This species, common in woody places, is usually pure white, pale grey, or shaded with cream-colour; the clubs are irregular, somewhat wrinkled and tough. Treated in the same way as C. vermiculata, it will prove equally acceptable, agreeable, and novel. All the white-spored species are believed to be esculent.
I have not tried C. coralloides, an allied species, which is greatly branched, but it is esteemed as an esculent.
Chantarelle. [Fig. 8.]
(Cantharellus cibarius.)539.
The chantarelle cannot be called very common, but it is abundant in many districts; its solid, ringless stem, fleshy body, thick swollen veins in the place of gills, and brilliant yellow colour, at once serve to distinguish it from every other species. “Its smell,” says Berkeley, “is like that of ripe apricots.” Sometimes (as I have frequently seen in Epping Forest and elsewhere) immense numbers grow together; at other times they are very few. Chantarelles often cover a hedge-bank where there are trees close by; and wherever they do appear they must enlist the admiration of the passer-by, for they look as if made of solid gold. When cooked, this species has a rich mushroom-like flavour peculiarly its own, and may be prepared for the table in various ways, according to the fancy of the consumer: but being big and solid, it should be cut up; and, if stewed, allowed to simmer gently, and be served with pepper, salt, and butter. There is a curious, thin, pale, slender variety, found growing in pastures about old stumps, which I have never eaten, and from its curious aspect, habitat, and comparative rarity, I think it hardly worth the experiment, but it may be esculent. There is a very pale, almost white, variety of the chantarelle, and one quite without the apricot odour.
Horse Mushroom. [Fig. 9.]
(Agaricus [Psalliota] arvensis.)317.
This species, the A. exquisitus of Dr. Badham, is very nearly allied to the meadow mushroom, and frequently grows with it, but it is coarser, and has not the same delicious flavour. It is usually much larger, often attaining enormous dimensions; and it turns a brownish-yellow as soon as broken or bruised. The top in good specimens is smooth and snowy white; the gills are not the pure pink of the meadow mushroom, but dirty brownish-white, ultimately becoming brown black. It has a big, ragged, floccose ring, and its pithy stem is inclined to be hollow. It is the species exposed for sale in Covent Garden Market. Indeed, after knowing the market for many years, I have rarely seen any other species there; when the true mushroom, however, is there, it is frequently mingled with horse mushrooms, which seems to show that the dealers do not know one from the other. In the wet days of autumn, children, idlers, and beggars go a few miles from town into the meadows to gather whatever they can find in the mushroom line; they then bring their dirty stock to market, where it is sold to fashionable purchasers; stale, vapid, and with no taste but a bad one.