96 GLIMPSES OF NATURE. 



possess no green substance, and be it noted that the 

 presence or absence of green makes all the difference 

 in the world to a plant. For when it does possess 

 green matter, it can feed upon the materials it derives 

 from earth and air the water, carbonic-acid gas, 

 ammonia, and minerals, which form the food of green 

 plants at large. When, on the contrary, a plant has 

 no green hue, it demands ready-made food in the 

 shape of living matter. So that our fungi are daintier 

 feeders in a way than their higher green neigh- 

 bours. They subsist upon matter once living but 

 now dead and decaying, while they sometimes feed 

 upon living matter in its vital condition. Roughly, 

 we might divide our fungi into those which feed on 

 decomposing organic matter (e.g., our mushrooms) and 

 those which exist on actually living bodies. These 

 last are as much parasites as are the animals which 

 lodge (and often board also) on other animals. 



The manner in which the fungi reproduce their like 

 is also very curious and interesting. The ordinary 

 green plant, as we know, produces seeds. These, 

 when planted in the ground, give origin each to a 

 new plant. Development is, therefore, direct, as we 

 may term it, in the green plants we see around us. 

 But the fungi (and, for that matter of it, the ferns 

 also) do not produce seeds. They develop minute 

 living particles, known to botanists as " spores." 

 When we study the spores in the light of their 

 growth, we at once note how different lower plant- 

 life is when compared with the higher forms of the 

 vegetable kingdom. A common fern bears on the 

 back of its fronds (not "leaves," please) certain brown 

 bodies. Each of these brown specks is a collection 

 of little cases called spore-cases. In shape, in ordi- 



