76 Minnesota Plant Life, 



is saddle-shaped ; in another somewhat urn-shaped ; in a third 

 the whole fruit-body is club-shaped and closely resembles some 

 forms of the club-fungi which have been described above. In 

 some the cap is peculiarly coiled and twisted, looking like a 

 knot of angleworms. The colors of these plants are various 

 white, brown, slate-colored, yellowish, pinkish or red. They 

 occur sometimes upon much decayed logs, but the majority of 

 them are terrestrial. A few are of an almost gelatinous con- 

 sistency but a greater number have, to the touch, rather the feel- 

 ing of cartilage. Several of them besides the morel are edible 



FIG. 27. Cup-fungi growing on decaying twig. After I^loyd. 



and I do not know of any that are violently poisonous, although 

 from their texture, a number of them would scarcely be attrac- 

 tive. 



Cup-fungi. Not a distant relative of the morel is the cup- 

 fungus, which in its numerous varieties is doubtless familiar to 

 many of the readers of this volume. A dark slate-colored spe- 

 cies of cup-fungus is abundant in Minnesota woods in early 

 spring and produces cups an inch or more in diameter. If one 

 cuts such a cup in two and looks at the cut surface it will be 

 found that the whole fruit-body has a distinct lining like a por- 



