14 



TALKS AFIELD. 



would find a mesh of underground root-like 

 fibres, with little mushrooms 

 springing from them, as in 

 Fig. 15. This mesh is 

 known to gardeners as the 

 " spawn," and it is what 

 they plant ; to the botanist 

 it is the mycelium. A full- 

 grown mushroom is shown 

 Fig- 15. in Fig. 16. Underneath 



the conical top are shown the " gills " upon 

 which is borne the fruit. 

 Many of our common 

 mushrooms and similar 

 fungi are highly esteemed 

 as articles of food. There 

 is no criterion, however, 

 by which the non-bota- 

 nist can distiuguish the 

 good species from the 

 noxious ones. It is prob- 

 able that the poisonous 

 character of many of 

 them has been much exaggerated, although 

 there is no doubt that some of them are 

 dangerously noxious. M. A. Curtis, a well- 

 known Southern botanist, subsisted largely 

 upon fungi during the straitened jDcriods of 



Fig. 16. 



