XXXVIII 
FUNGI ARE THE CLEAN-UP SQUAD 
I SN’T IT ODD that the mold on decaying fruit, the 
bracket fungi on dead branches of trees, the mush¬ 
rooms that spring up among dead leaves in the autumn — 
all that fungous growth which man instinctively despises 
— are steadily aiding in one of the great processes of 
nature! 
The fungi are agents of decay. When plant growth has 
served its purpose, it is the business of the fungi to break 
it down again and turn it back to the soil and the air from 
which it came. The fungi are the vultures of the vege¬ 
table world — they do away with its dead bodies. 
If the woods were free of toadstools and other plants 
of their kind, there would be no decay. The leaves would 
fall year after year and lie where they fell. Dead logs 
would be infinitely longer in disappearing. The world 
would be so cluttered up that it would be quite over¬ 
whelmed by its own waste. 
Wherever there is waste vegetable matter, these fungi 
await an opportunity to appear and break it down. The 
old stump in the woods soon becomes a setting for in¬ 
numerable dainty friar’s cowls. A dead branch high up 
in the tree is attacked by a breed of cousin plants. The 
mushrooms on the ground are breaking down the struc¬ 
ture of the fallen leaves. The ear-shaped fungus that 
appears on rotting wood, the elf-cups on the ground, the 
coral scale on a tree trunk, the fluted plates that feed only 
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