FUNGI 



searched for them. Perhaps you have thought that there 

 is only one kind good to eat, the kind usually called the 

 mushroom, No. i in the picture. Really there are many 

 edible kinds. In our Eastern States over one hundred 

 kinds are known to be good for food. A botanist in South- 

 ern California found twenty- seven edible kinds in one sea- 

 son, and only two that were poisonous. There are a few 

 kinds that contain a deadly poison. Many others are 

 harmless but are not pleasant to the taste. There is no 

 sure rule that distinguishes all poisonous toad-stools from 

 those that are edible, but people can learn to know them 

 just as they learn to know flowers or birds. 



Puff- balls keep their spores inside the balls; pinch a dry 

 one and you will see the spores come out in little clouds. If 

 you have sharp eyes you may find earth-stars among de- 

 caying oak leaves. As you can see from the picture, they 

 are similar to puff-balls, but have an extra coat that splits 

 and opens out like a star when the ground is moist; as the 

 earth-star dries, the coat closes up around the spore-case 

 again. One kind of puff-ball grows very large, a foot or 

 even a yard through, it is said. This giant puff-ball is 

 very good to eat. Think how many slices of puff-ball steak 

 can be cut from one of them! The shelf fungus, or pore 

 fungus, No. 6, usually grows on trees, living or dead. The 

 spores line the tiny tubes on the under side of the shelf. 

 The part that takes in food threads through and through 

 the wood, and causes it to crumble and decay rapidly. 



There are also plants with flowers and seeds that can- 

 not make their own living; the dodder, or gold thread, for 

 instance, which twines so closely around other plants, and 

 sucks out their juices. On the ground in our mountain 

 forests are numbers of flowering plants with never a trace 

 of green color about them. Perhaps you have seen our 

 beautiful crimson snow plant with flowers that humming 

 birds love. In dense tropical forests, plants of this sort are 



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