle cannot be called very common, but it is abundant in many districts; its solid, ringless stem, fleshy body, thick swollen veins in the place of gills, and brilliant yellow colour, at once serve to distinguish it from every other species.

“Its smell,” says Berkeley, “is like that of ripe apricots.

” Sometimes (as I have frequently seen in Epping Forest and elsewhere) immense numbers grow together; at other times they are very few.

Chantarelles often cover a hedge-bank where there are trees close by; and wherever they do appear they must enlist the admiration of the passer-by, for they look as if made of solid gold.

When cooked, this species has a rich mushroom-like flavour peculiarly its own, and may be prepared for the table in various ways, according to the fancy of the consumer: but being big and solid, it should be cut up; and, if stewed, allowed to simmer gently, and be served with pepper, salt, and butter.

There is a curious, thin, pale, slender variety, found growing in pastures about old stumps, which I have never eaten, and from its curious aspect, habitat, and comparative rarity, I think it hardly worth the experiment, but it may be esculent.

There is a very pale, almost white, variety of the chantarelle, and one quite without the apricot odour.

=Horse Mushroom.

= Fig. 9. (_Agaricus_ [_Psalliota_] _arvensis.

_) 317. This species, the _A.

exquisitus_ of Dr. Badham, is very nearly allied to the meadow mushroom, and frequently grows with it, but it is coarser, and has not the same delicious flavour.

It is usually much larger, often attaining enormous dimensions; and it turns a brownish-yellow as soon as broken or bruised.

The top in good specimens is smooth and snowy white; the gills are not the pure pink of the meadow mushroom, but dirty brownish-white, ultimately becoming brown black.

It has a big, ragged, floccose ring, and its pithy stem is inclined to be hollow.

It is _the_ species exposed for sale in Covent Garden Market.

Indeed, after knowing the market for many years, I have rarely seen any other species there; when the true mushroom, however, _is_ there, it is frequently mingled with horse mushrooms, which seems to show that the dealers do not know one from the other.

In the wet days of autumn, children, idlers, and beggars go a few miles from town into the meadows to gather whatever they can find in the mushroom line; they then bring their dirty stock to market, where it is sold to fashionable purchasers; stale, vapid, and with no taste but a bad one.

When young and fresh, the horse mushroom is a most desirable addition to the bill of fare; it yields an abundant gravy, and the flesh is firm and delicious.

It is a valuable plant when freshly gathered; but when stale it becomes tough and leathery, and without aroma or juice.

There is a curious large, brown, hairy variety, of rather uncommon occurrence, similar to the hairy variety of the meadow mushroom, the _A.

villaticus_ of Dr. Badham (given in error by the Rev. M. J.

Berkeley as a variety of the meadow mushroom, and since corrected by him).

It is a splendid plant, but, I think, very rare.

I have only seen it once.

There is also another large, sienna-red, rank-looking variety, I have often gathered in certain situations under trees, &c. , that few would be tempted to eat; it is probably a luxuriant, overgrown, disagreeable thing, that would give one a stomach-ache, and in place of better species is not worth experimenting upon.

Many country-folks readily distinguish the meadow from the horse mushroom, and have a great antipathy to the latter, although they are always willing to put it into the jar as one of the ingredients of ketchup.

Opinions appear to differ greatly regarding the excellence of this species.

Mr. Penrose writes—“I think young, and especially button specimens of this, very indigestible; until they are well opened out, they are unfit for use.

” Such, however, I must say, is not my experience of button specimens.

There is a strong odour attached both to this fungus and its spawn, the ground just below the surface being frequently white with the latter.

If horsedung be kicked aside in a rich pasture frequented by graminivorous animals, the earth will frequently present a snowy whiteness from the spawn of this species, from which the young individuals may be seen springing up.

The specimen figured is not fully expanded, but is represented in the condition best for the table.

I once saw a sheep eat a large specimen with great apparent gusto, although the fungus was full of maggots.

=Fir-cone Mushroom.

= Fig. 10.