288 EDIBLE MUSHROOMS 



A number of prints may be obtained successively 



from a single specimen gathered at its fruitful prime. 



To those of my readers interested in the science of 



this spore -shower I give illustrations of examples of 



the two more common groups of mushrooms — the 



Agaric, or gilled mushroom, and the Polyporus, or 



tube -bearing mushroom. The entire 



Agarics surface of both gills and pores is lined 



and Poiypores with the spore -bearing membrane or 



hymenium, the spores being produced 



in fours from each of the crowded sporophores, and, 



where all air is absolutely excluded, permitting them 



to fall directly beneath their point of departure as 



indicated; in the case of the Agaric, in radiating 



lines in correspondence with the spaces between the 



gills ; and in Polyporus, directly beneath the opening 



of each pore, whose inner surface is lined with the 



sporophores, as shown in Plate 36. 



This dust-shower is continuous in nature after the 

 perfect ripening of the spores, but it is almost impos- 

 sible to conceive of such an entire absence of moving 

 air under natural conditions as to permit even a 

 visible hint of the spore-shower to appear beneath its 

 respective fungus. An exception to this rule is 

 sometimes to be seen in fungi of mass- 

 spore-mist ^^ growth — as, for example, beneath 

 Agaric such a cluster as that shown on page 

 147. Indeed, a correspondent recently 

 described such a cluster as " enveloped in a mist of its 

 own spores floating away in the apparently still air." 



In Plate 38 is shown a spore-print with a peculiar 

 elongated tail. Such was the specimen which I ob- 



