180 ON THE SEEDS OR SPORES OF FUNGI. 
one mass. It is from this spawn that the mushrooms arise, first 
appearing as minute points the size of a pin’s head, speedily 
increasing to the size of a pea, or of a marble, till at last the 
perfect plants appear, loaded with millions of spores, ready to 
continue the work of reproduction. The seeds, or spores, are 
found everywhere, in towns as well as in the country, in houses, 
cellars, and indeed, within the human body itself, as they are 
constantly met with during post mortem examinations! How 
far diseases are aided, promulgated, or caused, by the germinating 
seeds of fungi it is very difficult at the present time to say. 
Some fungi-seeds, as in the common ‘Truffle of our markets, 
are entirely subterraneous, and never see the light. The truflles 
are found beneath the surface of the ground, and within them 
are the seeds, sculptured and ornamented ; of necessity these seeds 
are always underground, but on the death of the parent plant, they 
are set free, to form the spawn for succeeding generations. The 
seeds of some mushrooms never germinate elsewhere than on 
certain trees, as in the Elm Agaric; it is therefore evident in 
this species that whatever number of seeds be strewn about, 
none will germinate but such as alight upon moist or damaged 
places on elm trunks; every year in the autumn there is an 
abundance of these things on the elms in St. James’s Park, 
near the Horse Guards. A great many will only germinate 
in rich dungy meadows, in dense woods, or on open downs; 
some in cellars and cupboards; whilst some varieties will 
only grow upon other mushrooms, adhering to them and 
bearing them down, like the Old Man of the Sea on the back 
of Sindbad the Sailor. 
Inexperienced persons are apt to think that there is no 
order in the arrangement and functions of these minute objects, 
and that the seed of one species may, under suitable conditions, 
produce the perfect plant of another, but all experience points 
in the opposite direction. For, after all, what is size in nature ? 
it is merely relative: one thing appears large only on being 
compared with something smaller. It is as impossible for the 
seeds of an edible mushroom on germinating to produce a 
poisonous species as it is for a lamb to give birth to a lion, 
2s 
re. 
ee 
