DIFFERENCES AMONGST FUNGI. 



491 



little brown coats (see fig. 355 ^-). And all these peculiar forms arise under similar 

 external conditions from apparently similar slimy and formless masses of proto- 

 plasm. 



The same thing occurs in the Mushroom and Toadstool Fungi (Hymeno- 

 mycetes) which develop in the mould of the forest ground and on the dead bark 

 of tree-trunks. The mycelium is a network of white threads and strands, and 

 neither the form of the colourless elongated cells composing the network nor 



Fig. 355. — Myxomycetes. 



1 A group of sporangia of Stemonitis fusca. 2 A single sporangium; x 6. 3 Dendritic mass of sporangia of Spwnaria alba on 

 a Grass leaf. ^ Sporangium of Dietydium cernuum; x 25. 'A group of sporangia of the same. ^ and ? Sporangia of 

 Craterium minutum; s x 25. 8 Sporangia of Arcyria punicea. 9 A single sporangium; x 10. 10 Part of the net-like 

 capillitium of the same; xl60. " Fructification of Lycogala epidendrum on a piece of wood. 12 Leoearpus fragUis; a 

 Plasmodium on the right; several sporangia on the left. 



the protoplasm within the cells afford any indication by which we can judge 

 the species to which the mycelium belongs. But how different are the fructi- 

 fications proceeding from these apparently identical mycelia. In a part of the 

 forest ground not twenty paces across there grow large specimens of Boletus 

 edulis with chestnut-brown hemispherical caps; a little distance off" a group of 

 Chantarelles (Cantharellus ciharius), with yellow colour like yolk of egg, close 

 by the Fly-agaric {Agaricus muscarius or Amanita muscaria), with snow- 

 white stipe and crimson cap (pileus) spotted with white, and near at hand, from 



