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

Habitat: Woods, with other Russulæ.

Season: July-September.

Note.—While, for conservative reasons, the poisonous reputation of this species is here perpetuated, it is quite probable that such condemnation is unwarranted, except as to the raw mushroom. The peppery tang and demoralizing powers are now claimed to be dissipated in cooking, and the Emetica will doubtless soon be more generally included with its congeners among the esculents, thus bringing the entire genus Russula into the friendly group.
Captain Charles McIlvaine is largely responsible for this conversion in favor of Emetica. His individual experiments warrant him in pronouncing this species "as good as the rest" when cooked. Others of the writer's acquaintance, following his example, echo his opinion.

PLATE XIII

Russula Emetica (POISONOUS)

THE OYSTER MUSHROOM

Agaricus ostreatus