BREAD OR BARBERRIES 



By Edith M. Patcfi 



Collaborator, United States Dcixirtmvut of Agriculture, and Entomoloffi~st, 

 Maine Agrkultural Experiment i^tatiwi 



A PLANT WITH TWO HOMES 



SWALLOWS and many other birds live in warm countries in the 

 ' winter and then fly to the north where they build their nests and 

 bring up their young in the summer. Salmon and eels and some 

 other fishes live part of the time in the salt sea water and part of the 

 time in fresh-water streams and ponds. There are kinds of insects 

 that stay for a while on the leaves of trees and live during the rest 

 of the year on the roots of plants in the ground. 



These birds and fishes and insects are not the only living things 

 that have a habit of leaving one kind of home and moving to another 

 when they need a change. Some plants spend p:irt of their lives in 

 one place and part in another and altogether difi'erent sort of home. 

 One kind of plant lives for a while each year on barberry bushes and 

 the rest of the time on plants belonging to the grass family, such as 

 wheat, oats, barley, and rye, and many other grasses. The plant that 

 does this is one kind of fungus. 



A FUNGUS 



Perhaps the kind of fungus you know best you call a toadstool be- 

 cause it is shaped like a little stool aiul is about the right size for a 

 toad. If you cut off the top of a toadstool and place it on a piece of 

 paper, the paper under it will soon be covereil with something that 

 looks like the finest sort of dust. The dustlike particles are called 

 spores, and, although they are very tiny, they contain life, as seeds 

 do, and they can grow into toadstools. 



If you kick a kind of fungus that is called a pufFball, the spores, if 

 they are ripe, conn' j)ufling out in a dark cloud and aie blown about 

 by the wind. Such of these spores as fall in tiie right sort of )>hice 

 germinate and grow into i)iillballs. 



The fungus that lives part of the time on the conunou barbeiry 

 bushes and ])art of the time on wheat or other i)lants of the grass 

 family has one kind of si)ores that are reddish like the color of ir(»n 

 rust. For that reason it is called a rust. A rust is a (pieer sort of 

 plant that has different stages in its life and each stage has ways and 

 hal)its of its own. 



These stages in the life of the rust are (1) the colorless stage, 

 (ii) the yellow or cluster-cup stage, (3) the red or summer stage, 

 and (4) the black or winter stage. 



IJ4991''— 28 1 



