nd the upper portion of the stem.

This mushroom is very common in woods and forests in summer and autumn,
and has a wide geographical range. It is recorded by all mycologists as
poisonous. One author states that when eaten in very small quantities it
acts as a cathartic, but that it causes death when eaten freely. Flies
find in it a deadly poison, and the poisonous alkaloids are not
destroyed by drying.

Although cases are cited where this mushroom has been eaten without
injury, its fatally poisonous effects have been too well and too often
tested to allow of any doubt as to the danger of eating it, even in
small quantities.

Amanita Frostiana, Frost's Amanita, is a much smaller species than A.
muscaria. It bears a very close resemblance to the Fly Amanita, and
might easily be taken for a small form of the same. The cap is yellowish
and warted, and specimens occur in which the stem and gills are slightly
tinged with yellow. It is poisonous.

PLATE XV.

FIG. 8.--=Ag. (Amanita) phalloides= Fries (=Amanita phalloides=)
=A. vernalis= Bolt., =A. verrucosus= Curtis. "_Poisonous Amanita_,"
"_Death Cup_."

POISONOUS.

Cap bell-shaped or ovate at first, then expanded, smooth, obtuse,
viscid, margin even, creamy-white, brown, or greenish, without warts;
flesh white; stem white, hollow or stuffed, bulbous at the base,
annulate; gills rounded and ventricose, coarse, and persistently white,
free from the stem; volva conspicuous, large, loose, adhering to the
base, but free from the stem at the top, with the margin irregularly
notched. In the white forms there is frequently a greenish or yellow
tinge at the disk or centre of the cap. The white form is most common,
but the brownish is often found in this country. I have not yet found
the green-capped variety sometimes figured in European works. In the
brown variety the stem and ring are often tinged with brown, as also the
volva. The cap is usually from 2 to 3 inches broad, and the stem from 3
to 5 inches long. The whole plant is symmetrical in shape and clean
looking, though somewhat clammy to the touch when moist. It is very
common in mixed woods, in some localities, and is universally considered
as fatally poisonous.

The white form of A. _phalloides_, although in reality bearing very
little resemblance to the common field mushroom, has been mistaken for
it as also for the _Smooth white lepiota_, and in some instances has
been eaten with fatal r