THE MYSTERIOUS FUNGUS 267 



where it rests on the ground, and below that there 

 is nothing to be seen. It is as though the colt's- 

 foot root should, instead of merely sending up a 

 blossom, transform itself into a blossom many 

 times bigger than itself, move from its place under 

 the earth and stand on the roots of the grass. 



Patient search through the earth beneath the 

 fungus will reveal a little more of the cause of the 

 effect, but without diminishing our wonder. The 

 floor of the wood, hollow with an accumulation of 

 loose dead leaves, has here and there running in 

 every direction minute white threads not unlike 

 the spinnings of a spider. They run through that 

 precarious soil, leaping from leaf to leaf, weaving 

 bridges across chasms, linking up communica- 

 tions as sketchily as pencil marks on a rough- 

 grained paper. At length, the organization of the 

 mycelium, as the white threads are termed, comes 

 to a head at some point the precise situation of 

 which no mycologist could have predicted, and a 

 bulbous growth begins to form there. Along the 

 tiny threads, over the bridges, across the chasms, 

 come the stores of their tiny spinning. The bulb 

 grows apace, pushes the pavement of the wood 

 aside, thrusts out into the day, takes on a vivid 

 colour, opens its umbrella and displays beneath 

 it a most marvellously adapted and specialized 

 apparatus, the familiar 4 gills ' of the mushroom 

 and other agarics packed with millions of tiny 

 spores each capable of continuing the fungoid race. 



Not only do the cells pour the food along, but 



