Toadstools, mushrooms, fungi, edible and poisonous; one thousand American fungi / How to select and cook the edible; how to distinguish and avoid the poisonous, with full botanic descriptions. Toadstool poisons and their treatment, instructions to students, recipes for cooking, etc., etc.

by Charles McIlvaine; Robert K. Macadam

Pileus regular or undulated and wavy, often viscid or moist. Flesh of the pileus continuous with that of the stem and descending as a trama into the gills. Gills adnate or adnexed, more or less decurrent, waxy, often thick and forked, edge always thin and sharp, often branched.

On the ground. Many species are brightly colored. Spores white.

This genus differs from the preceding genera in the manifest trama, the substance of which is similar to that of the pileus; from Lactarius and Russula by the trama not being vesicular, but somewhat floccose with granules intermixed; from Cantharellus, its nearest ally, by the sharp edge of the gills. The Cortinarii, Paxilli and Gomphidii are at once distinguished from it by their colored spores and the changing color of their gills, as well as by other marks. From all the other genera of Agaricini it is distinguished by a mark peculiar to itself, viz., by the hymeneal stratum of the gills changing into a waxy mass, which is at length removable from the trama. This altogether singular character is specially remarkable in H. caprinus, coccineus, murinaceus, etc. Hence the gills seem full of watery juice, but they do not become milky like those of the Lactarii. Fries.

From the description by Fries, the author of the genus, it is manifest that one has to wait the ripening of the fungus before the peculiar characteristic mark of the genus, i. e.—gills turning into a waxy mass, easily removable from the cap—can be observed. Many of the species are difficult to determine when fresh. Nevertheless, there is an indescribable, watery, waxy, translucent appearance about the gills which catches the eye of the expert, and is soon learned by the novice. The white spores readily separate the genus from kindred shapes in the colored-spored genera.

So far as tested none of the species is poisonous. One English species is fetid. It is probable that they are all edible, varying in quality only. Fries well, and is superior in croquettes and patties.

ANALYSIS OF TRIBES.

Limacium (limax, a slug). Page [148].

Universal veil viscid, with occasionally a floccose partial one, which is annular or marginal.

[*] White or becoming yellowish.

[**] Reddish.