18 FUNGI. 
three distinct parts requiring elucidation, viz. the rooting 
slender fibres that traverse the soil, aud termed the mycelium, 
or spawn, the stem and cap or pileus, which together con- 
stitute what is called the hymenophore, and the plates or gills 
on the under surface of the cap, which bear the hymenium. 
The earliest condition in which the mushroom can be recognized 
as a vegetable entity is in that of the “spawn” or mycelium, 
which is essentially an agglomeration of vegetating spores. Its 
normal form is that of branched, slender, entangled, anasto- 
mosing, hyaline threads. At certain privileged points of the my- 
celiam, the threads seem to be aggregated, and become centres 
of vertical extension. At first only a small nearly globose bud- 
Fic. 1.—Agarie in Process of Growth. 
ding, like a grain of mustard seed, is visible, but this after- 
wards increases rapidly, and other similar buddings or swellings 
appear at the base.* These are the young hymenophore. As 
* A curious case occurred some years since at Bury St. Edmunds, which may be 
mentioned here in connection with the development of these nodules. Two children 
had died under suspicious circumstances, and an examination of the body of 
the latter after exhumation was made, a report having arisen that the child died 
after eating mushrooms. As certain white nodules appeared on the inner surface 
of the intestines, it was at once hastily concluded that the spores of the mush- 
room had germinated, and that the nodules were infant mushrooms. This . 
appeared to one of us so strange, that application was made for specimens, 
which were kindly forwarded, and a cursory glance was enough to convince us 
that they were not fungoid. An examination under the microscope further con- 
firmed the diagnosis, and the application of nitric acid showed that the nodules 
were merely due to chalk mixture, which had been given to the child for the 
diarrhetic symptoms under which he succumbed. : 
