XIV, Mushrooms^ Fungi, 

 or Toadstools 



Abundance 



SUPPOSE that during the night a swarm of fairies 

 were to enter our home woods and decorate it on 

 ground and trunk, with the most strange and won- 

 derful fruits, of new sorts, unheard of in shapes and colors, 

 some like fans, with colored lacework, some like carrots, 

 others like green and gold balloons, some like umbrellas, 

 spring boimets, birds' nests, barbers' poles, and Indian 

 clubs, many like starfish and skulls, others imitating corals 

 and others hlies, bugles, oysters, beefsteaks, and wine cups, 

 resplendent with every color of the rainbow, delicious to 

 eat, coming from nowhere, hanging on no plant and dis- 

 appearing in a few days leaving no visible seed or remnant 

 — we should think it very strange; we might even doubt 

 our eyesight and call it all a pure fairy tale. Yet this very 

 miracle is what happens every year in our land. At least 

 2,000 different kinds of toadstools or mushrooms spring up 

 in their own mysterious way. Of this 2,000 at least 1,000 

 are good to eat. Bui — and here is the dark and danger- 

 ous fact — about a dozen of them are Amanitas, which are 

 known to be deadly poison. And as ill-luck will have it these 

 are the most widely diffused and the most like mushrooms. 

 AH, the queer freaks, Hke clubs and corals, the cranks and 

 tomfools, in droll shapes and satanic colors, the fuimy 

 poisonous looking morels, ink-caps and boleti are good 



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