SECTION V. 



THALLOPHYTA. 



Fungi. 



Fungi and Seaweeds form the first of the sub-kingdoms of the Vegetable World 

 the Thallophyta. In olden days the former were considered to be mere 

 " sports " lusus natures and to have no connection with the vegetable 

 world at all ; and as some of them were poisonous, and all of them seemed 

 to have something uncanny and mysterious about them, they were regarded 

 as definitely evil both in origin and effect. Their bad name still clings to 

 them. Yet the fact remains that the majority of them are non-poisonous 

 some fifty species may be eaten safely and it is only a few that are harmful. 



It is, however, of the greatest importance that the would-be eater of 

 fungi should be able to distinguish between these different kinds, and I cannot 

 emphasize too strongly the fact that Ihere is no rough-and-ready way. The 

 country folks' idea that if the skin peels off readily the specimen is edible 

 is as false as the statement that the poisonous sorts tarnish a silver spoon. 



A most valuable book, containing very fine coloured illustrations, is that 

 published by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries (price is.), to which I pay 

 my acknowledgments, not only for details in this section, but also for more 

 than one meal in which " toadstools " have added their share to my enjoyment. 



Let the Mushroom serve as an object lesson on the general structure of 

 these curious vegetables. 



First, notice the thick, fleshy stem or stalk, on the top of which is the cap 

 (pileus). Under this cap are a number of thin, skin-like plates, which are 

 called gills ; and if these be examined with your lens you will find on their 

 surfaces a number of little bodies on short stalks. These are the spores of the 

 mushroom. Leave a mushroom upright on a sheet of paper, and in a few 

 hours' time there will be a purplish dust beneath the gills, a deposit of spores. 



These spores, falling on moist ground, grow into an interlacing mass of 

 threads, known as the mycelium, or, in popular parlance, the spawn, and from 

 this the mushrooms are produced in the following autumn. 



Fungi are very largely common objects of the country in the autumn, 

 especially in the six weeks from the middle of October to the end of November ; 

 and a walk for an hour or two in any damp wood will enable us to find a number 



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