138 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



deeper on the under surface. Wlien raw, it has the pungent taste of 

 pepper. Spores, of a pallid, ochre-color. It may be found from June 

 to October. 



Fairy-ring Champignon {3Iarasmhis oreades). This delicious fun- 

 gus (Fig, 10) grows in pastures in rings, or })arts of rings, and may be 

 known by the following characters : Cap smooth, fleshy, convex, rather 

 blunt at apex, more or less compressed, tough, leathery, elastic, wrin- 

 kled ; when water-soaked, brown ; when dry, bulf, or cream-color, the 

 apex often remaining red-brown, as if scorched ; gills free from the 

 stem, distant, swelling out in the middle, the same color as the cap, 

 but paler; stem equal, solid, twisted, very tough and fibrous, of a 

 pale, silky-Avhite color. This genus is much addicted, to dead leaves. 

 Cooke. 



Fig. 9. Coantarelle {C'antharellus cibarnus). 



Another very acrid species [A. urens) has a similar appearance, 

 but the gills are narrow and much crowded. 



While all fungi are cellular in structui'e, they yet present a great 

 vai'iety of consistence. Some assume a corky or leathery firmness, 

 while the substance of others is a mere watery pulp or gelatinous 

 scum. Some are interlacing fibres, spread like a veil over decay- 

 ing matters, while others are hard and tough like wood. They vary 

 equally in taste and form. The cultivation of fungi for esculent pur- 

 poses is confined to a single species, A. campestris, although, accord- 

 ing to Cooke, there is no reason why others, for instance, Marasmius 

 oreades, and the morel {see plate), should not succeed equally well. 

 An unaccountable circumstance in this culture is the impossibility of 

 growing mushrooms from spores. It is the mycelium or spawn which 

 is always planted by gardeners, from which the production of mush- 

 rooms is simple enough, but how to obtain mycelium from spores is 

 still a mystery. Other species present a similar difticulty, as the fol- 

 lowing statement from "Fungi and their Uses" will illustrate : 



"A friend of ours, some years since, was fortunate enough to have one or 

 two specimens of the large puff-ball {Lycoperdon giganteum) growing in his 



