Littell's Living Age/Volume 126/Issue 1629/The Mushroom

From The National Food and Fuel Reformer.

THE MUSHROOM.

Perhaps there is no other country on the face of the globe where the above fungus is less understood or appreciated than England. We find on the contrary, on the Continent, that it is almost a daily dish — when it can be procured — with even the poorest persons, and it often has to make, and does make, a delicious and inexpensive meal where none would be had otherwise. In England thousands of people, particularly of the lower classes, will eat no mushroom except that known as the field mushroom, while on the Continent a strong prejudice exists against the same species. This prejudice arises from the fact that other fungi are confounded with it through ignorance, and very fatal accidents sometimes occur, which would be prevented by observing that the true field mushroom always has purple spores, gills at first of pink colour and afterwards purple, a permanent ring or collar around the stem, and that it is never found in woods, its home always being on the open plain or commons.

The meadow mushroom grows in lowland pastures, and has certainly a stronger flavour than that of the fields. This fungus is peculiar in this country, and is sold in great quantities; it is here known as the "horse mushroom," because of the enormous size it attains, a single specimen sometimes weighing fourteen pounds. In addition to these two there are forty-nine other varieties of mushroom that are known to botanists as esculent and excellent, some of them attaining a diameter of fourteen inches, others five or six inches, and another, the "nail fungus," scarcely exceeding one inch in diameter.

Hills, plains, valleys, fields and pastures all over the world are alive with these nutritious fungi. Millions of tons of them are allowed annually to rot where they spring up, simply because ignorance or fear prevents their utilization as food. It is true that the distinctions between the edible mushroom and some of its unpleasant cousins cannot be easily understood by any but botanists, and yet this difficulty might be materially obviated if botanical writers would describe the distinctions in words that could be popularly understood, or that, at least, may be found in dictionaries. The botanical nomenclature may be good as it is ingenious, but to non-botanists it is as incomprehensible as the inscriptions on the Elgin marbles. Let it be preserved for bookworms, if needs must, but let it be also translated for common use.

Among the more remarkable esculents of this class may be mentioned the "beefsteak fungus." It is very juicy and fleshy, and its sections resemble beef in appearance. A botanist found lately one of five feet in circumference and weighing exactly eight pounds, and another was found nearly twenty feet in circumference and weighing thirty pounds. This species is particularly found in Germany, where it is sliced and eaten with salad, and is highly esteemed as a nutritious food.

Another species, botanically known as Lycoperdon giganteum, when young is of a cream-like consistence, and is an excellent addition to the breakfast menu. A single one is large enough to feed ten or twelve persons, and some members of the species are a good substitute for truffles. A specimen lately found weighed ten pounds, and was three feet four inches in circumference.

It may be worthy a passing notice to mention here that some of the fungi possess odours unlike those of "Araby the blest." Most of them have what is called the fungoid smell — that of a damp cellar that has been long closed up, indicative of mouldiness and decay. But others exhale a fetid odour which the nose never forgets, it being long afterwards felt and smelled when the smeller is not in any proximity to the fungus. One of them, again, named Thelephora palmata, has a scent precisely similar to a dissecting-room, but much stronger. Attempts by artists to draw sketches of it have always to be made in the open air, in a room the fetidness being absolutely unbearable. Other species, however, emit a fragrance, some that of anise, others that of fresh cornmeal. Some smell of garlic, some of nitrous acid, and one of aquafortis. Casual observers of fungi will be surprised to learn that they exhibit an almost endless variety of colours — white, all shades of ochre, all tints of brown until nearly black, sulphury yellow, orange, pink, red, crimson, wine tints, and purples, with occasional blue, green, and olive tints.

It would be impossible here to give details of the destructive powers of the microscopic fungi. They permeate almost everything that is capable of undergoing change; and while they often are beneficial scavengers, they are also very destructive. Dry rot in wood and timber is the work of fungi. They traverse the soil and arrest the growth of vegetation; they mildew the corn, and smut the wheat, rye, and grasses, and it is well known that the potato rot is due entirely to fungoid ravages.

The pests known as rust and smut in grain, grasses, and corn, the potato disease, and similar "wolves and tigers" of vegetation, are fungi. Those found upon wheat, rye, and some grasses are called ergot, and hold a high place in the materia medica, ecause of their active principle in certain diseases. They also seize upon all decayed vegetable matter, dead leaves, twigs, branches, rotten wood, and soil charged with disintegrated vegetables. When a plant begins to decay, it is at once the source of a new vegetation, in the shape of fungi, which destroy the plant, and, phoenix-like, raise from its dead ashes a new life.

Fruit-trees, particularly the peach, pear, and plum, are important victims to the same pest, and the choicest roses, the sweetest violets, and the stateliest products of the florist yield up their perfume, their beauty and their life to myriad forms of fungi. They exert a deleterious influence on man by destruction of his legitimate food, and in producing or aggravating diseases. They injure animals by diminishing their food-supply, and by fixing themselves as parasites on various parts of the body, and they wonderfully impede, prevent, and destroy vegetation. In a word, the subject is more curious, extensive and perplexing to the student than any other branch of botany, and is, therefore, all the more attractive.