The taste of this plant, when fried, has aptly been compared to lamb’s kidney, and resembles in flavour the only other edible Lactarius—viz. L. deliciosus, [fig. 11]. It is a rare species in this country.
White Fir-wood Mushroom. [Fig. 27.]
(Agaricus [Clitocybe] dealbatus.)80.
This pretty little fungus commonly grows in, and about the neighbourhood of, fir plantations, but will occasionally come up elsewhere. Its top is white, smooth, and exceedingly like ivory. It is shining, waved, fleshy, and inclined to be irregular; the gills are thin, white, and run down the stem.
When clean, young, and fresh specimens are broiled with butter, it is a delicacy of the very highest degree,—at once tender, juicy, and delightful. Its charming flavour is exceeded by very few other fungi.
Several allied species are very good, notably Agaricus odorus, which exhales a most delicious odour of melilot.
I used to eat all sorts of things for this species before I properly knew it, and never felt the worse for the mistakes I made. It would be useless to enumerate them all here, without figures and descriptions, but one was the common Agaricus subpulverulentus.