450 NATURE STUDY AND LIFE 



Trembling Mushrooms, Tremellinccs. — These strange fungi 

 derive their name from their gelatinous consistency. The 

 spores are borne over tlie entire surface. Tliey occur 

 generally on decaying twigs or wood, drying up so as to 

 be scarcely distinguishable and swelling again when wet. 

 Little or no food value attaches to the group, but none 

 have been reported as poisonous. 



Agarics, Agaricacece. — Any mushroom having the spore- 

 bearing surface arranged in folds or gills radiating from 

 the stem, or from the point of attachment when no stem 

 is present, is an agaric. Possibly the chief reason for 

 introducing the study of mushrooms .into elementary 

 courses is to enable the pupils to distinguish certain 

 extremely poisonous plants of this group, tJie amanitas. 

 The distmguishing features of Avianita phalloides, our 

 most deadly species, are sufficiently well indicated in Fig. 

 179 ; but the way to teach them is to have the specimens 

 brought in wherever this is possible. Amanita vertta, 

 appropriately called the "destroying angel," so closely 

 resembles A. phalloides that it may be considered, for ele- 

 mentary purposes, a white variety of it. A. miiscaria, the 

 fiy agaric, is generally larger than A. phalloides and differs 

 from it in having the cap bright yellow, varying to orange 

 and even red. Crumbled into a saucer of sweetened water, 

 it serves as an effective fly poison, whence its name. The 

 gills are white, rarely yellowish, and the cap is typically 

 dotted over with whitish flocks or scales formed from the 

 part of the volva that clings to the cap as it expands. 

 These may dry up and blow off and hence be absent from 

 old specimens — a fact that should be borne in mind if we 

 are to make the acquaintance of A. ccesaria. 



