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

New York, Peck, 44th Rep.; North Carolina, Curtis; West Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, McIlvaine.

Edible. Curtis. Edible. Peck.

Hydnum caput-ursi is common in West Virginia forests. It is conspicuous on standing oaks, and at a distance a puzzling object to one not familiar with such excrescences. It grows on standing oaks near Haddonfield, N.J., and sparsely at Mt. Gretna, Pa.

It is more compact, and is tougher than H. coralloides and H. Medusæ, but cooks tender and is very good.

Photographed by Dr. J.R. Weist. Plate CXXXV.
HYDNUM CAPUT-MEDUSÆ.

H. caput-Medu´sæ Bull.—head of Medusæ. (Plate [CXXXV].) 3–18 in. across, 2–8 in. high. Tufts pendulous. White then grayish. Body compact, tapering to a solid base, more or less stem-like. Spines covering entire surface. Those upon top are long, thin, straight or distorted, growing shorter around and to the under side where they are short and straight. The wavy appearance of the slender spines remind of the snaky locks of Medusa, hence the name.

Edible. Curtis. Edible. Leuba.

On elms at Haddonfield, N.J.; on oaks at Mt. Gretna, Pa., and in Woodland Cemetery, and on elms in Washington Square, Philadelphia, Pa. McIlvaine.

Commonly eaten in Italy and parts of Austria; rare elsewhere in Europe. Occurring over the United States. Specimens eighteen inches across were seen by the writer in the West Virginia mountains.