Outlines of botany : including a description of mosses, lichens, fungi, ferns, and seaweeds / by J. Scoffern ; illustrated with upwards of three hundred beautiful engravings.i.

  • Scoffern, J. (John), 1814-1882.
Date:
[1856 or 1857]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Outlines of botany : including a description of mosses, lichens, fungi, ferns, and seaweeds / by J. Scoffern ; illustrated with upwards of three hundred beautiful engravings.i. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    series of conical teeth or bristles. For this reason Hydnum Re])andum is called in Italy Steccherino, or “ the Hedgehog.” The genus Fisfulina presents us with but one edible species, F Hepatica. This is that strange-looking Fungus which resembles m its early stages a huge red tongue, lapped out at us from the trunk of some Oak or Chesnut, far above our heads; whence its vulgar name in Italy is Lingua Quercina, or Lingua di Castagna. In its later growth, it looks more like a lump of dark liver than any other substance, whence its specific name. One individual of this species is said to have weighed nearly thirty pounds, and another is mentioned as nearly five feet in girth, and weighing above thirty pounds. “No Fungus yields a richer gravy,” says Badham, “ and though rather tough, when grilled it is scarcely to be distinguished from broiled meat.” 297. Agaricus Rubescens. We must now turn to the second tribe into which our order is divided, the Clavati. This, which furnishes a vast variety of our most interesting Fungi, supplies, nevertheless, but one genus which contains any edible species. This genus is Clavaria^ and all its species are esculent. They are called Clavaria from their simple clavate form. The whole genus is exceedingly pretty; some of them growing on trees, others clustering amongst grass. C. Itugosa is of ivory smoothness and of the purest white. It grows from two to two and a half inches high, is simply branched, but each branch is curved. It grows in clusters, and gives you an instant reminder of a handful of the convoluted kernels of walnuts after they have been delicately peeled for eating. Another yellow species grows widely amongst grass, so as to quite yellow the surface of the place on-which it has taken up its abode. We have seen on a hill at Tor, near Torquay, acres of ground on which you could not walk many