Mushrooms. 337 



in these two colors, never produce plants that give out red or 

 yellow flowers, and one great beauty in the effect of these 

 plants is to give a mass of varying colors. 



The Marvel of Peru is particularly adapted for public gar- 

 dens that arc frequented in the evening, since these flowers 

 appear awake and gay when most other blossoms sleep ; and 

 when the light of lamps is thrown on their numerous and richly 

 dyed corollas, their appearance becomes enchanting, and 

 deserving of the title of Belle de Nuit. 



These plants, when forced and cultivated in large pots, are 

 well calculated to decorate the saloons of the gay ; for however 

 timid the flowers may appear in meeting the smiles of the god 

 of day, they stand the blaze of the strongest artificial light as 

 cheerfully as other belles who delight to shine at the same hour 

 with the emblem of timidity. 



Mushrooms. 



These plants, so different from all the rest of the vegetable 

 kingdom, agree without exception in being destitute of the green 

 color, of very rapid growth and correspondingly rapid decay. It is 

 in the beginning, according to Lindley, nothing but a thin layer 

 of cobweb-like matter spread amongst old tan, but by degrees 

 little protuberances of a whitish color appear on the surface of 

 the cobwebs, they gradually lengthen and acquire a sort of 

 stalk, and up to a particular period consist of only a single 

 fleshy mass of fibres and minute cells; if cat through at the 

 time, exhibiting only one uniform face. But in a short time, a 

 minute cavity is formed in the fungus at the thicker end, within 

 which a sort of cap is gradually elevated upon a stalk; the cap 

 and stalk keep progressively enlarging, and stretching the skin 

 within which they are enclosed till at last it cracks ; the cap 

 and its stalk rapidly enlarge and tear away through the skin. 

 and at last burst forth into light, a perfect mushroom, with 

 numerous cinnamon brown gills or lamella radiating from the 

 stalk underneath the cap, and concealing the theca in which 

 the spores are laid up. When it has gained its full size, its 



