42 HABITUDES 



For the single mushroom that we eat, how many hundreds 

 there be that prey upon us in return. To enumerate but 

 a few and those of the microscopic kinds (there are some 

 which the arms could scarcely embrace) ; the mucor mu- 

 cedo that spawns upon our dried preserves ; the ascophora 

 mucedo that makes our bread mouldy ; the uredo segetum, 

 that burns Ceres out of her corn-fields; the uredo rubigo, 

 whose rust is still more destructive ; and the puccinia gra- 

 minis, whose voracity sets corn-laws and farmers at defi- 

 ence, are all funguses. So is the gray monilia that rots, 

 and then fattens upon our fruits ; and the mucor herbario- 

 rum, that destroys the careful gleanings of the pains-taking 

 botanist. When our beer becomes mothery, the mother of 

 that mischief is a fungus. If pickles acquire a bad taste, 

 if ketchup turns ropy and putrefies, funguses have a finger 

 in it all ! Their reign stops not here ; they prey upon 

 each other; they even select their victims! There is the 

 myrothecium viride, which will only grow upon dry aga- 

 rics. The mucor clirysospermus attacks the flesh of a 

 particular Boletus; the sclerotium cornutum which visits 

 some other moist mushrooms in decay. There are some 

 xylomas that will spot the leaves of the maple, and some, 

 those of the willow, exclusively. The naked seeds of some 

 are found burrowing between the opposite surfaces of 

 leaves; some love the neighborhood of burned stubble, 

 and charred wood; some visit the sculptor in his studio. 

 The racodium of the low cellar festoons its ceilings, shags 

 its walls, and keeps our wines in bonds, while the geastrum 

 has been found suspended on the very highest pinnacle of 

 St. Paul's. The close cavities of nuts afford concealment 

 to some species ; others like leeches stick to the bulbs of 

 plants and suck them dry; these pick timber to pieces, as 

 men pick oakum; nor do they confine their selective ra- 



