AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF FUNGI. LAE 

the whole field of Fungi is more than I could do in justice to 
myself and still more to my parochial work. My belief is that no 
royal road will be made whereby you can tell a dangerous from a 
safe fungus. Nay more, you may eat to-day without any ill-effects 
resulting, what in a few days hence may greatly injure you, and for 
these reasons your bodily organs may be well now but weak then ; 
also, although the fungus may be the same, there may be the 
mycelium of some mould growing on it which would injure you. 
Hence, amongst your rules never touch an old specimen: again, 
carefully avoid all highly coloured ones, also those which are sharp 
or acrid to the taste. Besides this, learn for yourself by experience 
what is good and what will be bad, just as your ancestors have 
found out that a cabbage is good for food, whilst aconite would 
kill you—that hemlock is to be avoided but parsley may safely be 
taken. 
Let me now give you some idea as to the division of the Fungi, 
and here I must use a few hard words. I have hitherto most care- 
fully tried to avoid them, having been requested not to write a 
difficult paper, a process which has made the paper more trouble- 
some a good deal to prepare. The Fungi are arranged under two 
divisions: first, the sporifera in which the spores are naked ; 
secondly, the sporidiifera in which spores are in sacs or ascl. 
The first division is subdivided into four families; the second 
is subdivided into two families. In all these families “the name is 
derived from the predominance of the organ which is the distin- 
guishing feature in each. 
Thus Hymenomycetes from Mumen (Greek) a membrane and 
Mukés (Greek) a mushroom. The fruit being formed on a 
membrane which is either naked from the first, or soon becomes 
so if originally inclosed in a volva. 
Gasteromycetes from Gaster (Greek) a belly where the fruit is 
produced in a closed receptacle. 
Coniomycetes from Kons (Greek) dust, the dust-like spores 
forming the chief character. 
Hyphomycetes from Huphé (Greek) a woven mass of threads. 
Physomycetes from Phuské (Greek) a vesicle or bladder where 
the fruit arises from the tip of a thread, penetrating into the 
vesicle, which forms a covering for the fruit. 
Ascomycetes from Askos (Greek) a sac where the fruit is formed 
within asci.” 
For the above definitions I am indebted word for word to my 
friend Mr. Broome; they are in his paper on “The Fungi of Wilts.” 
These families are subdivided into thirty-one orders. 
The orders into 368 genera up to the publication of Dr. Cooke’s 
Handbook of British Fungi, and the species up to that time (1871) 
amounted to 2809. | But then so good has been the work the last 

