_Coprinus atramentarius_
[Sidenote: =Botanical characters=]
In frequent company with the foregoing will be found another allied
species, _Coprinus atramentarius_ (Plate 17), with the same inky
propensities, which is scarcely less delicious as an article of food.
In this species the shaggy feature is absent, there being merely a few
obscure slightly raised stains at the summit, of a brownish color. The
stem is white and hollow. The surface of the pileus is smooth and of a
Quaker-drab color, occasionally dirty-white, or with a slight shade of
ochre, moist to the touch, darkened by rubbing. In the eatable stage
the caps are drooping, as shown in the cluster on the plate, while the
mature specimen expands considerably before its inky deliquescence. Its
texture when young is firm, and the thick gray cuticle peels readily,
leaving an appetizing nutty-flavored morsel, delicious even when raw.
The inky Agaric is frequent about barn-yards, gardens, and old stumps
in woods, and usually grows in such crowded masses that the central
individuals are compressed into hexagonal shape. Like the previous
variety, it should be collected for food while its gills are in the
white or pink stage.
Cordier claims that all the species of Coprinus are eatable at this
stage. The profusion in which they occasionally abound renders it often
a simple matter to obtain a bushel of them in a few minutes.
[Sidenote: =Coprinus ink=]
Like the foregoing, a large cluster of these mushrooms leaves a
most unsightly spot on the lawn. A diluted solution of this melting
substance, as Cooke assures us, has been used "to replenish the
ink-bottle. The resemblance is so complete that it may readily be
employed as a substitute, all that is required being to boil and strain
it, and add a small quantity of corrosive sublimate to prevent its
turning mouldy." It may also be employed as pigment. It is, indeed,
quite possible to paint the portrait of Coprinus with its own dark
sepia, as the author has personally demonstrated. (See head-piece to
"Illustrations.")