CONTAINING DESCRIPTIONS, AND HISTORIES OF THE PRINCIPAL FUNGI, OF OUR COUNTRY. ILLUSTRATED. BY JAMES BRITTEN, F.L.S.. RIPLIOTHECH JAN 1878 SODLEIANA LONDON: "THE BAZAAR" OFFICE, 32, WELLINGTON-STREET, Popular British Fungi. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. 66 "THE word politics," said that acute observer, Mr. Pickwick, comprises in itself a study of no inconsiderable magnitude." Substituting botany for politics, we may make this Johnsonian dictum our own; and the statement is equally true with regard to any other branch of natural science. Another of Mr. Dickens's characters gives us a definition of this science, which, however suitable to the capacities of the juvenile minds of Dotheboys' Hall, is scarcely adequate to the requirements of the present day, although it illustrates the motto, "practice with science," which one of the largest of our societies has taken for its own. "B-o-t, bot, t-i-n, tin, n-e.y, ney, Bottiney," said Mr. Squeers-who, it will be observed, like other great men, had a lofty contempt for the trivial details of orthography 66 noun substantive, a knowledge of plants. When he," referring to the young gentleman who was then engaged in superintending the horticultural department of Mr. Squeers' establishment (anglice, weeding the garden), "has learned that bottiney means a knowledge of plants, he goes and knows 'em." An admirable and most simple way of acquiring knowledge -a "royal road to learning," in short-but one which is open to some objection on the score of a slight difficulty in putting it into practice. That naturalists are among the most maligned of people by those who will not take the trouble to understand them may be accepted as a truism. Aware that no satisfactory progress can be made without system, they aim at reducing facts to a certain order and method upon which they raise a superstructure of classification and arrangement which may be of service to themselves and to their followers of all countries and languages, it is necessary that their investigations should be published in a language equally known to all of them, so that the said investigations may be compared and combined. Hence the use of Latin in writing scientific books; hence the Latin names of plants; hence the polysyllabic Latin terms in an English dress that excite the scorn and ridicule of the unscientific world. "If the gardeners really loved plants," said Hood, "they wouldn't call them such hard names.' "Can you fancy a man going a-wooing," says another writer," with a Delphinium Donkelaarii in his button-hole ?" It is at least probable that critics of this class believe that in speaking of geraniums and rhododendrons, lobelias and calceolarias, they are only using their own mother-tongue. Surely no objection can be more ridiculous than this of "hard names "which is so constantly brought against any branch of science. Theology, and medicine, and law, have each of them their technical phrases, which are caviare to the general;" nay, every trade even has its own peculiar words, or yet more peculiar use or restriction of familiar words; and the employment by each branch of science of a special set of terms is both natural and convenient. "But what has this to do with fungi?" some one will ask; "and what are fungi, to begin with ?" Well, to take these questions in order, we may first observe that this preamble is by no means unconnected with our subject. Among any large circle of readers there are sure to be some, more or less, who have a notion of the meaning of certain terms applied to flowering plants, who know what is meant by a petal and a sepal, a stamen and a pistil; but by whom the study of any of the lower orders of vegetable life has always been regarded as presenting almost insuperable difficulties. To them, no less than to those who criticise the terminology of science, the foregoing remarks will in a measure apply. It is impossible to read without knowing one's alphabet; and in like manner it is impossible to obtain even a smattering of any science without knowing something of the technical terms employed in it. We shall, therefore, in our opening chapters, endeavour to give a definition of the terms applied to the different parts of fungi, and employed in describing them, sufficiently clear to enable such of our readers as may desire to pursue the subject further, to take up and study intelligently the more advanced books which have appeared upon fungi; and at the same time to give others, who may not care to follow the matter up, a general notion of the structure and uses of these plants which shall be readable and popular without being inaccurate or misleading. There can be no doubt that among cryptogams, or non-flowering plants, the fungi occupy a very low place in the popular estimation. Confining ourselves to the British flora, and those who study it, we shall find that the fungi are examined by but a very few, especially if we do not count those who devote their attention to them exclusively. On the face of it there are obvious reasons why this should be the case. Fungi lack the beauty of flowering plants and ferns; they are not, like seaweeds, the almost natural accompaniments of an autumn seaside holiday; they are difficult to collect, and their preservation is almost impracticable. If preserved in any way, the neatness and even prettiness which often accompanies a collection of dried wild flowers or ferns is quite unattainable in connection with fungi. Then a very large proportion of them are inconspicuous; others grow in out-of-the-way places, and demand special and careful search; some are positively offensive in odour, if not in aspect; and each of these causes adds its quota to render the study of fungi unpopular. It is undeniable, however, that to anyone who is looking out for a study to which he can devote himself with a certainty that useful results may arise from his observations, fungi offer considerable attractions. It may be doubted whether there is more to be done in England among any class of plants than there is among these. Until the publication of Mr. Cooke's "Handbook of British Fungi" in 1871, we had no manual in which we could find a complete and systematic arrangement of the British species; and already in the short time which has elapsed since its publication, many additions have been made to the list. One result, indeed, of the science of the present day is to limit more and more narrowly the scope of one's work to a certain definite and often very circumscribed area. It is a testimony to the endless variety of natural science, that so far from being exhausted, an increase of knowledge and of facilities for obtaining it only opens out to us "fresh fields and pastures new." Even the mere collector of wild flowers has not yet exhausted the treasures of a country so limited in extent as our own; not a year goes by without some addition being made to a flora which might be considered to have long since been thoroughly investigated; and if this is the case with regard merely to the numerical estimate of British wild plants, what shall we say of their lifehistory and the many problems which it presents, of the unending question as to the limits of a species, or of other questions of a similar nature which will arise to any student of any branch of natural science? There is work for a lifetime in the commonest way-side weed: a lesson which was forced upon the French naturalist, Bernardin de St. Pierre, who, intending to write upon the whole vegetable kingdom, limited his investigations at last to the history of a strawberry plant which grew outside his window. If this is true-and it certainly is so-of a flowering plant, how much more will it apply to the lower organisms which, as we have already shown, have been comparatively neglected ? That even the collector and the systematist will find plenty of work cut out for him merely in procuring and determining the British fungi already known, is evidenced by the fact that Mr. Cooke's "Handbook," above referred to, enumerates no less than 2809 species! It is not our intention to enter upon any account of the greater number of these; indeed, to do so would be only to reprint Mr. Cooke's manual, as many of the species are only known from descriptions, not having been seen by living collectors ; many more are obscure, and the great majority have no interest whatever, save to those who make the order a special study. We shall therefore take only such as are of interest, either from an economical or from a popular point of view, preceding our more detailed descriptions by a general account of the structure and general principles upon which their classification is founded. The word fungus, by which—or rather by its plural fungi-the mushroom |