PLANTS. 369 



SEVENTY-FIFTH FAMILY. FUNGI. MUSHROOMS 

 Are pithy, cellular plants of various forms, which spring 

 forth from damp soils ; the rapidity of their growth 

 (accomplished in one night, for it is not uncommon to 

 find a crop of mushrooms in the morning where not one 

 was to be seen on the previous evening) is proverbial. 

 Many of the race have a hood or umbrella seated on a 

 slender stem, called by many Witch Caps. Some are 

 fashioned in round knobs, others consist of fine branches. 

 The smallest of all the race are composed of very fine, 

 gray filaments, and are termed Sohimmel or the White 

 Horse. 



Bufflst Puff Ball (Lycoperdon bovista) consists 

 only of a leathery sack ; grows as large as an infant's 

 head, whitish yellow, ragged, in broad scales : when ripe 

 is full of a rust-colored powder ; when unripe, the pith 

 is white and soft ; at that time is fit to be eaten. Said 

 to be very palatable when roasted ; also used officinally. 



The Common Truffle (Tuber cibarium). Truffles are 

 nearly globular, firm ; tubers about the size of a walnut, 

 and blackish. The pulp or pith consists of a series of 

 fine cells. This species of mushroom is hidden under the 

 earth, they are ripe in autumn, when they have a pleasant 



which are dredged upon from the rocks, or Avashed ashore by the 

 tides, these two collossal specimens are all we can at present mention. 

 The Lessonia is an arborescent sea-weed, with a trunk of concentric 

 layers altogether timberlike, but, nevertheless, incombustible. The Ma- 

 crosystis (mooredkelp) instead of a trunk as thick as a common cherry 

 tree, is moored to the rock by a tough but slender cable, which, rising 

 to the surface, breaks into leaves and streams along a luxuriant tangle 

 for several hundred feet, is at once the buoy and breakwater of the 

 dangerous channels where it finds its home. The Moored Kelp not 

 only warns the mariner of a sunken rock, but is the pasture-field of 

 countless mollusks or crustaceans. Tr. 

 16* 



