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BEITISH FUNGI. 
BY MISS MARGARET PLUES. 
“ The turf 
Smells fresh, and rich in odoriferous herbs 
And fungous fruits of earth, regales the sense 
With luxury of unexpected sweets.” 
Cowper. 
I T is a very general complaint during the autumn and open 
winter weather that there is nothing for botanists to find, 
and therefore no encouragement for them to extend their 
rambles beyond the dry hmits of that most wearisome of all 
exercises, a “ constitutional walk.” Those who thus decide, do 
a grevious wrong to a large and curious race of plants, whose 
structure is as wonderful as that of the gayest exotics, and their 
colours in many instances scarcely less brilliant, and which have 
their uses too, both medicinal and gastronomic ; also — what is 
generally most attractive — their dark and mysterious dangers. 
The Fungi are an ill-used race; under the name of Toadstools 
we insult them from earliest infancy. Flowers are often ruth- 
lessly plucked, quickly to be cast aside and forgotten. Ferns, 
though the rage of the day, sometimes share a similar fate, and 
the mossy garland or basket is left to wither unnoticed ; but 
such an end is too good for Fungi. “ Ah, nasty Toadstools ! ” 
we say, and proceed to kick them over. Yet nowhere can we 
find more variety and purity of form, or more brilliancy of 
colouring. Let us do justice to the Fungi, examine their 
merits — ay, and their demerits too, — and then the woods will 
not lose, their charm for us in autumn, nor even in winter. 
Fungi, like most other plants, have three parts : spawn, which 
performs the function of roots ; expanded portion, as the stem 
and cupola of the Mushroom, the branches of the Glavaria, or 
the cup of the Peziza, which answers to the stem and leaves of 
other plants: and spores, which answer to their fruit. The 
whole substance of a Fungus is formed of cells, generally round 
or oval, but often, as in moulds, branching in the most fanciful 
manner. 
The order of Fungi is divided into two groups, or sub- 
orders : Sporiferous, where the spore is formed naked upon 
the cells ; and Sporidiferous, when it is formed within the cell, 
which then becomes a bag, or spore-case. The first group of 
