7o6 



Handbook of Nature-Study 



think this dust is? Ask your teacher, or read in the books, about moss 

 spores and what happens if they find a damp place in which to grow. 



6. Hunt among the moss for some stems that have pretty, yellowish, 

 starlike cups at their tips. How does the inside of one of these cups look ? 

 Ask the teacher to tell you what grows in this cup. Look down the stem 

 and see if you can find last year's cup. The cup of two years ago? 

 Measured by these cups how old do you think this moss stem is ? 



7. Select some stems of moss, both those that bear the fruit and those 

 that bear the cups. After they are dried describe how the leaves look. 

 Examine the plant with a lens and note how these leaves are folded and 

 twisted. Do the leaves stand out from the stem or lie close to it ? Is this 

 action of the leaves of any use to the plant in keeping the water from 

 evaporating ? How do the star-cups look when dry ? 



8. Place these dried stems in a glass of water and describe what hap- 

 pens to the cup. Examine some of the dried moss and the wet moss with 

 a lens, and describe the difference. Of what use to the moss is this power 

 of changing form when damp? 



Reference — First Lessons in Plant Life, Atkinson. 



MUSHROOMS AND OTHER FUNGI 



Teacher's Story 



■ HERE is something uncanny about plants which 

 have no green parts ; they seem like people with- 

 out blood. It is, therefore, no wonder that many 

 superstitions cluster about toadstools. In times 

 of old, not only did the toads sit on them, but 

 fairies danced upon them and used them for 

 umbrellas. The poisonous qualities of some 

 species made them also a natural ingredient of 

 the witch's cauldron. But science, in these days, 

 brings revelations concerning these mysterious 

 plants which are far more wonderful than the 

 web which superstition wove about them in days 

 of yore. 



When we find plants with no green parts which grow and thrive, 

 though unable to manufacture their own organic food through the alchemy 

 of chlorophyl, sunlight and air, we may safely infer that in one way or 

 another they gain the products of this alchemy at second hand. Such 

 plants are either parasites or saprophytes; if parasites, they steal the 

 food from the cells of living plants; if saprophytes, they live on such of 

 this food material as remains in dead wood, withered leaves, or soils 

 enriched by their remains. 



Thus, we find mushrooms and other fungus fruiting bodies, pallid, 

 brown-olive, yellow or red in color, but with no signs of the living greert 

 of other plants ; and this fact reveals their history. Some of them are 

 parasites, as certain species of bracket fungi which are the deadly enemies 

 of living trees; but most of the fungus species that we ordinarily see 

 are saprophytes, and live on dead vegetation. Fungi, as a whole, are a 

 great boon to the world. Without them our forests would be choked 



