Common Edible Mushrooms

COMMON EDIBLE MUSHROOMS
confuse this species with any other mushroom, and when properly
cooked it will provide a delicious meal. Incidentally, it decays the
interior of the trees it inhabits, reducing the heartwood to a brown
charcoal-like mass. Once clumps of it have been located one can
confidently expect it to fruit again in the same place year after
year — a point worth remembering.
Shaggymanes
Figure 4. Sulphur shelf on a rotten log.
These luscious mushrooms (Figure 5 and Plate iB) are the best
of the eminently edible inky-cap group, whose distinguishing mark
is the dissolution of the ripening cap into a black liquid, as illustrated
in Figure 52. The shaggymane is usually from 4 to 6 inches
high, although we have found giant ones more than 20 inches tall
and weighing easily half a pound. The cap is nearly cylindrical,
white and shaggy, with large brownish pointed tufts. In young
specimens there is a narrow, loose ring around the stem just at the
lower edge of the cap, but this soon withers and disappears.
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