Science Art: Lepiota Echinellus, 1887

Scientific illustration of the mushroom Lepiota echinella, also known as Cystoderma echinellum, small, brown found on the forest floor, seen in cross-section and whole in various stages of growth.
Scientific illustration of the mushroom Lepiota echinella, also known as Cystoderma echinellum, small, brown found on the forest floor, seen in cross-section and whole in various stages of growth.

You probably shouldn’t eat these.

This is an illustration of a Lepiota mushroom from the Bulletin de la Société botanique de France. The genus includes quite a few toxic species, so this one should be regarded as on the do-not-fly list.

They can be admired on the French forest floor, however, growing among the leaf-litter and rotting wood. It’s known as the finskællet parasolhat in Danish, the “fine-scale parasol hat,” and it may be that it’s used as such by the wee folk of Denmark’s woodlands. Another reason you wouldn’t want to eat them, really, since the Good People of Scandinavia are reputed to be capricious and vengeful.