But the most important and savory of the entire group of Hydnei is the species following:
While driving through the White Mountain Notch, many years ago, I chanced upon a mass of cream-colored, fringy fungus growing upon a fallen beech-log by the side of the road. The fungus was then entirely new to me, and I lost no time in making a sketch of it, with notes. The growth covered a space possibly eighteen inches wide by eight in height, and I estimated it would weigh fully five pounds, its most marked feature being the dense growth of drooping spines. In my limited knowledge of edible fungi at the time, I cautiously left the specimen in the woods, afterwards to learn from Dr. Harkness, the mycologist, that I had "thrown away five pounds of the most delicious fungus meat known to the epicure." I have since found minor specimens many times, and can readily understand the enthusiastic encomiums of my connoisseur friend as to its esculent qualities.
=Spines:= The long, soft spines cover the entire exposed portion of the fungus, which is disposed in fleshy branching divisions, each terminating in a "crown" of shorter, drooping teeth. The color is pale buff or dark creamy.
=Stem:= Short, concealed beneath the growth.
=Taste:= Sweet and aromatic, slightly pungent.
=Habitat:= Trunks of trees, especially beech.
[Illustration: PLATE XXIX.--HYDNUM CAPUT-MEDUSÆ]
This species (Plate 28) cannot be confounded with any other; it is of a dark creamy color, and usually grows sidewise upon dead beech wood (Plate 29), sometimes in great profusion, especially in the summer. The soft spines entirely cover the rounded branching protuberances of the fungus. The upper teeth are short and form a sort of "crown," falling from which the more and more elongated spines are firmly pendent beneath, somewhat suggesting as many heads of tiny skye-terriers in crowded convocation--or a tiny bleached "hedgehog," if you choose.
A fungus bearing such conspicuous characteristics may be gathered and eaten without fear, assuming the specimen to be fresh and free from grubs. It will be found an aromatic and savory morsel, though simply fried in butter and served on toast.
One other species may be mentioned briefly, the _H. coralloides_, or Moss-mushroom, which is unfamiliar to the writer, but which Curtis includes among his edible fungi. It may be found growing sidewise "on old trunks of living trees," _at first white_, then yellowish, resembling when young the _chou-fleur_ (cauliflower). From its base, which is tender and fleshy, spring a large number of flexible branches, interlaced and assembled in tufts, bearing upon the summit of each of their divisions an expansion of long points or projections, at first straight, then pendent, and even curved under, and terminating in layers. Cordier says that it is "delicate food."