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EPPING FOREST
sometimes measure nearly a foot across. Lower Forest,
High Beach, etc.
Pleurotus ulmarius. Sometimes singly and sometimes two
or three together, on dead elms. Creamy white or pale
tan colour. Cap from two or three to six or eight
inches in diameter. Thick and fleshy, with a mealy
odour. Near Chingford and Loughton.
All the foregoing species have white spores, which
fall upon the ground beneath, when mature, like chalk
powder.
Fungi which have pink or salmon-coloured spores are
rarely edible, and often poisonous.
Clitopilus prunulus. Plum mushroom.
Clitopilus orcella. Sweetbread mushroom.
These are two species with pink spores, and are nearly
of the same size and appearance. The cap is almost
flat at first, then concave; ivory white with a satiny
lustre, and rather sticky when moist. About two inches
in diameter, with a short stem and pale purplish pink
gills. Odour strong and mealy. Both found in the
Lower Forest, as well as around High Beach.
Of edible species with purple-brown spores the most
useful are :
Agaricus campestris. The common mushroom, which
should be very well known, and has at first pink gills,
afterwards dark purple-brown. Grows in open pastures.
Agaricus arvensis. The horse mushroom, generally of a
larger size, with gills at first of a dirty white (never
pink), and afterwards becoming nearly black. Lower
Forest.
Coprinus comatus. " Shaggy caps." Grows in tufts on
the ground. The cap three or four inches long, and
half as thick, is covered with shaggy fibres, wholly dirty
white. The gills are whitish until the cap begins to
expand, when they become black, and at length melt
away in drops, like treacle. Common on waste ground.
Coprinus atramentarius. "Inky mushroom." Grows in
large tufts, mostly near rotten wood, posts, etc. Cap
smooth, smoky gray, not so cylindrical as the last,
sometimes larger. When expanded the gills melt and
drip away like ink. Edible when young.
Hygrophorus eburneus. Pure white. Cap less than two
inches, stem longer. Slimy when moist. Found on
the elevated sides of Monk Wood.
Hygrophorus virgineus. Ivory white, sticky when moist,
cap one or two inches broad, becoming flat; gills
broad, and distant from each other, running down the
short stem. Open spaces and glades, King's Oak to
Wake Arms.
Paxillus involutus. Large and very common under trees.
Cap four to six inches broad, with the edge at first
rolled inwards. Gills close together running down the
stem. Wholly dark tan-colour, dirty brown when
moist. Edge of cap woolly.
Cantharellus cibarius. " The chantarelle." Whole plant
of an egg-yellow colour, two or three inches high, two
inches broad. Gills very thick and shallow, like veins,