CHAPTER XVIII 



THE FUNGI CAN LIVE ON ORGANIZED FOOD ONLY 

 THE CAUSE OF FERMENTATION MUSHROOMS, 



LICHENS THEIR IMPORTANT FUNCTIONS 



CURIOUS ANOMALY IN THEIR STRUCTURES. 



BACTERIA are now recognized as belonging to that 

 form of vegetable life known as the Fungi. Their 

 essential characteristic is, that even in their highly 

 developed forms they are devoid of " Chlorophyll," 

 that curious combination of protoplasm that, in the 

 form of green globules in the leaf, appear to take the 

 place of the red globules of the blood in the verte- 

 brata, and like the red globules nourish and support 

 their respective tissue formations. Since the presence 

 of Chlorophyll is essential to the plant to enable it to 

 assimilate for its nourishment, carbon, nitrogen and 

 earthy salts from the carbon dioxide and nitrogen of 

 the atmosphere and from the minerals of the earth, 

 it follows that the fungi and all the plants without 

 chlorophyll must be either parasites, existing upon the 

 living juices of another existing life, or Saprophytes, 



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