Edible Tube-Mushroom. [Fig. 2.]
(Boletus edulis.)610.
Frequently attaining enormous dimensions, and first appearing during the summer or early autumn rains, this fungus is one of our commonest and most delicious species. Like the last, it grows in woods and forests, and may be at once known by the following characters: it is generally very stout, with a smooth, umber, cushion-shaped top, tubes at first white and ultimately pale yellowish-green; stem whitish-brown, marked with a minute white and very elegant reticulated network, principally near the top of the ringless stem; when cut or broken, the fleshy body of the plant continues pure white. In this, as in every other species, sound young specimens should be selected, and it is perhaps as well to scrape away the tubes before preparation for the table. Whether boiled, stewed with salt, pepper, and butter, fried, or roasted with onions and butter, this species proves itself one of the most delicious and tender objects of food ever submitted to the operation of cooking. It is not the plant referred to by the ancient Roman satiric poets; but at Rome (in the present day) this species, in company with peaches and Agaricus cæsareus, is sold at every street corner, our common meadow mushroom, though abundant enough there, being disregarded.
B. scaber (615) is sometimes eaten. From personal experience, Mr. Penrose says: “Young specimens are good—old, very flat.”
B. æstivalis (612) is of rare excellence; it appears in the early summer, sometimes in abundance, at Highgate.
Before I properly knew B. edulis, I ate all sorts of Boleti in mistake for it, notably B. chrysenteron.
Variable Mushroom. [Fig. 3.]
(Russula heterophylla.)522.
This is a very common species in woods, known by its sweet nutty taste; white, rigid, sometimes branched, gills; white flesh; white, solid, fleshy, ringless stem; and firm top, variable in colour, which is at first convex, at last concave. The colour of the thin viscid skin covering the top of the fungus is commonly subdued green, but (as its name indicates) the colour is variable: at one time it approaches greenish-yellow, or lilac, and at another grey or obscure purple; but it is so common and well marked that, with the assistance of the figure, there is no fear of mistaking it for anything else. There is a stouter, more rigid plant, with forked gills and a bitter taste (R. furcata), that had better be avoided. A third green Russula (R. virescens), immediately known by its rigid substance, its top broken up into large rough emerald-green patches, and with no viscid skin, is an excellent addition to the table.