INJUEIOUS AND OTHER FUNGI. 29 



It is unnecessary for us to point out illustrations of this first 

 great group, because they are as familiar to us as household words, 

 in the trees which spread their lofty tops above our heads, or the 

 grass which grows in the meadows and pastures at our feet. With 

 the cryptogams the case is somewhat different. The Ferns, the voja\ 

 members of the crj^jtogamic series are, with us, only herbs of 

 yearly growth ; while Mosses and Lichens lay but a carpet on the 

 rocks and hillsides. The Sea-iveeds, though certain species grow 

 large and cumbrous, are usually small, and many are microscopic, 

 and Fungi, the last of all, are too often known to the natural sight 

 only by their effects. It is to a consideration of some of the mem- 

 bers of this last mentioned group that your attention is invited. 



Fungi make up a group so diversified in characteristics that it is 

 almost impossible to give any description of them as a whole. Suffice 

 it to sa}', the}' are all parasites, deriving their nourishment directly 

 from the organic substance upon which thej^ feed, having no green 

 leaves in which crude material can be transformed and fitted for 

 the growth of the plant. They are all thieves, then, either stealing 

 their sustenance from the dead, or robbing the living tissue of all 

 its vital fluid. 



Their range of growth is limited only by the boundaries of other 

 forms of life. The housewife, to her great dismay, finds upon the 

 top of her can of fruit a portion that is white and worthless ; a 

 plant has found its proper element and has been feeding upon her 

 dainties. Your wine ma}' have leaked from your cask to the cellar 

 floor, and when you go to draw a draught, a carpet of the finest velvet 

 has grown for your feet. Yeast is employed to make our bread 

 hght and wholesome ; and myriads of little plants do the work and 

 do it willingly. Fungi flourish upon our walls, find their way 

 through oiu' books, and pick to pieces the frame work of the stoutest 

 ships. The animal kingdom is not beyond their reach, and many 

 of its members fall victims to an overpowering vegetation ; while it 

 is a well-established fact that man}^ of the most fatal epidemics are 

 the result of theii' inroads upon the human family. Without further 

 generalization, which is almost worthless in such a group as this, 

 let us pass at once to the consideration of some of its individuals. 



In the Mushroom, Agaricus campestris, perhaps as well known as 

 Toadstool, we have a species of fungus with which ever}' one is 

 familiar. It is the famous Cliampignon of the French, the Patiola 

 of the Italians, and was known to the ancients by upwards of a 



