While species are reported as found in certain localities, it by no means follows that their growth is confined to these places. A species reported as found in the Adirondack mountains, unless belonging to the few peculiar to northern regions and high altitudes, is reasonably sure to be more plentiful in a like habitat south and west of them. South it will appear earlier and its season last longer.
Size is largely dependent upon latitude and may vary greatly in the same group. Temperature, moisture, favorable nourishment are important factors in growth.
Each species has its favorite habitat, and will thrive best upon it. There are few things under the sun upon which fungi do not grow. Their mission is particularly directed toward converting decaying matter, or matter which has accomplished its work in one direction, into usefulness in another. They are the wood-choppers, stewards, caterers of the forest, converters in the fields and chemists everywhere. They can not assimilate inorganic matter because of the absence of chlorophyl in their composition, but in organic matter they are omnivorous. When they feed on dead substances they are called saprophytes; when their support is derived from living tissues, parasites.
Scores of species of fungi were found in the forests, ravines and clearings of the West Virginia mountains from 1881 to 1885 inclusive, and eaten by the writer years before he had the opportunity to learn their names from books or obtain the friendly assistance of experts in identifying them. He knew the individuals without knowing their names, as one knows the bird song and plumage before formal introduction to the pretty creatures that charm him.
After he was able to get European publications upon the subject, and by their aid trace the species he had eaten to their names, descriptions and qualities, he was surprised to read that many of them were warned against as deadly. As informed by these books, he properly ought to have died several times. It soon became evident that authors had followed one another in condemning species, some because they bore brilliant hues, others because they were unpleasant when raw (just as is a potato), rather than investigate their qualities by testing them. Here was a realm of food-giving plants almost entirely unexplored. The writer determined to explore it. Instead of the one hundred and eleven species then recorded by the late Doctor Curtis as edible, my number of edible species now exceeds his by over six hundred.[[A]]
[A]. This book contains one hundred and fifty pages more than were originally estimated and promised to the subscribers. That all known edible and poisonous species might be fully described and published within one volume, the author was compelled to cut fifty thousand words from his manuscript. The localities from which species have been reported and the names of the reporters have been taken out, excepting where it was desirable to show that foreign species have been found in the United States, and where tested species have been found by the author. The principal cut has been from the notes of the author and of enlarged descriptions.
Let us clear away the rubbish and superstition that have so long obscured the straight path to a knowledge of edible toadstools. Let us bear in mind that a mushroom is a toadstool and a toadstool is a mushroom—the terms are interchangeable. If toads ever occupied the one-legged seat assigned them from time immemorial, they have learned in this enlightened age that the ground is much more reliable, and so squat upon it, except when exercising their constitutional right to hop. Snails, slugs, insects of many kinds, mice, squirrels and rabbits prey upon good and bad, each to its liking, notwithstanding oft-repeated assertion that snails and slugs infect noxious varieties only, or that animals select the innocuous only. We are warned against those which grow in the dark or damp; the mushroom of commerce is grown by the ton in the subterranean quarries of France, and everywhere in vaults and cellars for domestic use. The valued truffle never sees the light until it is taken from darkness to be eaten, and other varieties of the best prefer seclusion.
The wiseacres tell us that they must have equal gills, must not have thin tops, must not turn yellow when sprinkled with salt, must not blacken a silver spoon, that we must not eat of those changing color when cut or broken, of those exuding milk, or those which are acrid, hot, or bitter, and give many other specifics for determining the good from the bad. These tests are all worse than worthless, for if confidence is placed in them they will not only lead us away from esculent and excellent varieties but directly into eating venomous ones.
There are whole genera of fungi which are innocuous; but in the Family of Agaricaceæ, where the greatest variety of the edible and poisonous species are found, it is necessary to master one by one the details of their construction and learn to distinguish their differences as one does those of the many kinds of roses, or pinks, or hundreds of bright-faced pansies, and in the mastery of them lies the only charm that will safely guide.
Carefully remove the first toadstool found from whatever it is growing upon, and with it a portion of that from which it springs. If it is the earth a curious white network is discernible, fine as the delicate spinning of the spider, spreading its meshes throughout the mass. It will often remind of miniature vines climbing over miniature lattices. This is the mycelium from which the toadstool grew. In many instances it penetrates the earth to a considerable depth, and takes possession of large territory. It is often seen as the gardener turns up the soil or its fertilizer, and is perhaps taken for a mold. If the specimen is gathered from mat of wood leaves, the same white vine is observable slipping in between its layers. If taken from a tree, the decaying wood is traversed by it. From wherever a toadstool is plucked, it is removed from its mycelium.