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

July to November.

Edible. Curtis.

Common to most countries, and, although given as a ground-growing species, it is rather indiscriminate in its habitats. Woods, fields, leaf-covered or bare places, much decayed wood and stumps are its living places. Dr. Cooke thinks it irreproachable. Popularly it goes by the name of the Hedgehog mushroom.

H. repandum varies greatly in shape, color and texture. In the open it is usually symmetrical and tough; when clustered it is irregular, often fanciful and quite brittle—tender.

When sliced thin an hour’s slow cooking is sufficient. All writers commend it, and properly.

H. rufes´cens Pers.—rufus, red. Pileus 2–3 in. across, thin, fragile, usually regular, pubescent, reddish. Spines 1–3 lines long, regular. Stem 1–3 in. long, commonly thin, nearly equal, reddish.

The whole plant is reddish. In all other respects it resembles H. repandum. Usually more regular.

Commonly found in woods. New York, Peck; North Carolina, Curtis, Schweinitz.

Edible, Curtis. Edible, Leuba.

Fries considered H. rufescens a variety of H. repandum, and the writer agrees with him. It is given distinct place here because Massee and Stevenson—books in the hands of many students of fungi—give it importance.