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ORDER VII. 

 FUNGI. 



" To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, 

 To slowly trace the forest's shady scene, 

 Where things that own not man's dominion dwell* 

 And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been ; 

 To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, 

 With the wild-flock that never needs a fold ; 

 Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean ; 

 This is not solitude j 'tis but to hold 

 Converse with nature's charms, and see her stores unroll'd." 



BYRON. 



OBS. The Fungi are distinguished from the Lichens by their 

 want of a crust or frond independent of the organs of fructifica- 

 tion ; and from the Algae, by never vegetating under water, and 

 by differences in habit and structure, which a little practice ena- 

 bles the student to seize and appreciate without difficulty and 

 with tolerable certainty. The mushroom and the mould afford 

 the most familiar examples of the class, which includes also the 

 various vegetable parasites, whether solid or pulverulent, which 

 sprout from decaying wood, or spot the leaves of phsenogamous 

 plants. In habit the Fungi vary infinitely, and in general they 

 have little resemblance to the plants of any other order. Some 

 resemble an umbrella, some a piece of honeycomb; others are 

 cups in miniature ; others again simulate a ball, a club or a mace, 

 or assume the forms of the sea-corals ; while many defy compari- 

 son with any familiar objects, and grow in figures peculiar to 

 themselves. In texture they are corky or fleshy, soft and gela- 



