FIELD BOOK OF COMMON GILLED MUSHROOMS 



animals, depend for their nourishment upon living or dead 

 organic matter. Loam, decaying wood and dead leaves sup- 

 port the majority of mushrooms. 



Propagation of gilled fungi 



Herbs, trees and grasses — in fact all of the higher plants 

 are propagated from seeds that have been fertilized by contact 

 with dust-like particles of pollen shed by a parent plant of the 

 same species. This fertilizing contact requires for its accom- 

 plishment the union of two elements, — male and female, 

 pollen and ovum. Since mushrooms are apparently devoid of 

 these sexual elements, so far as cross fertilization of seeds is 

 concerned, the question arises, how are they propagated. In 

 the case of mushrooms, the method of propagation, though 

 more simple than it is in the case of seed bearing plants is 

 no less wonderful. Each species of mushroom reproduces its 

 own kind by means of very minute spores that are dropped 

 from mature fruiting plants and that are seemingly, in many 

 cases formed without the intervention of any sexual process. 



Single spores consist of a tiny bit of living matter or proto- 

 plasm enclosed within a wall or membrane, as an egg is con- 

 tained in its shell. They are so small that one of them alone 

 cannot be seen without the aid of a microscope but in mass 

 they appear as dust that may have any one of several colors. 

 Spore color affords an important means of classifying gilled 

 fungi into groups or genera. The manner of collecting spores 

 is described on page 4. They are exceedingly light and may 

 be carried by the wind for long distances. They are dropped 

 from the surfaces of the gills in vast numbers. A single mush- 

 room of the cultivated variety commonly sold in the markets, 

 may produce as many as one billion, eight hundred thousand 

 spores. The shaggy-mane mushroom has been estimated to 

 cast off five billion or more spores from a single mature plant. 

 The proportion of spores that reach places suitable to their 



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