278 THE NORTHERN MICROSCOPIST. 
Algze and Lichens, let us see some of the uses of Fungi. Amongst 
other things they are of immense use in destroying vegetable life 
which otherwise would be most offensive and pestilential. Most of 
us know how very bad decaying plants smell; take the cabbage 
and lettuce for instance, and yet what would they be unless Fungi 
attacked them—they would simply be intolerable. M. Roumegutre 
published a work in 1870 called “Cryptogamie illustrée,” in which 
he gives a list of all the Fungi which attacked anything and every- 
thing. He records 220 which grow on the different parts of the 
Fagus Sylvatica (L). What should we do unless the beech had 
some agent whereby its life when passing away were accelerated ? 
and what if when death had set in, some assistance were not ren- 
dered to hasten its annihilation? And the beech is one of the 
mildest of all examples we could select, inasmuch as the leaves are 
anything but fleshy, and their decay would therefore cause less 
smell than many others when decomposition sets in. And how 
how very beautifully God has arranged for this decay without in- 
jury to our health to take place. The spores and sporidia—in 
easy language, the seeds of Fungi—are wafted through the air in 
myriads ; they are infinitely small, but of such specific gravity that 
in due course of time they fall, and settle themselves with a view 
to growth. Multitudes of course perish and come to an untimely 
end from lack of the exact spot with necessary accompaniments to 
cause permanent vitality. Many, as can be proved, start into 
existence and begin to vegetate, but the requirements are not there 
in full; they die in their very cradle. But supposing a spore or 
sporidium finds everything adapted for it, it grows and flourishes, 
but how does it do this? It does so by means of its mycelium. 
Moisture which is essential to the life of Fungi causes a process to 
start from the spore—that process is capable of elongation ; it 
grows, branches out in all directions, yes even into the hardest 
woods ; it feeds upon the parts that it touches, thus proving itself 
a fungus, and as it feeds it of course consumes the matter around 
it and so rapidly hastens on decay. Leta spore find its proper 
place on a laurel or cabbage, or potatoe, how fast, how very fast 
the mycelium will make its way into it, ramifying right and left in 
every direction, and by this beautiful arrangement by keeping its 
life in health gorge those very poisons to us which are food for 
them. Yes, if there were no Fungi, there would be far more illness. 
It is very singular how the mycelium furnishes different forms of 
Fungi ; that is to say how different forms of fructification proceed 
from the same mycelium a branch of our subject which may per- 
haps well be considered now under our present action of the uses 
of Fungi. If a mycelium produced only one form of fruit some 
of the species must be lost, but there is less prospect of such an 
event now because from the same low form of fungus will arise 
