E.

Cap soft, fleshy, smooth, shell-shaped, white or cinereous, turning
brownish or yellowish with age. Flesh white, somewhat fibrous. Gills
white, broad and decurrent, anastamosing at the base. Stem usually not
well defined, lateral, or absent. Spores elliptical, white. The caps are
sometimes thickly clustered and closely overlapping, and sometimes wide
apart. This mushroom has long been known as edible both raw and cooked.
It has a pleasant but not decided flavor and must be cooked slowly and
carefully to be tender and easily digestible. Old specimens are apt to
be tough. It is found on decaying wood and often on fallen logs in moist
places or upon decaying tree-trunks. It is frequently recurrent on the
same tree. I have gathered great quantities of the Oyster mushroom
during several seasons past from a fallen birch tree which spanned a
small stream. The lower end of the tree rested on the moist ground at
the edge of the stream. Specimens have been found on the willow, ash and
poplar trees, and upon the apple and the laburnum.

Pleurotus _sapidus_ Kalchb. _Sapid Pleurotus_. Edible.

This species closely resembles the Oyster mushroom in form and habit of
growth, and is by some considered only a variety of _P. ostreatus_. It
grows usually in tufts with the caps closely overlapping, varying in
color white, ashy, grayish or brownish. Flesh white. The stems are
white, smooth and short, mostly springing from a common base. The gills
are white and very broad, and decurrent. The spores assume a very pale
lilac tint on exposure to the atmosphere.

Pleurotus _ulmarius_ Bull. "_Elm Pleurotus_." Edible.

The Elm Pleurotus is quite conspicuous by reason of its large size and
light color. The cap is smooth and compact, usually whitish with a dull
yellowish tinge in the center. Flesh white. The skin cracks very easily,
giving it a scaly appearance. The gills are broad, and toothed or
notched near their point of attachment to the stem as in the
Tricholomas, white in color, turning yellowish with age. The stem is
firm and smooth, solid and rather eccentric, thick and sometimes
slightly downy near the base, from two to four inches in length.
Although this mushroom seems to prefer the elm and is most frequently
found on trees of that species, it is found also upon other trees, but
principally the maple, the ash, the willow, and the poplar. It grows
upon live trees, usually where the branches have been cut away, and upon
stumps