TAB. CCCCVII.
AGARICUS virosus[1]
A. Glutinosus Curt. Fl. Lond.
A. Semiglobatus With. and Eng. Fungi.
This Species, (the same as the one cited above) may be equally noxious, under every form in which it may appear. Mr. Dickson, the well-known and excellent Cryptogamist, brought me many specimens, which my experience convinces me belong to this species, and which were the same sort that had fatal effects at Mitcham upon those who cat of them. Of these I have secured drawings, considering it of much importance to make the species well known, and I shall therefore here publish an arrangement of its varieties. I know not how some of them could be taken for Champignons, or what are commonly called Fairy Ring Funguses, which has got them the trivial name of Orcades, (not one of the most fortunate as many Agarics form rings; and Mr. Bolton, who I believe was the first to give it this title, has been still more unfortunate in his figure, which is as much like the poisonous as the edible one; and if that figure had been referred to, might account for the fatal mistakes.) I should think it possible that the English term Scotch Bonnets, the name under which the Fairy Ring Fungus appears in Ray's Synopsis, derived from the form of the pileus, might also mislead; but our poisonous Agaric is seldom so formed, and is always more brittle than the edible one, and more varied, as I will simply shew in detailing the figures. Fig. 1. has something of the shape of the Agaricus Orcades in the pileus, but it has some fuscous seeds on the stem, and is more varied in colour. Fig. 2. 3. 4. 5. and 6. are varieties of the same, gathered at Mitcham, on the spot, by Mr. Dickson and the man who assisted in gathering those which unhappily proved so fatal. No. 7 . and 8. are some varieties sent me from North Wales by the Rev. Hugh Davies, who observed that they were like Agaricus semiglobatus, but that the gills were generally on a plane with the rim of the pileus. No. 9. and 10. are other varieties, rather sodden, gathered at Mead Place, having nothing by which it may be distinguished as belonging to this
- ↑ I thought such a name would operate as a caution, else I do not like new names.
