316 THE STORY-BOOK OF SCIENCE 



ture of a special sort, very complicated, very curious, 

 which I shall pass by in silence so as not to over- 

 charge your memory. 



"The chief function of a flower, you know, is to 

 produce seeds. Well, the mushroom too produces 



seeds, but so small, so differ- 

 ent from others, that they 

 have a special name, 

 spores. Spores are the seed 

 Mushrooms O f the mushroom, just as 



acorns are the seed of the oak. That is worthy of 

 some further explanation. 



"The mushrooms most familiar to us are com- 

 posed of a sort of dome supported by a stalk. This 

 dome is called the cap. The under side of the cap 

 takes various shapes, of which the principal are 

 these : Sometimes it is composed of gills which radi- 

 ate from the center to the border; sometimes it is 

 pierced by an infinity of little holes, which are the 

 orifices of as many tubes joined together in a com- 

 mon mass; sometimes it is covered with fine points 

 like those of a cat's tongue. 



"Mushrooms that have the under side of the cap 

 formed of radiating gills are called agarics; those 

 pierced with little holes, boleti; those covered with 

 little points, hydnei. Agarics and boleti are the most 



common. ' 



Here Uncle Paul took, one by one, the mushrooms 

 they had gathered and showed his nephews the gills 

 of the agarics, the holes of the boleti, and the points 

 of the hydnei. 



