MAGPIE MUSHROOM 



MUSHROOMS 163 



and the distinction of the mushroom is that it is without 

 green, or, for those who prefer Greek, chlorophyll. In the 

 mushroom the green life-blood is, as it were, turned to water, 

 and the complexion is the complexion 

 of a sort of disease. The unpleasant- 

 ness has found its way into the woods. 

 The fungus is a parasite ; and if there 

 are two more unpleasant words in the 

 language than fungus and parasite they 

 are hard to find. Yet the tribe when 

 it reaches the dignity of a separate and 

 manifest plant makes up in form it 

 may be added in savour for the wan \ 

 and unhealthy pallor of some sorts 

 and the advertised poison of others. 

 Something prevalent in the mushroom and toadstool form 

 fixes it on the memory. What cunning shapes they take : 

 the magpie mushroom folding down over its stem like a 



Chinese umbrella ; the 

 crinkled cushion of the 

 puff-ball; the fluted bracket 

 of the oyster mushroom 

 fixed against an old tree 

 stump : the faery ring, 

 whether of the gross horse 

 mushroom dyeing the 

 grass to a black green, 

 or the pretty Elizabethan 



frill round the stem of the Dolly Vardon champignon, 

 quaintly tip-tilted ; and in spite of the yellow, rather leathery 

 look, curiously attractive. Not least are the hundred dainty 

 forms springing from pine needles or slips of twig in and 

 about the moist woods. 



DEFLATED PUFF-BALLS 



