ro6 MOUNTAIN AND MOORLAND 



lends great beauty at the end of summer to many 

 bogs. The Bog Asphodel is able to secure its own 

 pollination without requiring the help of insects or 

 the wind. 



The moor is still a feast of colour in early autumn 

 the Heather and the Heath, the Hare Bells and the 

 Silver Weed, the Centaury and the Viper's Bugloss; 

 but there is no more striking colour than the bright 

 red of the Fly Agaric, or Fly Toadstool (Amanita 

 muscaria), growing under the Birch-tree. The colour 

 is very pleasant, but the flesh is very poisonous; it 

 was once used in making fly-papers. On the red 

 umbrella (disc or pileus) there are whitish scales and 

 others at the swollen base of the white stalk; these 

 are the remains of the loosely felted envelope or 

 wrapper which protected the young Toadstool when 

 it was developing beneath the ground. We can see 

 this on the small knobs which are just emerging. As 

 the Toadstool proper grows and the disc or umbrella 

 broadens out the white envelope is torn into rags. 

 The young globular heads of many Toadstools have 

 the under surface of the disc enclosed in a membrane, 

 or " velum," which stretches out from the stalk to the 

 circumference of the disc; and as the disc grows this 

 veil is broken, leaving a residue in the form of a 

 down-turned collar towards the upper end of the 

 stalk. This is plain on the cultivated Mushroom 

 (Psalliota campestris) and in many other cases. It is 

 interesting to get several specimens showing the Toad- 

 stool's changes of shape : the globular head becomes 

 umbrellalike, and this in turn becomes upturned round 

 the margin so that the upper surface is almost flat or 

 even concave. This exposes the spore-producing 



