From Spore to Mushroom 



All corn smuts, wheat smuts, leaf rusts, toadstools, puff- 

 balls, and brackets bear their spores on club-like cells, and for 



this reason are put in one group, called 

 Basidiomycetes. 



The fact that corn smuts and leaf 

 rusts feed on living 

 plants, while toad- 

 stools, brackets, 

 and puffballs feed 

 on dead plants, 

 separates them in- 

 to two groups ; 

 the smuts and rustsforming the lower group, 



and the others the higher group. It is the 

 higher Basidiomycetes which we wish to con- 

 sider, as this group includes most of the con- 

 spicuous fungi, most of the edi- 



Pouch-fungus section, to show 

 spores in hollow rind 



Section to show gills 



Section of a Boletus, 

 to show pores 



Clavaria with 

 spores on spines 



ble, and those fungi which are 

 dangerous because of their re- 

 semblance to edible species. 



Remembering that toadstools, puffballs, and 

 brackets all start from spores ; that all have the 



tangled thread-like 

 plants, seeking the 

 dark ; that they all 

 have the spore recep- 

 tacle in the light, and 

 bear their spores on club-like cells, 

 one can readily understand their be- 

 ing put in one group. 



With a few exceptions not 

 Section of iiydnum, to show teeth necessary for US to Consider, all the 



higher fungi naturally divide into 

 two groups — pouch-fungi (Gasteromycetes), which conceal their 

 spores in a definite rind, or peridium, as the puffballs do ; 

 and membrane fungi (Hymenomycetes), now called Agari- 

 cales, which bear their spores exposed on the surface of gills, 

 pores, spines, or teeth, as the garden mushrooms, the Boleti, 

 the Clavarias, and the Hydnums. 



14 



