
562 THE SMALLER FUNGI. 
because the several portions of these structures are beyond 
the reach of the unaided vision. No one, who does not 
know, could possibly conceive that the little specks of brown 
or black seen on the brilliant and ripening foliage of the 
maples in September and October, (or to be seen on the skin 
of apples and pears, and many kinds besides on dry stalks of 
plants, on straw, on old decaying matter, ) on the fence rails, 
on the panes of the window, on the bodies of diseased house- 
flies, on putrefying and decaying matter, are receptacles of 
exquisitely sculptured and carved seed-vessels, called spores; 
beaded thread-like strings of pearls; or of myriads of the 
most fantastic shapes that the genius of man in imitative or 
creative art has developed. A subject so broad, and one 
which can be investigated at any season of the year, inviting 
the botanist forth from earliest spring to latest autumn, to 
search for forms of beauty on every living or ripening leaf 
and fruit, and in winter rendering the evening lamp still 
more attractive in studying by its aid the collected treasures 
of the summer’s gleanings, cannot but interest every thought- 
ful person in some way or other, if it should be presented in 
_ an agreeable manner, or with reference to the industrial pur- 
suits of society. i 
Nor only to the general botànist, or even to the botanist 
whose speciality is the study of fungi, is this subject one of 
nce with 
remunerative. Who has not noticed so early in u 
some bright, sunny day in June, along the d i 
where the blackberry vines creep among the weeds e 
grass, their leaves powdered beneath with rich golden d n 
shaken from little orange colored cups? And many 18 w 
quiry from many a child, or even older person, that 1 W 
tell them what such a phenomenon were. The 
barberry bushes too, with their extraneous adornments, 
the fruit is tempting men and women, lads and malic 

