176 



The Fungi of Wiltshire. 



specimens when dry, with corrosive sublimate dissolved in naptha, 

 or any solvent which will not discolour the plants, and to keep the 

 herbarium in a perfectly dry room. The specimens when dry 

 and poisoned, should be gummed to small pieces of paper, on which 

 the locality where found, and date, should be written, and accom- 

 panied with measurements and a sketch of the fruit where time 

 permits! These bits of paper may be pinned into sheets of foolscap 

 paper, one or two species, or more, if thought fit, on a sheet, and 

 these sheets placed within other sheets of a larger size. The name 

 of the genus being then written on the outside, at the right hand 

 lower corner of the larger sheet, will afford easy means of refer- 

 ence, when the sheets lie upon one another in a cupboard. 



It was remarked above that Fungi differed from Algse in pro- 

 ceeding from a mycelium, consisting of cells or threads, through 

 which they draw up their nutriment. This mycelium arises at 

 first, from the process put forth by germinating spores, which 

 elongate into threads, and increase by division and growth of the 

 cells, and it may remain barren under circumstances which do not 

 favor the development of its fruit. Sometimes the mycelium is of 

 a horny consistence. The fruit arises subsequently from the 

 mycelium, and as the former is of so very simple a nature, presenting 

 few marks of difference in species systematically far removed from 

 each other, botanists have been compelled to draw their chief 

 characters from the fruit. This generally exceeds by far the 

 vegetative part in bulk, as we see in the Mushroom, where the 

 mycelium consists of only a few threads, scattered through the 

 soil, while the fruit, as we know, grows at times to the largeness 

 of the top of a hat. Moulds differ chiefly from other Fungi, in 

 their mycelium remaining more distinct, and bearing spores on 

 separate threads, instead of on a surface formed by an aggregation 

 of such threads, or cells, Such an aggregation of cells, or threads, 

 is termed an hymenium. 



The reproductive bodies of Fungi arise chiefly in two ways from 

 the mycelium, in one case the ends of the threads swell out into 

 club-shaped, or enlarged cells, on whose summit arise small spicules, 

 each of which bears a simple cell, which eventually becomes a spore. 



