Edible and poisonous fungi.

Date:
1945
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Edible and poisonous fungi. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    LIVID ENTOLOMA (Entoloma lividum) This fungus also is not very common, but it is figured here because it is one of the most poisonous species, and also because it serves to represent the pink-spored group of Agarics. The name refers to the colour of the cap, which is of a dull, rather dirty yellow (“ sallow,” or perhaps “‘ jaundiced,” might describe it). The cap is thick and fleshy, from 2 to 5 inches across, or some- times more. At first it is rounded, but later opens out and becomes more flattened, with a slightly conical boss in the middle and a wavy, uneven, and at first inrolled edge. The skin is smooth, but with fine radiating fibrils when examined with a magnifying glass, and it cannot be easily peeled off. The stem is white and rather stout, often thicker below than above; it is smooth and becomes more or less hollow and brittle; there is neither ring nor volva. ‘The gills are at first white but of a dirty pink shade when mature; they are broad, somewhat crowded, and though at first touching the stem at length become almost free. The spores are pinkish and give a dull pink spore-print. The flesh is white, and when young the fungus has an odour which is described as like that of new meal. Entoloma lividum is to be found in woods, under trees such as beech, oak, etc., in summer and early autumn, sometimes in large groups or forming rings. The distinctly pink gills serve to distin- guish it from Blewits or St. George’s Mushroom, with which it might be confused, and the absence of a ring on the stem, as well as the colour, from young specimens of the common mushroom or its allies.