198 ROMANCE OF LOW LIFE AMONGST PLANTS. 



increase. If we turn back to Lindley's " Vegetable 

 Kingdom," the edition of 1847 only estimates the 

 total number of species of fungi at four thousand, so 

 that in less than half a century the number has been 

 increased ten times, and with that increase has come 

 a deeper and wider knowledge of the mysteries of 

 life as developed in some of the lower forms of the 

 vegetable kingdom. 



If we were required to indicate briefly the most 

 prominent types of fungi, we would say that the best 

 known are the large fleshy fungi, with a cap and 

 stem, of the " mushroom and toadstool " form, of 

 which more species are now known than there were 

 of all kinds of fungi known in 1847. Following these 

 are the hard, woody Polypori, which grow on the 

 trunks of decayed trees. All these are large and 

 conspicuous, being included within the popular con- 

 ception of what constitutes a fungus. Then there is 

 another important group, with a vastly different habit 

 and appearance, known popularly as "rusts" and 

 " smuts " which attack, and are parasitic upon, grow- 

 ing vegetables, causing their destruction. In addition 

 to these are the little cup-shaped objects which occur 

 upon decaying vegetable substances, and sometimes 

 upon the ground, and on dung, a large and widely 

 dispersed group of fungi. A still larger group con- 

 sists of individuals for the most part like little black 

 dots on the dead stems of herbaceous plants, and on 

 the dead branches of trees, and old trunks. They 

 are numbered by thousands, and the fructification is 

 of a complex character, enclosed within hard, bottle- 

 shaped receptacles, termed perithecia. Beside all 



