FUNGI. 193 



in roseate and star-like forms — earth-stars, beautiful as they are 

 curious, and offering a singularly perfect mechanism for the dis- 

 persal of the spores. Here is an earth-star (Fig. 5) whose peridium 

 consists of three coats — two outer, strong and leathery, and one 

 inner, delicate, silk-like. The whole structure is developed as a 

 smooth white ball beneath the soil. But, once the spores are ripe, 

 the outermost peridium splits open at the top, its lobes spring 

 backward and outward, giving room for the second covering to 

 burst in similar fashion. The lobes of the second, however, by 

 recurving, hoist the entire inner structure out of the ground and 

 up into the air, where the inner peridium, enthroned thus upon 

 springing arches, groined by no human hand, opens at tip a 

 purse-like mouth, and suffers the spores slowly to escape, to sail on 

 unknown journeys with the passing breeze. 



We have space left but sufficient to mention the fruiting of 

 the morel. Here we have on the outer upper side of the structure 

 a layer of rather large elongate cells, quite similar to those on 

 the mushroom gills ; but, instead of abstricted spores on the out- 

 side of the supporting cells, we find each of the latter a fruit-case 

 in which are lodged eight elliptical sporules arranged in a row, 

 formed freely — that is, each entirely independent of the other and 

 of the cell-wall that incloses all. But this method of fruiting 

 brings us in sight of the microscopic and parasitic world of fungi, 

 subject of our next chapter. Here, then, we well might rest ; and 

 yet, ere toadstools, mushrooms, and puffers vanish entirely from 

 our thought, it were well to note, if but for a moment, the various 

 titles these organisms wear. The names by which natural objects 

 are known contain often in primary significance something of 

 historic epitome ; so, in the present case, we may discover the 

 manner in which the object named first attracted human atten- 

 tion: the word itself is the record. Thus it appears that the 

 word fungus, although coming to us from the Latin, is neverthe- 

 less of Greek origin, and is the same word as that we have angli- 

 cized in sponge ; so that, according to the earliest record we have, 

 the sponges of the 3 sea and the fungi (puff-balls ?) of the land 

 were considered kin. Our Teutonic ancestors seem to have ar- 

 rived at the same conclusion ; and to this day, for a German, 

 Schwamm is either a sponge or a fungus, as you like it. Nor less 

 interesting is the etymology of our other common names for such 

 plants. Toadstool is sufficiently plain, prosaic, and suggestive; 

 mushroom would seem to be the English adaptation of a French 

 word, mousseron (something growing in or among moss), evi- 

 dently pronounced by Englishmen long before spelled, and evinc- 

 ing the fact that the quick French wit was first to discover the 

 edible qualities of this as of so many other delicacies. 



VOL. XXXV. — 13 



