Page:Coloured Figures of English Fungi or Mushrooms.djvu/618

 room, but is generally of a firmer texture, whiter and smoother, sometimes stained with blotches of yellow, more particularly if touched or bruised. The young lamellæ are seldom of so bright a red as those of the true Mushrooms. It often grows very large; and I have no doubt but the plant mentioned by Mr. Stackhouse to Dr. Withering of the enormous size of 18 inches over the pileus, the stem as thick as a man's wrist, and every part in proportion, was no other than A. Georgii, as I have seen many equally large at Stapleford Abbot, in Essex, where the people call them White-caps, laughing at those cockneys who take them for Mushrooms. I have seen persons from London gathering hampersfull of them for the markets, where they are fold as Mushrooms. Their dry and tough quality renders them unfit for the table in any shape, though we do not know that they posses any poisonous quality. Parkinson 137. 4. says "they are called St. George's mushrooms, because they grow up about that time." (St. George's day.) TAB. CCCV.

Linn.

have seen this, the common or true Mushroom, in the greatest abundance on the isand of Sheppey, near Minster, and of a very large size, but not equal to the preceding. It is seldom so white as the other, being most commonly of a brownish hue. The pileus is a little floccose, and the plant altogether more tender, and more readily lacerating into fibres. In the young plants the stipes is mostly solid, but in the old ones pithy and somewhat hollow. We have found several varieties of this Agaric in Kensington gardens (particularly, one group) of a very dark colour, which on the least bruise emitted a very red juice, and had a peculiarly rich flavour. This has not the yellow tinge on the pileus which A. Georgii has.