CHAPTER V 

 ROT-FUNGI AND THEIR WORK 



HOLLOW trees are caused by fungi. If it 

 were not for rot-producing fungi trees 

 would live twice as long as they do, lumber would 

 cost half as much, and this book would not con- 

 tain half as many pages as it does. These fungi 

 are plants of a low order, plants in which there 

 is no, or little, differentiation into root, stem, and 

 leaf. Every bacterium is a fungus; so is every 

 mold, mildew, smut, and mushroom. The main 

 respect in which these plants are alike is that they 

 do not contain chlorophyll, the green coloring 

 matter characteristic of plant cells which carry on 

 the work of photosynthesis, or the utilization of 

 the carbon in the air. That is, they cannot make 

 carbohydrates out of water and carbon dioxide, 

 as green plants do. The same is true of animals, 

 and the fungi are like animals in that they are ab- 

 solutely dependent for their sustenance upon ma- 

 terials elaborated by chlorophyll plants, either in 

 the form in which those materials are produced 

 by the plants or as they may be worked over by 

 plant-eating animals. In other words, fungi live 



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