FUNGI. 11 



regions, and are characterized by the production of flowers and 

 seeds ; and the Cryptogams, or non-flowering plants, which in place 

 of seeds produce reproductive bodies, generally of minute size and 

 homogeneous structure, which contain no embryo or plantlet, and 

 are called spores. This second group includes Ferns, Mosses, 

 Algae or Seaweeds, and Fungi. Among these lesser groups of 

 Cryptogams, the Fungi are distinguished by certain well-marked 

 characteristics. All the higher plants, with few exceptions, are 

 provided with a green coloring matter called chlorophyll, through 

 the agency of which the plant is enabled to assimilate inorganic 

 materials, — water, the chemical constituents of the soil, and the 

 carbonic dioxide of the air — and transform them into the 

 starches, sugars, oils, etc., necessary to the life of the plant. 



Fungi are completely devoid of chlorophyll, and are therefore 

 unable to assimilate inorganic matter, but must depend for their 

 subsistence upon materials already elaborated by other plants or 

 by animals. We are thus enabled to subdivide the group of fungi, 

 although this division is purely artificial. Those which live upon 

 dead, organic material, we call Snjyropliytes ; those which find their 

 nourishment in or upon living plants or animals we call Parasites; 

 these distinctions are not, however, strictly accurate, since some 

 species can exist either saprophytically or parasitically, and others 

 are saprophytes at one period and parasites at another. It is to 

 this parasitic nature of many fungi that they owe their economic 

 importance. 



A fungus then is a plant as much as the tree, shrub, or herb 

 upon which it may grow. It possesses no green coloring matter 

 capable of assimilating inorganic material, and must therefore live 

 upon material already prepared. This material it secures from 

 living or dead plants or animals, and, if from living plants, it may 

 by its parasitic.nature do great damage to the host. Finally, it is 

 reproduced normally by means of spores which differ from seeds 

 in that the former are of simpler organization and contain no 

 embryo. 



Let us now turn our attention to the vegetative part of a fungus 

 — that part which corresponds to the roots, stems, and leaves of 

 higher plants. 



If the earth be removed from around the base of a common 

 mushroom, a careful search will reveal the presence of delicate 

 white strands traversing the soil and giving rise to the conspicuous 



