MUTATIONS OF THE FUNGI. 87 



sary to influence the sprouting of the seminal or radical 

 matter. The beautiful floriform hydnum (hydnum flo- 

 riforme) is very irregular in its appearance, whence it 

 is a species seldom found by the botanist. The mitred 

 helvella (helvella mitra) will abound, and then years 

 may intervene and not a specimen be discovered. In 

 1825, a little, gray puff-ball (fycoperdon cinereum), 

 about the size of a large pin's head, abounded, covering 

 patches of grass in all our fields, looking like froth, and 

 in decay, when discharging its seed, like a spongy 

 curd ; though it had not been observed, not having ve- 

 getated, or very sparingly, for upwards of ten years. 

 Others again, particularly the ligneous ones, remain 

 permanently fixed for a long period. The fingered 

 clavaria (clavaria hypoxylon) may be found vegetating 

 on the stump of an old hazel in the orchard for twenty 

 years in succession. That this elegant race has attract- 

 ed so few votaries many reasons may be assigned. The 

 agarics in particular are very versatile in their nature, 

 and we frequently want an obvious, permanent charac- 

 ter, to indicate the species, affording sufficient conviction 

 of the individual. The rapid powers of vegetation in 

 some will change the form and hues almost before a 

 delineation can be made, or an examination take place, 

 requiring nearly a residence with them to become ac- 

 quainted with their various mutations ; and we have no 

 method of preserving them to answer the purpose of 

 comparison. These are all serious impediments to the 

 investigation of this class ; yet, perhaps, I may with 

 some confidence suggest, that any one, who is so cir- 

 cumstanced as to afford the time, so situated as to find 

 a supply of these productions, and will bestow on them 

 a patient examination, will find both pleasure and grati- 

 fication in contemplating the beauty, the mechanism, 

 the forms, the attitudes, of the whole order of fungi. 



As far as we can observe, it appears to be an estab- 

 lished ordinance of nature, that all created things must 

 have a final period. This mandate is effected by various 

 means, slow and nearly imperceptible in some cases, 

 but operative in all. As in the animal world, after dis- 

 ease or violence has extinguished life, the dispersion is 



