122 A PLAIN AND EASY ACCOUNT 



the individuals composing which are so exceedingly fragile 

 that such a method of preservation will not avail. In 

 many such cases the mould, or fungus, may be mounted 

 at once in the ordinary way on a slide for the microscope, 

 and all its features carefully preserved. 



The greatest difficulty rests with the larger species, 

 such as many of the Agarics and Boleti ; and for these 

 no better method can be recommended than that detailed 

 by Klotsch, himself an indefatigable collector, thirty 

 years ago : 



" With a delicate scimitar-shaped knife or scalpel, 

 such as is found in a surgeon's instrument -case, I make 

 a double vertical section, through the middle, from the 

 top of the pileus to the base of the stem, so as to remove 

 a slice. This, it will be at once seen, shows the vertical 

 outline of the whole fungus, the internal nature of its 

 stem, whether hollow, or spongy, or solid, the thickness 

 of the pileus, and the peculiarities of the gills, whether 

 equal or unequal in length, decurrent upon the stem, or 

 otherwise, &c. There will then remain the two sides, 

 or nearly halves of the fungus, which each in itself 

 gives a correct idea, if I may so express myself, of the 

 whole circumference of the plant. But before we pro- 

 ceed to dry them, it is necessary to separate the stem 

 from the pileus, and from the latter to scrape out the 

 fleshy lamellae or gills, if an Agaric, or the tubes of 

 a Boletus. We have thus the fungus divided into 

 five portions, a central thin slice, two nearly halves of 

 the stem, and the same sections of the pileus. These, 

 after being a little exposed to the air, that they may 



