Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/105

Rh I have often cut them out of mushrooms, rejecting only the part they had spoiled.

I have given but one example of each inconsistency, but they might be multiplied almost indefinitely. Then comes your believer in charms: dropping salt on the mushroom to see if it turns black or yellow, or stirring them with a coin spoon to watch for evidences of discoloration. Another rejects all which grow from wood. But no test of any kind, in form, color, or basis of growth, will distinguish healthful from harmful fungi.

"What, then?" despairingly asks an inquirer—"what, then, can be done?"

Exactly what is done in every other department from domestic economy to high art. How does Mr. Jarves tell the difference between a painting by Leonardo da Vinci and one by Guide Reni? How could you explain (to one who had never seen either) the difference between a hyacinth-bulb and an onion? From essays on the early painters, you draw conclusions which enable you to distinguish at sight the works of two artists. In kitchen-lore, the child acquires distinctions with its earliest lessons at the mother's apron-string. Only by these two means can practical knowledge of the kingdom of Fungi be increased: first, exact scientific analysis; second, the circulation of arbitrary, traditional information, such as saying to ignoramus:

"There, sir, that is an elm-tree mushroom; mark it well: whenever you find one just like it on your elm, eat it."

With a view of encouraging research, I shall make an attempt at an original but very limited classification, and also describe a few varieties of mushrooms. The first distinction is in the nature of the surface bearing the reproductive bodies or spores. Pick the next toadstool you find; look under the top or cap. You will observe one of four things:

1. There is a series of thin plates set on their edges running in to a common centre, like the spokes of a wheel. The spokes are called the gills; the stem corresponds to the hub. This is the largest family of mushrooms, the Agaricini or Agarics.

2. In the place of gills, your specimen may have a substance resembling fine sponge. It is then a pore-bearing mushroom, generically a Polyporus. Supposing the stem to be distinctly defined, of ordinary length, and the pores or tubes easily separable from each other, it is a Boletus.

3. Instead of the sponge, you may find a number of small points or spines. It belongs then to the teeth-bearing fungi, generically the Hydnei.

4. When you invert the mushroom, you may find neither gills, pores, nor teeth. It may be globular. In the three other classes, the spores are borne externally; here they are inclosed. If young, the