Common Edible Mushrooms

COMMON EDIBLE MUSHROOMS
mycologists have confused the two kinds and have been poisoned
as a result, common sense directs us to avoid both species.
The caps are from 4 to 12 inches wide, those the size of a dinner
plate and weighing more than a pound being not at all rare in a
good season. In young plants the cap is spherical, with the margin
attached to the stem, but later it becomes convex and finally almost
flat. The surface of young specimens is nearly smooth or coarsely
fibrous, and as the cap expands the fibrous outer layer cracks into
large and prominent brown or white scales. The gills, free from the
stem, are white when young. Those of the mature Lepiota morga.nl
assume the pale green color of the spores; those of Lepiota rachodes
remain white or turn a dingy tan. The stem is 1/2 to i 1/2 inches
thick at the top, increasing in diameter toward the base, where it
is enlarged into a spherical bulb. It is from 4 to 10 inches long, its
length seldom exceeding the diameter of the cap, and it bears a
prominent ring above the middle. Fairy rings of L. morgani more
than fifty feet across have been found, made up of dozens of specimens,
each nearly a foot in diameter.
GENUS Marasmius
Edible and delectable: MARASMIUS OREADES (Fairyring
Mushroom)
Marasmius means withered or shriveled, and the name was applied
to this genus because, unlike most mushrooms, these plants
wither in dry weather but do not die, and when moistened they
revive, regain their original size and shape and freshness, and continue
to shed spores. Colly bia confluens also has this habit, as Figure
18 shows. This ability is of some benefit to them in that it
enables them to survive periods of drouth that kill most other species.
The specific name oreades means mountain nymphs, a poetical
allusion to the fairy rings they form (Figures 35 and 34 and Plate
4A). Many kinds of mushrooms form such rings, but Marasmius
oreades does so commonly. On pages 6-7 you may read how and
why these rings develop.
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