FUNGI. 365 
the year when the flowers are fading, the leaves 
falling, and all nature yielding herself up as the 
passive victim of decay and death, fungi are ob- 
viously intended to remove those decomposing 
tissues which would otherwise pour volumes of 
noxious vapour into the atmosphere, and render it 
unfit to support life; to call back into the great 
vortex of existence those fugitive particles of effete 
matter which had served their appointed purpose 
in one form of organization, and were fast hasten- 
ing down, by a process of decomposition, to join 
the atoms of the inorganic world of chaos and 
death. Every decaying leaf of the wood and the 
field has its own fungoid parasite, which gradually 
reduces it to a state fitted to minister to the 
necessities of next year’s vegetation; and thus, 
through the agency of little insignificant patches 
of mouldy, rusty tissue, the carrion in the sun con- 
verts itself into trees and flowers. 
In the economy of man, fungi have been applied 
to many useful purposes. A few are endowed 
with valuable medicinal properties, and still hold 
their ground, notwithstanding the vast improve- 
ment effected in the nature and choice of drugs in 
recent times. From their chemical constituents, 
the medical uses of the fungi are probably of far 
greater importance than their present very limited 
application might lead us to suppose ; and in all 
