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 David Badham

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

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

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

Determinate,”

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