CLASSIFICATION OF FUNGI. 39 



curious plants comprised in the study of mycology, 

 with the view of affording some general notion of what 

 it comprehends. 



Taking the common mushroom as our point of depar- 

 ture, we have the type of an enormous group charac- 

 terised by a bonnet-shaped receptacle (pileus) supported 

 by a stem, and furnished beneath with a number of gill- 

 like plates (lamellce), which, when placed on paper, emit 

 a vast quantity of dust-like bodies, to which, though 

 reproductive, the name of spores has been given, to dis- 

 tinguish them from seeds which contain an embryo, 

 while these consist of a two-coated cell without the 

 slightest trace of an embryo. These spores are of dif- 

 ferent colours in different species, very frequently pure 

 white, but presenting also pink, various tints of brown, 

 from yellowish and rufous to dark-bistre, purple-black, 

 and finally black. As these colours are accompanied 

 by peculiar differences of habit, they afford a ready test 

 for grouping the species, some of which have the bright- 

 est rainbow hues, combined with the most elegant and 

 delicate forms ; while others are coarse, dull in colour, 

 and unsightly, few of them being persistent, and many, 

 when decayed, pass into a loathsome mass, in which 

 riot those insects which are nature's scavengers. 



" The gill-bearing fungi are generally of a soft sub- 

 stance, but they are not all so. According to the den- 

 sity with which the cells or threads of which they are 

 composed are packed, they present various degrees of 

 hardness, till they assume even a corky substance, and 

 are more or less persistent. The common fairy ring 

 champignon (Marasmius oreades) is a familiar example 

 of the first departure from the common mushroom type, 

 and, in consequence of its less watery character, is 

 easily preserved for culinary purposes. The daedalea 

 of the birch (Lenzites betulina) gives a good example of 

 the further hardening of the gills, while in that of the 

 oak (Dcedalea quercina) the substance is as firm as cork, 

 or in parts hard as wood." (Berkeley.) 



