SOME 
Notes on the Toadstools 
OF WHICH 
PHOTOGRAPHS APPEAR IN 
THE FOREGOING PAGES . . 
BY 
SOMERVILLE HASTINGS. 
Mushrooms and Toadstools although perhaps less known than 
most members of the vegetable kingdom are nevertheless of 
considerable interest. They are members of the class Fungi, a 
family which also includes such various forms as the vinegar plant, 
moulds, yeasts and bacteria. The photographs represent a few 
only of the commoner British Toadstools, and the following brief 
notes may serve by way of explanation. 
The frontispiece, representing a group of Mushrooms in various 
stages of development, is added, because most of the larger Fungi agree 
more or less closely with the Mushroom in structure and mode of life. 
A mature Mushroom, as will be seen, consists of a stalk supporting a 
sort of cap. Forming the lining of the cap are a number of folds 
called gills from their resemblance to the gills of a fish. Whilst the 
Mushroom is young, the gills are concealed by a kind of veil, but as 
the cap expands the veil is rent, the more central portion remaining 
attached to the stem as a sort of ring. The function of the gills is to 
produce the spores or seeds of the Mushroom plant, millions of these 
spores coming from a single specimen. After the gills have become 
exposed to the air by the rupture of the veil, the light spores are 
carried in all directions by the wind, and it is in this way that the 
plant is multiplied. 
It should be clearly understood, that what is called the Mushroom 
is not the Mushroom plant. The plant itself is composed of a 
number of minute threads, which run in all directions under ground 
— we bury it mixed with soil as Mushroom spawn — and it is only 
when the plant, growing in the ground, becomes vigorous enough to 
wish to produce seeds or spores, that Mushrooms appear. It will 
thus be seen that the Mushroom, the sole function of which it is to 
produce spores, is only the fruit of the Mushroom plant, in the same 
way that the gooseberry, full of seeds, is the fruit of the goose- 
berry bush. 
Although, at first sight, all Toadstools appear alike, there are in 
reality many thousand varieties, and to distinguish between them, 
somp form of classification is required. One of the earliest attempts 
is fiitind in the “ Grete Hcrball ’’ of 1526 in which we read “ Fungi 
