Chapter VIII. 



Trembling Fungi, Club-fungi, Shelf-fungi and Mushrooms, 



Trembling fungi. Somewhat related to the rusts, although 

 one would hardly suppose it from their appearance, are the sin- 

 gular gelatinous yellow or pink wrinkled masses which are often 

 found upon decaying logs in shady places. These cannot be 

 mistaken for the plant-bodies of slime-moulds, because they are 

 of a firmer cartilaginous texture. They are capable of produc- 

 ing over their surface a layer of spores which when separated by 

 the wind or rains may propagate them upon other suitable sub- 

 strata. From their tremulous character these plants are some- 

 times called "trembling fungi." Rather more highly organized 

 but in the same general order of development are the leather- 

 like gray skins which are often found upon the under sides of 

 decaying twigs. Related forms are sometimes provided with 

 little stalks and grow up cornucopia-like from the bark. 



Club fungi. Another family of fungi which includes forms 

 not so very different from these skin-fungi, comprises also those 

 which stand up on the forest-mould like little yellow Indian- 

 clubs, an inch or two in height. The upper end of such club- 

 fungi is swollen, and it is there that the spore-bodies are partic- 

 ularly developed. Not all of the club-fungi are unbranched; 

 but some of them are divided like the antlers of a deer, and yet 

 others in which the branching is more copious grow in pearl- 

 gray, yellow, white or pinkish tufts, several inches high, and 

 covering spaces as large as a dinner plate. They may be rec- 

 ognized by the generally erect habit of all the branches, so that 

 their forms remind one of the branching of certain night-bloom- 

 ing cereuses of the New Mexican desert. Commonly the 

 branches are more or less cylindrical and blunt, but one form, 

 which is not uncommon in hard-wood forests along river bot- 

 toms in the southern part of the state, has all its branches 



