PARTS OF A MUSHROOM 



and puts black knots on cherry and plum trees, is of this 

 kind. 



In the third class are all the fungi which bear their 

 spores on little stalks standing up in large cells. This 

 class contains most of the mushrooms that we find in 

 the woods and fields. It is about these that we are 

 going to read. When you pick them you call them 

 toadstools. When they are cooked and given us to eat 

 we speak of them as mushrooms. Yet they may be 

 exactly the same. 



PARTS OF A MUSHROOM 



MANY mushrooms look like parasols or umbrellas. 

 The handle is the stem, or stipe. The open top is the 

 cap, or pileus. The cap is the first part to be noticed. 

 It is often very bright-colored. The size of the cap 

 varies from an eighth of an inch to sixteen inches or 

 more across. The outside may be smooth, or it may be 

 covered with little scales. Sometimes it shines like 

 satin. Notice how the caps of the small mushrooms on 

 this page differ in shape. 



The cap is held in place by the stem which grows up 

 out of the ground, or out from a tree or stump. Some- 

 times this stipe is joined to the cap in the middle; often 

 it is at the side. Frequently there is no stem. In this 

 case the cap grows squarely against the surface of a tree 



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