Cooke and Berkeley describe a variety of this mushroom having a distinctly reddish pileus—H. rufescens—and Prof. Charles Peck gives the species quite a range in its color gamut. "Its color may be pale buff, rusty yellow, pale red, or sienna color." The "pale buff" will doubtless be found to be the most common. In the variety rufescens the size is smaller and the form more symmetrical, but the general shape and fringe-toothed spore surface are sufficient to identify the typical species under any disguise of color.
The cap is occasionally quite symmetrical, suggesting the outline of a Boletus in profile, but more commonly is irregular and eccentric, with stem attached towards its side, as indicated in section on previous page. It may reach the diameter of five inches in a fine specimen.
Its favorite haunt is the open woods, where it may be seen from the last of June until September, either singly or in clusters, lifting the dried leaves from their bed, or occasionally barely revealed beneath them.
But the most important and savory of the entire group of Hydnei is the species following:
THE MEDUSA HYDNUM
H. caput-medusæ
A dinner thrown away
While driving through the White Mountain Notch, many years ago, I chanced upon a mass of cream-colored, fringy fungus growing upon a fallen beech-log by the side of the road. The fungus was then entirely new to me, and I lost no time in making a sketch of it, with notes. The growth covered a space possibly eighteen inches wide by eight in height, and I estimated it would weigh fully five pounds, its most marked feature being the dense growth of drooping spines. In my limited knowledge of edible fungi at the time, I cautiously left the specimen in the woods, afterwards to learn from Dr. Harkness, the mycologist, that I had "thrown away five pounds of the most delicious fungus meat known to the epicure." I have since found minor specimens many times, and can readily understand the enthusiastic encomiums of my connoisseur friend as to its esculent qualities.
