INTRODUCTORY y 



woody plants, the dead or dying branches of trees, standing 

 stumps and tree trunks and fallen logs all furnish the matrix in 

 which fungi of various sorts, a few conspicuous, many more in- 

 conspicuous, thrive and multiply. With all their differences fungi 

 agree in two characters, one positive and the other negativ^e, that 

 will enable them to be recognized even by the novice : (i) They 

 possess none of the green coloring matter of ordinary vegetation, 

 and (2) They reproduce by spores. The latter character will 

 distinguish them from the few orchids, broom-rapes, dodders and 

 other seed plants which share with fungi the absence of chloro- 

 phyl, while the first character separates them physiologically 

 from ordinary green plants as widely as the latter are separated 

 from the animals, since without chlorophyl they have lost their 

 power to live on the constituents of air and water. 



Fungi, like animals, early lost this power to appropriate inorganic 

 food, and thus, like animals, became dependent on organic matter 

 for their very Hfe, but unlike animals they (i) Never developed the 

 power of locomotion, and (2) Soon lost the power of sex reproduc- 

 tion which they had developed in common with all living forms. 

 Instead of the high development reached by animals, the fungi 

 have ever remained either scavengers or parasites, and fulfill a 

 lowly and even degraded calling, at times neutral, at times dan- 

 gerous, but in many cases beneficial to the world of life at large. 



We have then two differentiations from the lowest life, alike in 

 many particulars since they are both dependent on green plants 

 for food and are both destructive instead of cojtstrtictive chemical 

 agents — the animal rising step by step to the highest scale of or- 

 ganic and sentient being ; the fungus delighting in decay, degraded 

 and destined to the humblest plane of existence. 



