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

Plant 4–8 in. high. Pileus 2–5 in. broad. Stem 3–6 lines thick.

This species is common and variable. It occurs everywhere in woods and assumes such different colors that the inexperienced mycologist is apt to mistake its different forms for distinct species. With us the prevailing colors of the pileus are white, yellowish-white, grayish-brown and blackish-brown. It is remarkable that the form with a greenish pileus, which seems to be common enough in Europe, does not occur here. Fries also mentions a form having a white pileus with a black disk. A somewhat similar form occurs here, in which the pileus is grayish-brown with a black disk. Some of the variously colored forms were formerly taken to be distinct species, in consequence of which several synonyms have arisen, of which A. virescens Fl. Dan., Amanita viridis Pers., and Amanita citrina Pers., are examples. A. verna Bull. is a variety having a white pileus, a rather thick annulus and an appressed volva. It sometimes occurs early in the season; hence the specific name. It also occurs late in the season and runs into the typical form so that it is not easy to keep it distinct. The flesh and the lamellæ are white, the stem is white, pallid or brownish, and the annulus is either white or brownish. The bulb is generally very broad and abrupt or depressed, though it sometimes is small and approaches an ovate form. The large bulbs are sometimes split externally in two or three places and are, therefore, two- or three-lobed. In such cases the volva is less persistent than usual and its free portion then furnishes merely an acute edge or narrow margin to the bulb. Specimens sometimes occur in which the margin of the pileus is narrowly adorned with a slight woolly hairiness, but usually it is perfectly smooth and even. By this character, taken in connection with the membranous volva and bulbous base of the stem, the species is readily distinguished. Sometimes a strong odor is emitted by it, but usually the odor is slight. Authors generally pronounce this a poisonous and very dangerous species. Its appearance is attractive, but its use as food is to be avoided. Peck, 33d Rep. N.Y. State Bot.

Common in woods and recently cleared woodlands. Frequent over the United States. June to frost.

An exceedingly poisonous, dangerous, seductive species, responsible for most of the deaths from toadstool eating; because in its white form it is mistaken for the common mushroom—Agaricus campester. The real fault is with the collector, who should never eat any fungus found in the woods, believing it to be the mushroom. The mushroom does not grow in the woods. Neither has it white gills, nor white spores, nor a volva at the base of the stem as have Amanitæ.

The caps of A. phalloides vary in color—white, oyster-color, smoky brown. The color of the commonest form is from white to a light hue of greenish yellow. The center of the cap, whatever may be the prevailing color, is usually several shades darker. In shape, the cap changes from a knob in youth, through the shapes of expansion, until it becomes fully spread, when it is umbrella-shaped, or almost flat. Some forms have a slightly raised portion or umbo in the center of the cap. The gills are white, of good width, rounded next to the stem and free from it.

The stem conforms in color to the cap, but in lighter shades. White-capped varieties have white stems. The stem has a sudden broad, distinct bulb at the base. On the upper side of the bulb there is usually a margin or rim. The stem tapers more or less toward the cap, from which it is easily separable. The cup, wrapper or volva is torn or split or irregular at the upper part, and is not pressed to the stem as in some forms.

Professor Peck, in his 48th Report, gives the following excellent synopsis of differences between the poisonous Amanita and edible fungi, for which it could only by great stupidity be mistaken:

Poison amanita. Gills persistently white. Stem equal to or longer than the diameter of the cap, with a broad, distinct bulb at the base.

Common mushroom. Gills pink, becoming blackish-brown. Stem shorter than the diameter of the cap, with no bulb at the base.

From all forms of the edible Sheathed amanitopsis the Poison amanita differs in its distinctly bulbous stem, in having a collar on the stem and in the absence of striations on the margin of the cap.