Our English word "mushroom" certainly comes from the French, mousseron, and that again from an old word of doubtful derivation, yet which is possibly traceable to "mucus" in the Greek and Latin, alluding therefore to the moist or slimy characteristics of plants belonging to the mushroom group. The Latin generic name - viz., Agaricus, points us to a region of Sarmatia, where this and other species akin thereto grew plentifully, probably do so at the present time. The English seekers for mushrooms are aware that they may be found in many fields and open parks, especially in those where horses are turned out to graze; and the habit of the wild plant would justify its specific name of campestris, though it also grows plentifully in some places that are more secluded. The "champignon" of the French and the "pratiole" of the Italians suggest the same idea, and the earliest historic associations of the mushroom attach to Italy; yet it does not appear to have been cultivated by the Roman gardeners, but a dish of mushrooms was made the vehicle of a deadly poison by the vile Agrippina when she wished to remove her husband Tiberius Claudius. A remark made by Pliny shows in what estimation mushrooms were held amongst the gourmands of Imperial Rome. They regarded them as appetizers, besides liking them for their own qualities of flavor. " A dish of mushrooms," says he, "is the last device of our epicures to sharpen their appetites and tempt them to eat inordinately." And again he says, "there are some dainty fellows of such fine taste, and who study the appetite to such excess, that they dress mushrooms with their own hands, that they may feed on the odor while they are preparing the food." It is a singular circumstance, that although the Italians of our time eat several species allied to the mushroom we cultivate, that is not grown by them, and is mostly avoided when they are gathering edible fungi.

The common mushroom is not, however, a plant which can be referred to any particular locality. It is found wild throughout Europe, even in the cold Lapland, also in Asia as far as Japan, in both Africa and America. This is easily explainable by the extreme minuteness of the spores and the fact that the air is ever full of them; hence the breezes waft them in all directions, and they settle upon the earth or attach themselves to plants and to animals. Frequently they are swallowed by the latter, but these spores pass through the digestive apparatus of some if not of all animals unimpaired as to their power of germination. Low as the fungi are in the scale of life, they preserve their distinctness, and the mushroom never degenerates, although there are some varieties; so it is always separable from several poisonous species which yet resemble it nearly. Thus it is easily distinguished from a toadstool with dark gills, that is otherwise very similar, by the circumstance that the gills change from pinky red to a dull brown; about the same time the cup, from being convex, becomes flattened, while it also turns brown and scaly. - London Journal of Horticulture.