ACOTYLEDONS FUNGI DIAGRAM 18. 211 



from their foliage, and terminating in a knob of very compli- 

 cated construction. It at first appears covered with a small hat, 

 formed of fibres like a straw roof ; it is pointed and hangs over the 

 sides of the knob. If we remove it, we find beneath it a capsule 

 closed by a cover. It is shaped like a wine-glass, and the cover 

 itself has sometimes a kind of small button in the middle. It must 

 be raised in order to see the spores arranged in the little cup. 

 When they are ripe, the hat and cover fall off and allow them to 

 escape. 



FAMILY OP FUNGI. 



We no longer find the ordinary appearance of plants, either in 

 this family, or the two following. Fungi, or at least the most 

 familiar kinds, have a well-known appearance, but a number of 

 other plants, such as the moulds, must be arranged in this family, 

 which never present the umbrella-shape of ordinary fungi. 



This umbrella or cap of the fungus, is supported on a stalk of 

 variable thickness. Sometimes the cap has slender pendant plates, 

 called gills, below, and the fungus then belongs to the genus 

 Agaricus, which includes the true mushrooms ; and sometimes the 

 under-surface of the cap exhibits only a multitude of tubes crowded 

 together, and open at the lower extremity, and the fungus then 

 belongs to the genus Boletus, or Ceps. But there are many others, 

 such as the morels, the puff-balls, and the truffles, which have quite 

 a different appearance. 



The stalk of the mushroom often has a kind of collar or ring 

 at about two-thirds of its height. The stalk sometimes grows 

 directly out of the ground, and sometimes out of a kind of 

 bladder, which seems to burst to let it come out. This bladder 



