Victorian Costume: Mushroom Foraging Basket

Yesterday in the woods under birch trees I found my first chanterelles. Frisson! They do smell faintly of apricot.  You probably know by now that my fall wardrobe muse Beatrix Potter was an accomplished mycologist, yes?

Victorian fairy paintings are full of fungi:

Fairy rings and toadstools Richard Boyle, 1875

Unfortunately yesterday in the woods under the birch trees I wore modern suburbanmotherwear not a brooch or a high-necked blouse or fairywear because I'm still on the search for a Victorian natural historian cosplay outfit. Thus far, of my Victorian costume I have only:

a brooch, like Florence Merriam Bailey. #GoWithFlo

And:

this mushroom foraging basket.

"While basket weaving is one of the widest spread crafts in the history of any human civilization," I do not think that brooch and basket counts as fully dressed.  

Fairy Seated on A Mushroom, Thomas Heatherly, ca 1860.