204 ROMANCE OF LOW LIFE AMONGST PLANTS. 



allude in detail to the yeast fungi {Saccharoniycctece) 

 or the microbes {Schizjmycetece), since it is impossible 

 to estimate the destructive influence which they exert 

 over vegetable and animal life, an influence which 

 has only come to be appreciated within the past few 

 years. 



The above observations are only offered as sugges- 

 tive of the almost universal destructiveness of fungi, 

 either upon living tissues or in the disintegration 

 of dead organic matter. On this subject we have 

 written elsewhere^ to the following effect : "When- 

 ever we encounter decaying vegetable matter we 

 meet with fungi living upon and at the expense 

 of decay, appropriating the changed elements of 

 previous vegetable life to the support of a new 

 generation, and hastening disintegration and assimi- 

 lation with the soil. No one can have observed the 

 mycelium of fungi at work on old stumps, twigs, and 

 decayed wood without being struck with the rapidity 

 and certainty with which disintegration is being 

 carried on. The gardener casts on one side, in a 

 pile as rubbish, twigs and cuttings from his trees 

 which are useless to him, but which have all derived 

 much from the soil on which they flourished. Shortly 

 fungi make their appearance in species almost in- 

 numerable, sending their subtle threads of mycelium 

 deep into the tissues of the woody substance, and the 

 whole mass teems with new life. In this metamor- 

 phosis, as the fungi flourish so the twigs decay ; for 

 the new life is supported at the expense of the old, 



' M. C. Cooke, " Fungi, their Nature, Influence, and Uses," p. 222. 

 (London, 1875.) 



