Wood is scarce and the usual fuel is tezek or dried cow-dung. There are several sulphur springs, and earthquakes are frequent and sometimes severe. It was on the plain of Mush that Xenophon first made acquaintance with Armenian houses, which have little changed since his day.
MUSHROOM.[1] There are few more useful, more easily
recognized, or more delicious members of the vegetable kingdom
than the common mushroom, known botanically as Agaricus
campestris (or Psalliota campestris). It grows in short grass
in the temperate regions of all parts of the world. Many
edible fungi depend upon minute and often obscure botanical
characters for their determination, and may readily be confounded
with worthless or poisonous species; but that is not the
case with the common mushroom, for, although several other
species of Agaricus somewhat closely approach it in form and
colour, yet the true mushroom, if sound and freshly gathered, may
be distinguished from all other fungi with great ease. It almost
invariably grows in rich, open, breezy pastures, in places where
the grass is kept short by the grazing of horses, herds and flocks.
Although this plant is popularly termed the “meadow mushroom,”
it never as a rule grows in meadows. It never grows in
wet boggy places, never in woods, or on or about stumps of trees.
An exceptional specimen or an uncommon variety may sometimes
be seen in the above-mentioned abnormal places, but the best,
the true, and common variety of the table is the produce of short,
upland, wind-swept pastures. A true mushroom is never large in
size; its cap very seldom exceeds 4, at most 5 in. in diameter.
The large examples measuring from 6 to 9 or more in. across
the cap belong to Agaricus arvensis, called from its large size and
coarse texture the horse mushroom, which grows in meadows
and damp shady places, and though generally wholesome is
coarse and sometimes indigestible. The mushroom usually
grown in gardens or hot-beds, in cellars, sheds, &c., is a distinct
variety known as Agaricus hortensis. On being cut or broken the
flesh of a true mushroom remains white or nearly so, the flesh
of the coarser horse mushroom changes to buff or sometimes to
dark brown. To summarize the characters of a true mushroom—it
grows only in pastures; it is of small size, dry, and with
unchangeable flesh; the cap has a frill; the gills are free from the
stem, the spores brown-black or deep purple-black in colour,
and the stem solid or slightly pithy. When all these characters
are taken together no other mushroom-like fungus—and
nearly a thousand species grow in Britain—can be confounded
with it.
The parts of a mushroom consist chiefly of stem and cap; the stem has a clothy ring round its middle, and the cap is furnished underneath with numerous radiating coloured gills. Fig. 1 (1) represents a section through an infant mushroom, (2) a mature example, and (3) a longitudinal section through a fully developed mushroom. The cap d, e is fleshy, firm and white within, never thin and watery; externally it is pale brown, dry, often slightly silky or floccose, never viscid. The cuticle of a mushroom readily peels away from the flesh beneath, as shown at f. The cap has a narrow dependent margin or frill, as shown at g, and in section at h; this dependent frill originates in the rupture of a delicate continuous wrapper, which in the infancy of the mushroom entirely wraps the young plant; it is shown in its continuous state at j, and at the moment of rupture at k. The gills underneath the cap l, m, n are at first white, then rose-coloured, at length brown-black. A point of great importance is to be noted in the attachment of the gills near the stem at o, p; the gills in the true mushroom are (as shown) usually more or less free from the stem, they never grow boldly against it or run down it; they may sometimes just touch the spot where the stem joins the bottom of the cap, but never more; there is usually a slight channel, as at p. all round the top of the stem. When a mushroom is perfectly ripe and the gills are brown-black in colour, they throw down a thick dusty deposit of fine brown-black or purple-black spores; it is essential to note the colour. The spores on germination make a white felted mat, more or less dense, of mycelium; this, when compacted with dry, half-decomposed dung, is the mushroom spawn of gardeners. The stem is firm, slightly pithy up the middle, but never hollow; it bears a floccose ring near its middle, as illustrated at q, q; this ring originates by the rupture of the thin general wrapper k of the infant plant.
Like all widely spread and much-cultivated plants, the edible mushroom has numerous varieties, and it differs in different places and under different modes of culture in much the same way as our kitchen-garden plants differ from the type they have been derived from, and from each other. In some instances these differences are so marked that they have led some botanists to regard as distinct species many forms usually esteemed by others as varieties only.
Fig. 1.—Pasture Mushroom (Agaricus campestris).
A small variety of the common mushroom found in pastures has been named A. pratensis; it differs from the type in having a pale reddish-brown scaly top, and the flesh on being cut or broken changes to pale rose-colour. A variety still more marked, with a darker brown cap and the flesh changing to a deeper rose, and sometimes blood-red, has been described as A. rufescens. The well-known compact variety of mushroom-growers, with its white cap and dull purplish clay-coloured gills, is A. hortensis. Two sub-varieties of this have been described under the names of A. Buchanani and A. elongatus, and other distinct forms are known to botanists. A variety also grows in woods named A. silvicola; this can only be distinguished from the pasture mushroom by its elongated bulbous stem and its externally smooth cap. There is also a fungus well known to botanists and cultivators which appears to be intermediate between the pasture variety and the wood variety, named A. vaporarius. The large rank horse mushroom, now generally referred to as A. arvensis, is probably a variety of the pasture mushroom; it grows in rings in woody places and under trees and hedges in meadows; it has a large scaly round cap, and the flesh quickly changes to buff or brown when cut or broken; the stem too is hollow. An unusually scaly form of this has been described as A. villaticus and another as A. augustus.
A species, described by Berkeley and Broome as distinct from both the pasture mushroom and horse mushroom, has been published under the name of A. elvensis. This grows under oaks, in clusters—a most unusual character for the mushroom, and is said to be excellent for the table. An allied fungus peculiar to woods, with a less fleshy cap than the true mushroom, with hollow stem, and strong odour, has been described as a close ally of the pasture mushroom under the name of A. silvaticus; its qualities for the table have not been recorded.
Many instances are on record of symptoms of poisoning, and even death, having followed the consumption of plants which have passed as true mushrooms; these cases have probably arisen from the examples consumed being in a state of decay, or from some mistake as to the species eaten. It should always be specially noted whether the fungi to be consumed are in a fresh and wholesome condition, otherwise they act as a poison in precisely the same way as does any other semi-putrid vegetable. Many instances are on record where mushroom-beds have been invaded by a growth of strange fungi and the true mushrooms have been ousted to the advantage of the new-comers. When mushrooms are gathered for sale by persons unacquainted with the different species mistakes are of frequent occurrence. A very common spurious mushroom in markets is A. velutinus, a slender, ringless, hollow-stemmed, black-gilled fungus, common in gardens and about dung and stumps; it is about the size of a mushroom, but thinner in all its parts and far more brittle; it has a black hairy fringe hanging round the edge of the cap when fresh. Another spurious mushroom, and equally common in dealers' baskets, is A. lacrymabundus; this grows in the same positions as the last, and is somewhat fleshier and more like a true mushroom; it has a hollow stem and a slight ring, the gills are black-brown mottled and generally studded with tear-like drops of moisture. In both these species the gills distinctly touch and grow on to the stem. Besides these there are numerous other black-gilled species which find a place in baskets—some species far too small to bear
- ↑ The earlier 15th-century form of the word was musseroun, muscheron, &c., and was adapted from the French mousseron, which is generally connected with mousse, moss.
