294 EDIBLE MUSHROOMS 



A few of the various characteristic forms of these 

 fungus-spores is shown on a previous page, somewhat 

 as a powerful microscope would reveal them to us. 



But it is only as they chance to alight individually 

 in congenial conditions for growth that they will con- 

 sent to vegetate. Thus billions of them are doomed 

 to perish without progeny. These whims of habitat 

 among the fungi are almost past belief. 

 Whims Here, for instance, is a tiny Puff-ball 

 of habitat hardly larger than the period on this 

 page. It bursts at the summit, and 

 sheds its puff of microscopic spores, so light as to 

 be without gravity, floating and settling everywhere 

 upon the earth, but only as they chance to alight 

 upon the spines of a dead chestnut- burr of two years' 

 decay will they find heart to grow. Such is the 

 fastidiousness of the little white mushroom, whose 

 globular caps dot the spines of the decaying chest- 

 nut-burrs in so many damp nooks in the woods. 



In closing my chapter a glance at the further ec- 

 centricities of choice will not be inopportune. I ap- 

 pend a few taken at random from the 

 Curious pages of Berkeley, which lie open be- 

 fastidiousness fore me. In addition to the general 

 broad distinctions of habitat as " woods," 

 " rotten wood," " old pastures," " dunghills," we find 

 such fastidious selections as the following, each by a 

 distinct species with its own individual whim : " Dead 

 fir-cones, sawdust, beechnuts, plaster walls, old fer- 

 menting coffee-grounds, wheat ears, cinders, dead oak 

 leaves, old linen, wheat bread, hoofs, feathers, decayed 

 rope, fat, microscopic lenses, and damp carpets." ' 



