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Mushroom and Toadstools / How to Distinguish Easily the Differences Between Edible and Poisonous Fungi cover

Mushroom and Toadstools / How to Distinguish Easily the Differences Between Edible and Poisonous Fungi

Chapter 52: Fetid Mushroom. Fig. 16.
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About This Book

A practical field guide that helps readers separate edible from poisonous fungi through clear descriptions and nature-based illustrations of dozens of species. It supplies indices of common and scientific names, engraved plates of twenty-nine edible and thirty-one poisonous species, and short diagnostic notes on appearance, habitat, and handling. Introductory remarks discuss safe collecting and eating practices, such as choosing fresh specimens, avoiding overconsumption, and caution for beginners. The author emphasizes careful comparison with the plates, offers to identify specimens sent for inspection, and relates occasional personal cautions from earlier mistakes. The volume mixes botanical observation with culinary advice to encourage informed, cautious use of wild fungi.

Fetid Mushroom. Fig. 16.

(Russula fœtens.)530.

Less rigid than other Russulæ, brittle, and sticky in all its parts, always slug-eaten, and possessed of a wet insufferable odour that can be likened to nothing in nature, this species cannot in reason be anything but deleterious and pernicious to human life. Slugs certainly highly relish it; for although it is one of our commonest species, yet it is invariably much eaten by slugs: frequently the gills are covered with these creatures, or are even completely eaten away.