MISCELLANEOUS FUNGI 267 



garlic, herbs, etc., according to taste, and serving on 

 toast, or with crisped bread-crumbs. Our chapter on 

 recipes will suggest other more elaborate methods. 



PUFF-BALLS 

 Lycoperdacea 



A detailed discrimination of the Puff-balls is hard- 

 ly necessary here, and I will therefore omit it. While 

 I am not inclined to go so far as to contend, as was 

 the quaint habit of old Dr. Culpeper, in his Herbal, 

 in which he was wont similarly to elude description 

 of an herb, affirming that "he were a fool indeed 

 who does not know this plant "-or words of similar 





■f ' - 

 ■ / 



SECTION OF PUFF-BALL-Eaklier and Later Stages 



import — it is perfectly safe to say that if there is one 

 fungus more than another with which the populace 

 is specifically familiar it is the Puff-ball. 

 ]~In these fungi, of which there are many species, 

 the spores are incased within the white or dingy 

 peridium or more or less globular case — gasteromy- 

 cetecs. from gaster, a stomach. The interior spore 

 substance is at first white and firm in structure, at 



