192 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Fig. 4. 



-Secolidm Warnei, ver- 

 tical section. 



erally distinct from one another ; but here follows a series in 

 which these plates all intersect, or wander in many a winding- 

 line and labyrinthine pattern (Dcedalea, Trametes, etc.), until the 

 intersections become so numerous as to form a perfect honey- 

 comb whose cells are minute pores. The gummy, golden Boleti 



of the woodlands, and the common brack- 

 et-fungi (Polyporus) of every stump and 

 log in all the forest, are examples. 



Even the puff-ball family — another 

 section of the greater fungi — form their 

 fruit in agaric fashion, and the connection 

 between our mushroom and the giant 

 " puffer," though at first sight remote, is 

 yet not far to seek. It must be remem- 

 bered that mushrooms when first emerg- 

 ing from the ground are quite contracted 

 and closed, often like a closed umbrella — 

 one of the old-fashioned sort, puckered 

 around the margin with a string. Split 

 such a mushroom at this stage, and all the lamellae will be found 

 with their edges close pressed against the sides of the stipes, the 

 edge of the pileus close drawn 

 round the bottom. Now, in au- 

 tumn we may find a fungus look- 

 ing exactly like an unopened toad- 

 stool ; but you watch its opening 

 in vain — it never opens. The 

 puckering string never relaxes, 

 the lamellae never leave the stipe, 

 but are indeed grown fast against 

 it, and with maturity become 

 wrinkled in myriad folds, finally 

 to break down entirely, leaving a 

 mass of dusty brown spores which 

 escape only with the final rupture 

 of the fragile, unexpanded pileus 

 (Fig. 4). From such a fungus the 

 puff-ball differs chiefly in degree ; 

 the spores are borne upon threads 

 and fill up definite cavities, one 

 or more, and are discharged, as 

 in the case just described, by the 

 rupture of the inclosing tissues. 

 These latter here constitute a defi- 

 nite wall — the peridium. This may break open irregularly, or it 

 may break regularly, throwing back from the top its pointed lobes 



Pig. 5.— Geaster fornicatus (after Morgan). 



