Our introductory description of the Amanita presents the most perfect botanical type of a large division of the fungus tribe, the AgaricaceÆ, or gill-bearing mushrooms, one of the two great orders of fungi which include the large majority of edible species.

A brief consideration of the general classification of fungi will not be out of place at the head of this chapter.

CLASSIFICATION OF FUNGI

A fungus is a cellular cryptogamous (flowerless) plant, nourished through its spawn or mycelium in place of roots, living in air, and propagated by spores.

Fungi—mycetes—are naturally subdivided into two great divisions:

1. Sporifera—those in which the spores or reproductive bodies are naked or soon exposed, as shown in illustration on page 79.

2. Sporidiifera—in which the spores are enveloped in sacs or asci. These resemble in shape the cystidium of illustration on page 79.

The first of these divisions—the Sporifera, or naked-spored fungi—is again subdivided into four families, as follows:

1. Hymenomycetes. Hymenium, or spore-bearing surface, exposed and conspicuous, as seen in the common mushroom and all Agarics and Polyporei.

2. Gasteromycetes (gaster, a belly). Hymenium, or spore-bearing surface, enclosed in a more or less spherical case, called the peridium, which ruptures and expels the spores at maturity in the form of dust, as in the puff-balls.

3. Coniomycetes, from the Greek ?????, meaning dust, the entire fungus having a dust-like appearance. Mildew forms a good example of this family.

4. Hyphomycetes, from the Greek ?fa, meaning a thread. Thread-like fungi, the filaments being more conspicuous than the spore masses, of which group blue-mould affords an illustration.

The Hymenomycetes (1) is again subdivided into six orders, the discrimination being based on the diverse character of the spore surface. The first of these orders is the Agaricini, or gill-bearing fungi, to which our present chapter will be confined.

AGARICINI

In this order the hymenium, or spore-bearing surface, is inferior, i.e., on the under side of the pileus, and is spread over lamellÆ or gills, which radiate from the stem of the fungus, and each of which may be separated into two filmy flat divisions.

On the opposite page is shown an Agaric in vertical section, disclosing a full side view of the gills. A highly magnified view of this gill-surface is indicated herewith, duly indexed, the sporophore being shown in the act of shedding its spores from their points of attachment to the four stigmata at the summit. These fruitful four-pointed sporophores or basidia are intermingled with the cystidia and sterile cells, the whole mass forming the surface of the hymenium. The dissemination of the Agaric is further considered in a later chapter on "Spore-prints."

The most perfect botanical type of the Agarics is the Amanita, already sufficiently dwelt upon.

We will now proceed to the consideration of other examples in which the symbol of the fatal cup is happily absent, and whose identities as esculent species are clearly denoted by individual characteristics.

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