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, Rep. 22; Indiana, H.I. Miller; West Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania. On the ground and on logs. McIlvaine.

Edible, but not pleasant. Peck. Edible, H.I. Miller.

Professor Peck gives two varieties:

Var. hir´tum. Turbinate, subsessile, hairy with soft, slender warts which generally become blackish.

Var. papilla´tum. Subrotund, sessile, papillose, furfuraceous-pulverulent.

Very common and known in all countries. It is, to my thinking, our prettiest puff-ball. Its beautifully studded surface, reminding of exquisite settings, is in itself worth studying for the designs. It is usually solitary or in small groups, but at times these groups contain scores of individuals. It grows in the open on the ground or from both ground and wood, in woods.

I think it equal to any other puff-ball. But great care must be taken to examine each specimen before putting it into the pan. A single one, which has turned yellow in the slightest degree, will spoil a whole dish. And this is the case with any of the small puff-balls. One ageing L. pyriforme will embitter a hundred.

L. perla´tum Pers.—perfero, to endure. (Enduring through winter.) Peridium turbinate, broad and depressed above, plicate underneath and contracted into a short and pointed or sometimes elongated and tapering base; mycelium fibrous. Cortex of long slender spines, mingled with smaller spinules and warts, gray brown or blackish in color; the longer spines first fall away, leaving a reticulate surface to the inner peridium. Subgleba occupying one-third to one-half of the peridium; mass of spores and capillitium greenish-yellow, then brownish-olivaceous; the threads mostly simple, some of them thicker than the spores. Spores globose, even or very minutely warted, 3.5–4.5µ in diameter.

Growing on the ground in woods. Peridium 1–2 in. in diameter and 1–2 in. in height. This is L. gemmatum, var. hirtum, of Peck’s United States species of Lycoperdon. Morgan.

New York, Peck, 46th Rep.; Maryland, James; West Virginia, New Jersey. Occasional. On ground and decaying wood. McIlvaine.