UNFAVORABLE SIGNS
8. Boiling with a "silver spoon," the staining of the silver indicating danger.
9. Change of color in the fracture of the fresh mushroom.
10. Slimy or sticky on the top.
11. Having the stems at their sides.
12. Growing in clusters.
13. Found in dark, damp places.
14. Growing on wood, decayed logs, or stumps.
15. Growing on or near manure.
16. Having bright colors.
17. Containing milky juice.
18. Having the gill plates of even length.
19. Melting into black fluid.
20. Biting the tongue or having a bitter or nauseating taste.
21. Changing color by immersion in salt-water, or upon being dusted with salt.
These present but a selection of the more prevalent notions. Taken in toto, they would prove entirely safe, as they would practically exclude every species of mushroom or toadstool that grows. But as a rule the village oracle bases his infallibility upon two or three of the above "rules," and inasmuch as the entire list absolutely omits the only one test by which danger is to be avoided, it is a seven-days' wonder that the grewsome toadstool epitaph is not more frequent.
Absolute worthlessness of above tests
I once knew an aged dame who was accepted as a village oracle on this as well as other topics, such as divining, palmistry, and fortune-telling, and who ate and dispensed toadstools on a few of the above rules. Strange to say, she lived to a good old age, and no increased mortality is credited to her memory as a result of her generosity.
How are these popular notions sustained by the facts? Let us analyze them seriatim and confront each with its refutation, the better to show their entire untrustworthiness.
POPULAR TESTS REFUTED
Worthless popular tests
Pleasant taste and odor (1) is a conspicuous feature in the regular "mushroom" (Agaricus campestris), and most other edible fungi, but as a criterion for safety it is a mockery. The deadly Agaricus amanita, already mentioned, has an inviting odor and to most people a pleasant taste when raw, and being cooked and eaten gives no token of its fatal resources until from six to twelve hours after, when its unfortunate victim is past hope. (See p. 68.)
The ready peeling of the skin (2) is one of the most widely prevalent proofs of probation, and is often considered a sufficient test; yet the Amanita will be found to peel with a degree of accommodation which would thus at once settle its claims as a "mushroom." Indeed, a large number of species, including several poisonous kinds, will peel as perfectly as the Campestris.
The pink gills turning brown(3) is a marked characteristic of the "mushroom" (A. campestris, Plate 5), and, being a rare tint among the fungus tribe, is really one of the most valuable of the tests, especially as it is limited by rules affecting other pink-gilled species.
The stem being easily pulled out of the cap (4) applies to several edible species, but equally to the poisonous.
The notion that edible mushrooms have solid stems (5) would be a very unsafe talisman for us to take to the woods in our search for fungus-food. Many poisonous species are thus solid—the emetic Russula, for example—while the alleged importance of the morning specimens (6) is without the slightest foundation.
The passage quoted here (7), or a statement to the same effect, was quite widely circulated in the newspapers a dozen or more years ago, in an article which bore all the indications of authoritative utterance, the assumption being that the poisonous mushroom would invariably give some forbidding token to the senses by which it might be discriminated.
Woe to the fungus epicure who should sample his mushrooms and toadstools on such a criterion as this, as the most fatal of all mushrooms, the Amanita vernus, would fulfil all these requisites.
The discoloration of silver (8) is a test as old as Pliny at least, a world-wide popular touchstone for the detection of deleterious fungi, but useful only in the fact that it will often exclude a poison not contemplated in the discrimination. On this point, especially as it affords opportunity to emphasize a common disappointment of the mushroom-eater, I quote from a recent work by Julius A. Palmer (see Bibliography, No. 3): "Mushrooms decay very rapidly. In a short time a fair, solid fungus becomes a mass of maggots which eat its tissue until its substance is honey-combed; these cells, on a warm day, are charged with the vapors of decomposition. Now you put such mushrooms as these (and I have seen just such on the markets of Boston and London) over the fire. In boiling, sulphuretted hydrogen or other noxious gases are liberated; you stir with a bright spoon and it is discolored; proud of your test, you throw away your stew. Now this is right, but if from this you conclude that all fungus which discolors silver is poisonous and that which leaves it bright is esculent, you are in dangerous error. It is the same with fish at sea. Tradition says that you must fry a piece of silver with them and throw them away if it discolors. Certainly the experiment does no harm, and shows a decomposition in both cases which might have been detected without the charm." Opposed to this so-called talisman, how grim is the fact that the deadliest of all mushrooms, the Amanita, in its fresh condition, has no effect upon silver.
Worthless popular tests
The change of color in fracture (9) has long been a ban to the fungus as food. But this would exclude several very delicious species, which turn bluish, greenish, and red when broken—viz., Boletus subtomentosus (Plate 22), Boletus strobilaceus (Plate 23), and Lactarius (Plate 18).
The "toadstools" with "sticky tops" thus discriminated against (10) include a number of esculent species, Boleti and Russulæ, and others, as do also the varieties with side-stems (11)—viz., Agaricus ulmarius (Plate 15), Fistulina hepatica (Plate 25), Agaricus ostreatus (Plate 14), etc.
The clustered fungi (12) have long been included in the black-list without reason, as witness the following esteemed esculent species: The Shaggy-mane (Plate 16), Coprinus atramentarius (Plate 17), Oyster mushroom (Plate 14), Elm mushroom (Plate 15), Puff-balls (Plate 34), and Champignon (Plate 8).
To exclude all fungi which grow in dark, damp places (13) is a singular inconsistency, as in some localities this would eliminate the very one species of "mushroom" admittedly eatable by popular favor. In many countries these are regularly cultivated for market in dark, damp, subterranean caverns or in cellars. Indeed, the "dark, damp place" would appear to be the ideal habitat of this the "only mushroom!"
Equally absurd is the discrimination against those growing on wood (14), which again deprives us of the delicious Hydnum (Plate 27), the Beefsteak (Plate 25), Oyster mushroom (Plate 14), Elm mushroom (Plate 15), and many others, including Puff-balls (Plate 34). If we exclude those growing upon or near manure (15), we shall be obliged to omit the Coprinus group (Plates 16 and 17), and often the "reel mushroom" as well.
Among the bright-colored species (16), it is true, are many dangerous individuals, as, for instance, the deadly Fly Amanita of Plate 4, and the emetic Russula (Plate 13), but on this fiat we should have to reject the other brilliant esculent Russulæ (Plates 11 and 12), the brilliant yellow Chantarelle (Plate 19), the Lactarius (Plate 18), and various other equally palatable and wholesome species.
Worthless popular tests
The objection against milky mushrooms (17) would serve to exclude the poisonous species of Lactarius, but would thus include at least two of the delicious species of the group,