From Spore to Mushroom 
All 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 puffballs feed 
on dead plants, 
separates them in- 
to two groups; 
the smuts and rustsforming the 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- 
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 
Section of Hydnum, to show teeth 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. 
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 
14 
