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

Tufts frequently weigh two pounds. When young the plant cooks well, is tender and of sweet, pleasant flavor. When old it has a sour unpleasant odor.

IV.—Apus.

P. chio´neus Fr. Gr—snow. White pileus 1 in. and more broad, fleshy, soft, becoming even, smooth, zoneless, often extended behind, margin inflexed. Pores curt, very small, round, equal, quite entire. Fries.

Always soft, fragile, hyaline-white when moist, shining white when dry. Odor acid. Without a cuticle. Stevenson.

Spores white, oval, 21×3µ W.G.S.

New York. Decaying wood of frondose trees. Peck, 33d Rep.

Angora, Philadelphia, Mt. Gretna, Pa. On standing and fallen timber. June to September. McIlvaine.

This snow-white Polyporus is too conspicuous to be passed unseen. One does not expect to find snow-balls stuck against trees in August. At a distance it resembles one. When young and fresh it is good.

P. betuli´nus Fr.—betula, birch. Pileus fleshy, then corky, hoof-shaped, obtuse, zoneless, smooth, the oblique vertex in the form of an umbo, pellicle thin, separating. Pores late of being developed, curt, minute, unequal, at length separating. Fries.

On living and dead birch. Common. May to December.