THE MUSHROOM FAMILY. 521 



some cases of the purest pearly white, the surface either of shining 

 and satiny smoothness, or flecked with brown scales, or studded with 

 dark bosses. The most usual colours are white and yellow ; brown 

 and red are very frequent ; blue is exceedingly rare, and pure green 

 altogether unknown. The reason of this would seem to be that the 

 Fungi, instead of taking carbon From the atmosphere, like other plants, 

 absorb oxygen from it, the green colour of plants in general resulting 

 from their performance of the opposite process. Besides the table-form 

 species, there are many of an irregular and lumpy figure. Others 

 consist of strata of thin plates, while the puff-balls are almost or 

 quite spherical, and solid. In duration they vary greatly. Many 

 spring up in the course of a night, and dissolve next day, or at least 

 with the first shower of rain ; some are so delicate that they tremble 

 in the hand when gathered, and, as in the Agaricus radiatus, even melt 

 away if breathed upon ; others, growing upon old trees, are perennial 

 and almost as hard as wood. Such is the case with that beautiful and 

 extraordinary production, the Boletus lucidus, a plant found in all parts 

 of the world, and attaining great perfection in New Brunswick, whence 

 I have many noble specimens. It consists of a broad, nearly circular 

 plate, five or six inches or more in diameter, by an inch in thickness, 

 in substance corky, the under surface light tan-colour and minutely 

 porous, the upper one, like the short lateral stem, of a fine reddish- 

 brown, smooth and shining as if lacquered, and marked with broad 

 concentric zones, like a shell. The habitats of the Fungi are as various 

 as their forms and colours. Open fields and meadows, woods, among 

 the moss and crimp brown leaves of the former season, dead sticks and 

 stumps, and decaying organic matter of every conceivable kind, are 

 inhabited by the difierent species, it being the peculiar characteristic 

 of the Fungi to seat themselves on dead or decomposing animal and 

 vegetable substances, which they largely assist to remove from view, 

 decking them, meanwhile, with a strange and anomalous beauty, 

 " decay's effacing fingers " adorned as it were with jewels. A very 

 few only take up their residence on living and healthy organisms, and 

 these are all of the minute and often microscopic kind called "Blights." 

 Every plant seems subject to the attack of some kind of little parasitic 

 fungus, the efiect being at times exceedingly destructive. It would 

 appear, however, that atmospheric contingencies are needful to their 

 development in qumitities ; otherwise they would be permanent and 

 universal pests, whereas in general they are found only on individuals 

 and uncertainly. The appearance of this class of Fungi is that of 



