222 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



these flowerless plants. We have said that 

 fungi do not produce seeds, instead they 

 produce great quantities of small bodies 

 about one-twenty thousandth part of an inch 

 in diameter called spores. These have no 

 cotyedons, nor plumlule, nor radicle as do 

 seeds ; but when a spore is deposited by a 

 current of air on leaf or fruit of a flowering 

 plant, or on decaying substances, and tem- 

 perature and moisture are favorable, a thin- 

 walled tubular cell emerges from the spore, 

 which may either pierce the thin epidermis 

 of the leaf or enter by some natural or acci- 

 dental aperture. In the case of the sapro- 

 phytic fungus there is usually no hindrance 

 to its entrance. When once within it be- 

 gins to draw nourishment from its host, to 

 extend and to branch out. These tubular 

 cells are called hyphae ; those of the para- 

 sitic fungi have the power of decomposing 

 the cell walls of the host plant, thus gain- 

 ing access to the contents upon which they 

 may be said to feed. When a network or 

 mesh is formed by the branching and inter- 

 lacing of the hyphae this network is called 

 mycelium. Mushroom growers call it the 

 '* spawn." 



The manner in which fungi assist the 

 flowering plants and form the partnership 

 with them that is to last for life is very sim- 

 ple. When germinating seed of a flowering 

 plant sends its radicle into soil in which the 

 appropriate fungus is growing the hyphae 

 wrap themselves around the rootlet, soon 

 covering it more or less perfectly with a 

 mantle, a mycelial mantle. As this root 

 grows, extending and branching in any di- 

 rection, the fungus grows with it, wrapping 

 it whithersoever it goes in its mycelium, 

 continuing the process as long as the plant, 

 be it herbaceous or ligneous, lives, even 

 though that life endure for centuries. In 

 some cases the mycelial mantle is but as a 

 gauzy spider's web, in others a very thin 

 evenly woven larger, or again it will be thickly 

 woven, completely covering the root out of 



sight. Mineral salts and other inorganic 

 compounds requisite to the growth of the 

 flowering plant are taken up by this myce- 

 lial mantle, and by it imparted to the epider- 

 mal cells of the root it enfolds, to be carried 

 thence through stem and branches to the 

 foliage where they are elaborated, digested 

 as it were, changed from inorganic to or- 

 ganic, and go to build up the plant in all its 

 parts. In return for this service the fungus 

 receives from the flowering plant such or- 

 ganic material as is necessary to its growth, 

 which, not having green leaves, it is unable 

 to manufacture out of inorganic material, 

 which organic matter is brought down from 

 the foliage of its partner through the branch- 

 es, stem and roots, and delivered to the ab- 

 sorbent cells of the mycelium. Thus a mu- 

 tually beneficial copartnership is established 

 between a flowering and a flowerless plant ; 

 this partnership is termed symbiosis, and 

 the several members symbionts. 



The discovery of this symbiosis has re- 

 vealed to horticulturists the cause of the dif- 

 ficulty experienced in transplanting success- 

 fully plants of the families named above, and 

 of propagating by cuttings oak, beech, whor- 

 tleberry, rhododendron, laurel, trailing ar- 

 butus, etc. This has been found to be 

 easily obviated by taking pains to obtain 

 with the plant to be transplanted a supply of 

 its symbiont. This can be done by securing 

 a large ball of earth adhering to the roots 

 proportionate in diameter to their spread, if 

 possible to their minutest extremities and 

 even beyond. Care must be taken to pre- 

 vent the soil thus taken from becoming dry 

 at all during the process of transplanting, 

 for that would cause the death of the sym- 

 biont fungus. Also in propagating from 

 cuttings, if a liberal supply of the mould 

 containing the symbiont is abundantly mixed 

 with the sand there should be no difficulty. 

 It must, however, be constantly borne in 

 mind that there will be no living hyphae in 

 dry mould, the mould must be moist when 



