by Batram

We found [mushrooms] in all shades of brown, yellow, and red, from velvet darks up to the most vivid orange scarlet. But most wonderful of all were the deep purple ones. Purple has always been to me the mystery color, the magician's color. All the mushrooms looked very wise and as if they could weave spells and incantations, but the purple ones were the Merlins of the wood.
—Una Hunt, Una Mary: The Inner Life of a Child, 1914.