Page:Coloured Figures of English Fungi or Mushrooms.djvu/685

 INTRODUCTION.

SINCE I began the Work, to which I now call the present a Supplement, much has been done in Botany, and many new Genera have been made, especially among the Cryptogamia, and generally with great propriety. It is, however, to be regretted that it is not always so, and attempts at nicer discrimination have given room for descriptions much too particular for certain tribes, especially the Fungi, which vary so much that such very nice discriminators would describe every variety as a distinct species, which has been in part the case with the poisonous Agaricus Muscarius; see tab. 130 of this Work. I should not have spoken of it in this place, but for the sake of caution, and as a reason for my not describing the species of this sportive tribe too laboriously. It is from the above reasons, probably, joined by other natural circumstances, that the most exact and learned Authors have made so many species of that so universally acknowledged poisonous Fungus (Ag. Muscarius) in which, at first sight, they appear to have outdone the great, who did not swell his Catalogue by making varieties of this into species, and consequently left an account of this poisonous Agaric entire; the circumstance of their now being divided into many species, may tend to mislead and give occasion to the epicure in Fungi to suppose, that only the identical plant described by Linnaeus was to be avoided. But to describe this variable tribe, it was necessary that they should be seen in every season and situation, tracing well the different appearances, and taking rather a large scope as to their general characters; for, if we too nicely describe the most perfect specimen, perhaps we shall never see the like again. Thus, while it is very plentiful in a more common appearance as the poisonous Fungus, we shall scarcely be able to recognize it in another state, but think it an wholesome species.