GEOLOGY OF LA SALLL COUNTY. 



153 



FUNGI. 



This great order of plants embraces such mem- 

 bers of the vegetable king-dom as are without cloro- 

 phyle or g-reen coloring- matter, have no semblance of 

 leaves and no org-ans producing- fruit visible to the un- 

 assisted eye. They g-row rapidly, perfect their fruit — 

 spores dust-like bodies — very quickly, and many of 

 them decay in a few hours. They are very numerous, 

 are of many colors and forms, and differ much in 

 structure. Here we find the mushroom, smut, rusts 

 and molds. 



The mushrooms are divided into several g-reat 

 g-roups — Ag-aricaceae or Hymenomycetes, those having- 

 the under side of the pileus or caps divided in thin 

 plates something- like the g-ills of a fish, hence called 

 g-ills; Polyperei, or those made up of little tubes 

 placed side by side; Hydnei, or spine-bearing- Fung-i; 

 Auricularina or leathery fung-i, and several others. 

 The first two are most common as individual plants. 



If we take a mushroom and look at the g-ills with 

 a g-ood g-lass, one capable of mag-nifying- 100 diameters 

 or more, we shall see on the surface of the g-ill post- 

 like processes, each having- four branches, and at the 

 end of each branch a little roundish body or spore. 

 We see that they are very numerous and very small. 

 If we cut off the stem of the mushroom and lay it on 

 white paper, g-ills downward, and in five or six hours 

 carefully take it up, we shall have a perfect printing- of 

 it on the paper in white, brown, salmon color, or black, 

 according- to the kind of mushroom we used. We 

 shall find this colored print is formed by multitudes of 

 spores which the g-ills have thrown off, and in some 

 cases the member is so g-reat that they form a colored 

 spot as larg-e as the cap, but show no trace of the gills; 

 we let it lay too long- before removing it. 



