From Spore to Mushroom 



AH corn smuts, wheat smuts, leaf rusts, toadstools, puff- 

 balls, and brackets bear their spores on club-like cells, and for 



this reason are put in one group, called 

 Basidiomycetes. 



The fact that corn smuts and leaf 

 rusts feed on living 

 plants, while toad- 

 stools, brackets, 

 and pufifballs feed 

 on dead plants, 

 separates them in- 

 to two groups ; 

 the smuts and rustsformingthe lower group, 



and the others the higher group. It is the 

 higher Basidiomycetes which we wish to con- 

 sider, as this group includes most of the con- 

 spicuous fungi, most of the edi- 



Pouch-fungus section, to show 

 spores in hollow rind 



Section to show gills 



Section of a Boletus, 

 to show pores 



Clavaria with 

 spores on spines 



ble, and those fungi which are 

 dangerous because of their re- 

 semblance to edible species. 



Remembering that toadstools, puffballs, and 

 brackets all start from spores ; that all have the 



tangled thread - like 

 plants, seeking the 

 dark ; that they all 

 have the spore recep- 

 tacle in the light, and 

 bear their spores on club-like cells, 

 one can readily understand their be- 

 ing put in one group. 



With a few exceptions not 

 necessary for us to consider, all the 

 higher fungi naturally divide into 

 two groups — pouch-fungi (Gasteromycetes), which conceal their 

 spores in a definite rind, or peridium, as the puffballs do ; 

 and membrane fungi (Hymenomycetes), now called Agari- 

 cales, which bear their spores exposed on the surface of gills, 

 pores, spines, or teeth, as the garden mushrooms, the Boleti, 

 the Clavarias, and the Hydnums. 



Section of Hydnum, to show teeth 



H 



