Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. — Reading Notes

Photography as a Taxonomic Tool

Atkinson emphasizes that his photographs were made 'with great care after considerable experience in determining the best means for reproducing individual, specific, and generic characters.' He argues that earlier methods of illustration could not accurately portray these plants. The images are not decorative but functional: they capture the cap shape, stem texture, and gill attachment that separate species.

For example, in discussing Boletus retipes, he notes that the stem is 'yellow, yellow also within, and beautifully reticulate, usually to the base, but sometimes only toward the apex.' The photograph (Fig. 167) is cited as evidence for these details. Atkinson also uses images to document variation within a species, such as the range of cap colors from 'yellowish brown to olive brown, fuliginous or nearly black.'

Field Observations and Species Boundaries

Atkinson's entries combine herbarium records with his own collecting trips. He reports finding Boletus retipes in the mountains of North Carolina at Blowing Rock in August 1888 and again in 1899. He notes that the plant 'is usually single' in his experience, contradicting earlier reports of a tufted habit by Berkeley and Curtis. This leads him to question whether Boletus ornatipes is truly distinct, arguing that 'the tufted habit of the plants collected by Curtis... would seem to be a rather unusual condition.'

He supports this with an analogy: he once found Boletus edulis growing in a tuft of six to eight plants, with smaller caps and longer stems than normal. Such field observations allow him to weigh the reliability of characters like spore color and pileus texture.

The Practical Aim: Edibility and Poison

Though the book is a scientific monograph, it is also a guide for foragers. Atkinson includes recipes for cooking mushrooms by Mrs. Sarah Tyson Rorer and a section on chemistry and toxicology by J. F. Clark. The introduction directly addresses the public's fear of toadstools, stating that 'many of the toadstools are edible, the common belief that all of them are poisonous being due to unfamiliarity.'

Atkinson does not simply list edible species; he provides detailed descriptions that allow readers to distinguish look-alikes. For instance, Boletus felleus (Fig. 166) is described with 'cap light brown, tubes flesh color, stem in this specimen entirely reticulate'—a warning that its bitter taste could ruin a meal.

Movement Between Local and National Scope

Atkinson's study moves fluidly between local collections and broader distribution records. He cites reports from New England, New York, Ohio, Wisconsin, and the Carolinas, often referencing the work of Peck, Berkeley, and Curtis. For Boletus chromapes, he notes it 'has been reported from New England and from New York,' implying his own familiarity with the species at Ithaca.

This geographic movement is mirrored in the text's structure: each species account begins with a description, then adds locality data, and often ends with a taxonomic note. The reader is taken from a single specimen in a North Carolina forest to a network of mycological literature spanning the United States.

Atkinson's Studies of American Fungi rewards readers who attend to its photographs and field notes as closely as its descriptions. The book is best approached not as a static reference but as a record of a working botanist's method: comparing specimens, questioning earlier authorities, and refining characters through repeated observation. For modern readers, it offers a window into the state of American mycology at the turn of the twentieth century, when photography was still a novel tool for natural history.

Atkinson’s careful eye for what nourishes and what harms lingered with me—how he trusted small details over appearances. That quiet patience reminded me of another old manual, where a farrier reads a hoof’s angle like a spore print. Rational Horse-Shoeing — Themes and Context holds the same tender precision, a respect for living shape beneath our hands.