LVIII 
FUNGI HAVE NO FLOWERS 
I SN’T IT ODD that there is one whole division of the 
plant world that breaks away from the practice of 
the great majority and fails to flower and make seed! 
The fungi, of which the toadstool is a familiar example, 
are a flowerless group. They are a very low order of 
plants. Their position in the plant world is about like 
that of the snail in the animal world. 
The mushroom on the ground, the slime on a rotten 
log, the mold on the side of an orange, each is a fungus, a 
growing plant. But these do not bloom. The mushroom 
lives its moist life and dries out. If its dry tent is hit 
with a stick, a cloud of snuff-like dust fills the air. 
This snuff has been developing among the ruffles of its 
under side. The microscopic particles of it are called 
spores. A spore plays the part of a seed for the fungus 
plant. 
Other fungus plants have other methods of developing 
their spores. Apple rust, for example, is a fungus. It 
develops on cedar trees in the swollen ball-like growths 
that appear on their branches. These cedar balls finally 
burst open, and spores float away on the air. The tiny 
mildew develops a spore of this sort, to ride away on the 
wind and develop other mildew. 
These spores of the non-flowering plants are so numer¬ 
ous that they seem to be everywhere. Whenever damp 
weather comes, mushrooms spring up in every pile of de- 
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