NATURAL HISTORY SURVEY 15 



cultivated grounds. Some species can be found in early spring 

 after a few daj-s of warm sunshine, and successive crops can be 

 gathered as long as spring showers continue. During the hot dry 

 weather of summer scarcely any fleshy fungi appear, but a heavy 

 rain followed by several days of warm cloudy weather will give 

 an abundant harvest. After the autumn rains set in, collecting- 

 is usually good until frost, while a few hardy kinds will endure 

 in sheltered places under leaves and about the base of stumps, 

 until the ground is frozen. Some woody species can be collected 

 at any season of the year, and in fact are more conspicuous in 

 winter and late autumn after the leaves have fallen from the 

 trees and undergrowth. 



Those who take up the scientific study of the higher fungi are 

 usually botanists of such experience that it might be assumed 

 that suggestions for collecting and preserving plants would be 

 superfluous. It may not, however, be out of place to give briefly 

 the methods of our local collectors, and also an outline blank for 

 those who wish to write descriptions of these plants. This outline 

 is essentially that of the Boston Mycological Society. 



COLLECTING. The materials for collecting are few and simple. 

 A market basket, preferably with a cover, a few wide-mouthed 

 jars or vials for delicate plants, a serviceable pocket knife for 

 sectioning specimens and digging up those which grow upon the 

 ground, a stout chisel for removing those which grow upon trees 

 or stumps, a good quantity of tissue paper for wrapping specimens, 

 a tablet of small sheets of writing paper for labels and field notes, 

 a lead pencil and a pocket magnifier constitute the outfit. 



FIELD XOTES. It is important that field notes be made of 

 characters that cannot be made out with certainty after the plants 

 have been brought home, such as the character of the veil, ring, 

 or volva when these are present, the. moisture or dryness of the 

 fresh pileus and its colors if hygrophanous, the color of the lamellae 

 both in young and mature specimens, the color of the spores if 

 found upon the plants themselves or upon adjacent leaves, twigs 

 or grasses; also the special habitat, whether in moist or dry 

 places, and the name of the host upon which it was found. A 

 good series of plants, both young and fully matured, should always 

 be collected if possible, and these, of one species only, should be 

 compactly piled in the center of a tissue-sheet, and the four 

 corners of the sheet brought together and fastened by twisting. 

 The field-notes should be wrapped with the specimens or fastened 

 to the wrapper. The packages should be packed carefully in the 

 basket in such a manner that the plants will not be crushed. 



Upon reaching home the plants should be taken from the basket 

 and the various collections assorted for examination, the more 

 perishable kinds being selected for first attention. If the spores 

 of a species are unknown, the cap may be cut from an agaric 

 and placed, lamellae downward, partly upon a microscope slip 

 and partly upon a slip of white paper if the spores are supposed 

 to be dark, or on black paper if they are thought to be whitf . 



