Mushrooms and Their Cultivation - A Handbook for Amateurs Dealing with the Culture of Mushrooms in the Open-Air, Also in Sheds, Cellars, Greenhouses, E
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Mushrooms and Their Cultivation - A Handbook for Amateurs Dealing with the Culture of Mushrooms in the Open-Air, Also in Sheds, Cellars, Greenhouses, E - T. W. Sanders
MUSHROOMS
AND THEIR CULTIVATION.
A Handbook for Amateurs dealing with the Culture of Mushrooms in the Open-air, also in Sheds, Cellars, Greenhouses, etc., and the best methods of Cooking them; including a Description of other Edible Fungi.
BY
T. W. SANDERS, F.L.S.
(Knight of the First Class of the Royal Order of Wasa, Sweden; Editor of Amateur Gardening,
etc.)
ILLUSTRATED.
Mushrooms
A mushroom (or toadstool) is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. The standard for the name ‘mushroom’ is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus; hence the word ‘mushroom’ is most often applied to those fungi (Basidiomycota, Agaricomycetes) that have a stem (stipe), a cap (pileus), and gills (lamellae, sing. lamella) or pores on the underside of the cap.
The terms ‘mushroom’ and ‘toadstool’ go back centuries and were never precisely defined, nor was there consensus on application. The term ‘toadstool’ was often, but not exclusively, applied to poisonous mushrooms or to those that have the classic umbrella-like cap-and-stem form. Between 1400 and 1600 AD, the terms tadstoles, frogstooles, frogge stoles, tadstooles, tode stoles, toodys hatte, paddockstool, puddockstool, paddocstol, toadstoole, and paddockstooles sometimes were used synonymously with mushrum, muscheron, mousheroms, mussheron, or musserouns. The term ‘mushroom’ and its variations may have been derived from the French word mousseron in reference to moss (mousse).
Identifying mushrooms requires a basic understanding of their macroscopic structure. Most are Basidiomycetes and gilled. Their spores, called basidiospores, are produced on the gills and fall in a fine rain of powder from under the caps as a result. As a result, for most mushrooms, if the cap is cut off and placed gill-side-down overnight, a powdery impression reflecting the shape of the gills (or pores, or spines, etc.) is formed (when the fruit body is sporulating). The colour of the powdery print, called a spore print, is used to help classify mushrooms and can help to identify them. Spore print colours include white (most common), brown, black, purple-brown, pink, yellow, and creamy, but almost never blue, green, or red.
While modern identification of mushrooms is quickly becoming molecular, the standard methods for identification are still used by most and have developed into a fine art, harking back to medieval times and the Victorian era. The presence of juices upon breaking, bruising reactions, odours, tastes, shades of colour, habitat, habit, and season are all considered by both amateur and professional mycologists. Tasting and smelling mushrooms carries its own hazards though, because of poisons and allergens. In general, identification to genus can often be accomplished in the field using a local mushroom guide. Identification to species, however, requires more effort; and one must remember that a mushroom develops from a button stage into a mature structure, and only the latter can provide certain characteristics needed for the identification of the species.
However, over-mature specimens lose features and cease producing spores. Many novices have mistaken humid water marks on paper for white spore prints, or discoloured paper from oozing liquids on lamella edges for coloured spore prints. A number of species of mushrooms are poisonous; although some resemble certain edible species, consuming them could be fatal. Eating mushrooms gathered in the wild is risky and should not be undertaken by individuals not knowledgeable in mushroom identification, unless the individuals limit themselves to a relatively small number of good edible species, that are visually distinctive. People who collect mushrooms for consumption are known as ‘mycophagists’, and the act of collecting them for such is known as mushroom hunting, or simply ‘mushrooming’. Have fun!
[Photo: J. H. Crabtree.
EDIBLE TUBE MUSHROOM (Boletus edulis).
A truly delicious wild fungus. Common in oak woods in Autumn. See Chap. XIV.
A FOREWORD.
THIS Handbook has been written to meet the requirements of amateur gardeners who need guidance as to the various methods of growing mushrooms for home consumption. Our aim has been to supply information in as concise and lucid a manner as possible on the culture of the mushroom on ridges or beds in the open air, in boxes and tubs in cellars, etc.; under greenhouse staging; in old hotbeds or in frames; also in pastures. No pains have been spared to make every phase of the art plain and easy to understand, in order that even the merest novice may follow with hope of certain success.
To render the volume of still greater value to the amateur we have not only instructed him how to grow mushrooms, but also how to cook them in various appetising ways. There is no vegetable so delicious as the mushroom, if properly cooked; and if the reader will only prepare the produce according to one of the recipes given, he will appreciate it to a far greater extent than he has hitherto done.
Then, we know there are many country readers who in summer and autumn come across a great number of fungi growing in woodland, upland, and mead, but are unaware of the fact that a large proportion of them are edible. The popular notion is that every fungus, except the true mushroom, is a toadstool,
and poisonous withal. It is true that a large number of fungi are highly poisonous, but this fact should not deter the reader from studying the various fungi that come