Our Edible Toadstools and Mushrooms and How to Distinguish Them / A Selection of Thirty Native Food Varieties Easily Recognizable by their Marked Individualities, with Simple Rules for the Identification of Poisonous Species

by W. Hamilton Gibson

PLATE XXV

Fistulina Hepatica.

THE SULPHUROUS POLYPORUS

Polyporus sulphureus

Probably the most conspicuous member of our native polyporei remains to be considered among the esculents, though until recently it was included in the black list, Dr. Curtis, of North Carolina, I believe, having first demonstrated its edibility, though pronouncing it merely "tolerable."

The brilliancy of its sulphur-yellow and orange-salmon colors, in association with its large size, renders it a most conspicuous object, especially from its habit of growing in dense clusters, often a number of such clusters in close contiguity upon a decaying stump or prostrate log, frequently so numerous and so crowded as to completely conceal the bark beneath, as shown in the accompanying figure, or completely covering; a space of several square feet.