538 



HUTCHINSON'S POPULAR BOTANY 



As indicated above, it is a common error to regard a mushroom or 

 toadstool as the Fungus. We might as correctly regard an apple as the 

 apple-tree by which the apple was produced. The apple is the fruit, 

 which could not be formed without the preliminary activity of the vege- 

 tative system the roots, stem, and leaves. So with the toadstool, it 

 appears only after a considerable amount of activity on the part of the 

 vegetative body, in this case the mycele. If a toadstool be carefully taken 

 up with the surrounding earth, dead leaves, or rotting wood from which 



it springs, it 

 will be seen 

 to be a t - 

 tached to the 

 matrix by a 

 large num- 

 ber of white 

 or colourless 

 threads of 

 great fine- 

 ness. This 

 is the mycele 

 or fungus 

 proper, of 

 which the 

 toadstool is 

 the carpo- 

 phore or 

 fruit-bearer. 

 Usually 

 these 

 threads are 

 s e p tat e 

 that is, they 

 are broken 

 up into com- 

 partments by transverse walls ; or, to put it in another way, they consist 

 of slender cylindrical cells placed end to end. The tip of one of these 

 threads farthest away from the base of the toadstool is the growing 

 point, and it appears to have special powers bej^ond that of increasing 

 in length. When a tree breaks out into large brackets of Fomes or 

 Polyporus, the owner sometimes thinks he will cure the disease by taking 

 away the brackets, but these are rather symptoms than the disease itself, 

 though they hold within their tubes the germs by which the disease may 

 be spread. The tree is already doomed, for the deadly mycele has ramified 

 through the trunk and branches, demoralizing the sound timber and con- 



Photo &#] [E. Step 



FIG. 683. CRESTED CLAVAKIA (Clavaria cristata). 



An example of the branching species of Clavariese. A pure white or cream-coloured species 

 found in damp woods. 



