a thin ring, or frill, is borne by the stem at some distance from
the top, whilst the bottom of the stem is surrounded by a loose
sheath, or volva. If "phalline" is the active poisonous principle, this
is not rendered inert by heat in cooking; but the helvellic acid of
other sorts disappears during the process, and its fungi are thus
made non-poisonous. There is a popular belief that Mushrooms
which grow near iron, copper, or other metals, are deadly; the same
idea obtaining in the custom of putting a coin in the water used for
boiling Mushrooms in order that it may attract and detach any
poison, and so serve to make them wholesome.

In Essex there is an old saying:--

"When the moon is at the full,
Mushrooms you may freely pull;
But when the moon is on the wane,
Wait till you think to pluck again."

Even the most poisonous species may be eaten with impunity after
repeated maceration in salt and water, or vinegar and water--which
custom is generally adopted in the South of Europe, where the diet
of the poorer classes largely includes the fungi which they gather;
but when so treated the several Mushrooms lose much of their soluble
nutritive qualities as well as their flavour. For the most part,
_Agarics_ with salmon-coloured spores are injurious, likewise fungi
having a rancid or fetid odour, and an acrid, pungent, peppery taste.
Celsus said: "If anyone shall have eaten [365] noxious fungi, let him
take radishes with vinegar and water, or with salt and vinegar."

Wholesome Mushrooms afford nourishment which is a capital
substitute for butchers' meat, and almost equally sustaining. If a
poisonous fungus has been eaten, its ill-effects may nowadays be
promptly met by antidotes injected beneath the skin, and by taking
small doses of strychnia in coffee.

Gerard says: "I give my advice to those that love such strange and
new fangled meats to beware of licking honey among thorns, lest
the sweetness of the one do not countervail the sharpness and
pricking of the other." With regard to Mushrooms generally, Horace
said:--

"Pratensibus optima fungis
Natura est; aliis male creditur."

"The meadow Mushrooms are in kind the best;
'Tis ill to trust in any of the rest."

The St. George's Mushroom, an early one, takes, perhaps, the
highest place as an agaric for the table. Blewits (formerly sold in
Covent Garden market for Catsup), and Blue Caps, each all
autumnal species, are savoury fung