THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



53 



characteristics, just as one learns to know an elm or an oak, 

 the second is to eat the suspected species. In the latter case, if 

 the investigator lives, he will be safe in recording his plant as 

 edible and harmless. The novice should be cautioned against 

 eating any species of whose identity he is not absolutely sure. 

 It may be reiterated that the proportion of poisonous tO' harm- 

 less species is relatively small, although the former often make 

 up in numbers what they lack in species. It is a curious fact 

 that while the unwholesome species produce their effects within 

 a short time, the really deadly ones do not begin to operate 

 until from eight tO' fifteen hours after they are eaten — by which 

 time they may have been nearly forgotten, and the sufferer may 

 thus fail at first tO' connect cause and effect. The development 

 of the trouble is then rapid and no time should be lost in send- 

 ing for a physician. Even at this stage there is an antidote 

 for the poison in atropine, itself a deadly poison. It is ad- 

 ministered in subcutaneous injections. 



There are not a few people who would scarcely regard 

 mushrooms as plants. Their lack of leaves, true roots, green 

 coloring matter, etc., seem to make out a good case against 

 them, but with all this evidence, one would still be disinclined 

 to call them animals, although they possess the animal-like 

 characteristic of requiring ready-made or organic food, and 

 are unable to obtain sustenance from the earth, air and water, 

 as ordinar}'- green plants do. They are therefore reduced to 

 the position of scavengers, living upon other plants, and ani- 

 mals, dead or alive. Mushrooms belong to the flowerless di- 

 vision of plants, of which the ferns are among the higher 

 types. Their place in the line of relationship is below the ferns, 

 below the mosses and liverworts, almost at the foot of the lad- 

 der of plant evolution in fact. Their nearest allies are the 

 seaweeds and the green scums that are often found in fresh- 

 water pools. By many they are supposed to be degenerate off- 

 spring of the higher seaweeds. Like all the flowerless plants, 



