II04 



Home Nature-Study Course. 



such of this food material as remains in dead wood, withered leaves, 

 or soils enriched by their remains. 



Thus we find mushrooms and other fungi with fruit bodies; pallid, 

 brown, olive, yellow or red in color, but with no signs of the living green 

 of other plants; and this fact reveals their history. Some of them are 

 parasites, as certain species of bracket fungi which are the deadly ene- 

 mies of living trees ; but most of the 

 fungus species that we ordinarily see are 

 saprophytes and live on dead vegetation. 

 Fungi, as a whole are a great boon to 

 the world. Without them our forests 

 would be choked out with dead wood. 

 Decay is simply the process by which 

 fungi and other organisms break down 

 dead material, so that the major part of 

 it returns to the air in gaseous form, 

 and the remainder, now mostly humus, 

 mingles with the soil. 



As a table delicacy, mushrooms are 

 highly prized. A very large number of 

 species are edible. But every year the 

 newspapers report deaths resulting from 

 eating the poisonous kinds, — the price of 

 an ignorance which comes from a lack 

 of the powers of observation developed 

 in nature-study. It would be very imzvise 

 for any teacher to give rules to guide her 

 pupils in separating edible from poison- 

 ous mushrooms, since the most careful 

 directions may be disregarded or mis- 

 understood. She should emphasise the 

 danger incurred by mistaking a poison- 

 ous for an edible species. One small button of the deadly kind if eaten 

 may cause death. A few warning rules may be given, which, if firmly 

 impressed on the pupils, may result in saving human life. 



First, — the most important rule is to avoid all mushrooms that are 

 covered with scales or that have the base of the stem included in a 

 sac, for two of the poisonous species often mistaken for the common 

 edible mushroom have these distinguishing marks. Care should be 

 taken that every specimen be collected in a way to show the base of 

 the stem, as in some poisonous species this sac is hidden beneath the soil. 



T!ie counnon edible mushroom — 

 in button stages — mycelium or 

 spawn also shown. 



