Featured on PDR in the collection Lithographs from M. E. Descourtilz’s Atlas des Champignons (1827)

With the last sights of summer having now vanished for many in Europe and North America, you may find, among fallen leaves and soggy mulch, mushrooms erupting overnight. We present here lithographs by A. Cornillon from Michel Étienne Descourtilz’s Atlas des champignons: comestibles, suspects et vénéneux (Atlas of mushrooms: edible, suspect and poisonous). There are the somewhat tasteless specimens familiar from supermarket shelves, as well as rarer varietes: the chanterelles, displayed at giant scale, look particularly tempting, while a lovely orange lion’s mane appears like a bearded god with his hat pulled low. The “suspect” mushrooms feature common lookalikes. Fly agaric, for example, can resemble edible species of blushers (in the Agaricomycetes class). The latter mushrooms do well in a cream sauce; consumption of the…