To become acquainted with the bulkier of these villains, we must visit
their favorite haunts. An occasional one may occur in any kind of
place, as has already been explained. A good many, especially of the
edible sort, and notably the common mushroom, grow in open pastures.
To get among crowds of them, however, we must resort to close woods,
especially of fir and pine. There they grow on tree-stumps, fallen
trunks, and on the ground, in great variety and abundance. If we go at
the proper season their profusion will astonish us. This time of plenty
varies from early to late autumn with the character of the weather.
Clad in waterproof wraps and with leather gloves on hand, we may make
a fungus foray into the dripping woods amid russet and falling leaves
with comparative comfort; and even on a “raw rheumatic day” there will
likely be much enjoyment for us and still more instruction. It will
be strange, indeed, if we do not find some kinds to eat and very many
to think over. We ought to get examples, at least, of nearly all the
different families. Let us consider them in a general way as novices
do. A host of them have gills like the mushroom; and so we may take
that best known of them all as a type of the whole class. Mushroom
spawn runs through the soil in a rootlike way, absorbing the organic
matter it falls in with and every here and there swelling out into
roundish bodies, each consisting of a tubercle enclosed in a wrapper.
The tubercle bursts through the wrapper as growth goes on, and soon
above ground appears the well-known form of the mushroom, with a stalk
supporting a fleshy head by the center, and on the under surface of
this head radiating gills, which are at first covered by a veil that
finally gives way and leaves only a ring round the stem. These gills
are originally flesh-colored, but afterward become brown and mottled
with numerous minute purple spores. If we were to investigate further
by means of the microscope, we should find that the spores are not
contained in any case, and that they are produced in fours on little
points at the tips of special cells. Of the other kinds belonging to
this order of agarics, some differ from the mushroom in being poisonous
and others in being parasitic. There is much variety, also, in the
tints of gill and spore, different kinds having these white, pink,
rosy, salmon-colored, reddish, or yellowish, or darkish brown, purple
or black. Again, in some the stem is not central, but attached more or
less laterally to the head; in others there is no stem, and the gills
radiate out from the substance on which the agaric grows. The ring
round the stalk, too, often varies, or is sometimes wanting. There
are many other differences, and it is by these that we are able to
distinguish the one kind from the other: but, of course, little more
can be done here than merely to indicate this infinite variety. Dr.
Badham, in his admirable work on the “Esculent Funguses of England,”
puts this quaintly, as he does many other facts. “These are stilted
upon a high leg, and those have not a leg to stand on; some are
shell-shaped, many bell-shaped; and some hang upon their stalks like a
lawyer’s wig.”
These gill-bearers, are, however, but one order in this extensive
division of plants. Nature’s plastic hand is never weary of shaping
fresh forms. It is lavish of variety, and never works in a stinted
or makeshift way. In place of gills we find in another order tubes
or pores in which the spores are produced. These tubular kinds
are sometimes fleshy, as in the edible boletus, or woody, as in
the polypores, popularly called sap-balls, which every one who
knows anything about woods and their wonders must have seen on old
tree-stumps, often growing to a great size. In yet another order,
spines, or bristles, or teeth, take the place of gills and tubes. In
the puff-balls the spores ripen inside a roundish leathern case, which
afterward bursts and discharges them as a fine dust. Then there is an
extensive class in which the spores are not produced in this offhand
way at all, but are carefully enclosed in little cases, or rather, I
should say, loaded into microscopic guns, as in the pezizas; and very
beautiful objects these are under the microscope.
Poisonous, putrescent, strange in shape, or color, or odor, as many
of the larger fungi are, it is little to be wondered at that contempt
has been a common human feeling with respect to most of them, and a
crush with disdainful heel on occasion the lot of a good many. The
popular loathing has run out into language. Under the opprobrious
term “toadstool,” a whole host of kinds is commonly included. The
puff-balls are known in Scotland as “de’il’s sneeshin’-mills” (devil’s
snuff-boxes), an epithet which expresses with a certain imaginative
humor, and a dash of superstition, the idea of something so utterly
base that it ministers to the gratification of demons, tickling their
olfactory organs with satanic satisfaction. Indeed, in this country
the mushroom is almost the only favored exception to the popular
verdict of loathing. It has gained the hearts of the people through
their stomachs, and ketchup has overcome popular prejudice by its fine
flavor. But there are many others on which cultured palates dote.
Truffles are dear delicacies, which few but rich men taste, for fine
aroma and flavor command a high price. The Scotch-bonnets of the fairy
rings, besides possessing a certain bouquet of elfin romance, cook
into delicacies full of stomachic delight. Then there are chantarells
and morels and blewitts, and poor-men’s-beef-steaks, over which
trained appetites rejoice. A score of dainty little rogues at least
there are, and a still greater number of kinds that are nutritive
and fairly palatable. In some European countries the edible ones are
a really valuable addition to the food of the people—not from being
more plentiful than with us, but from being more eagerly gathered and
diligently cultivated. One sort or other is used as food by every
tribe of men. Not only does the edible mushroom occur in all habitable
lands, but in certain foreign parts—as in Australia—there are forms of
it very much superior in quality to our English ones. Then, of course,
every clime has its own peculiar edible kinds. The native bread of the
Australians is an instance in point; it looks somewhat like compressed
sago, and is a fairly good article of diet. The staple food of the
wild Fuegians for several months each year is supplied by a kind which
they gather in great abundance from the living twigs of the evergreen
beech. Then there are some not very pleasant, according to our ideas,
which can be safely used, and are thus available in times of scarcity,
as, for instance, the gelatinous one which the New Zealand natives
know as “thunder-dirt,” and one somewhat similar that the Chinese are
said to utilize. A curious trade has of late years sprung up between
New Zealand and China. A brown semi-transparent fungus, resembling the
human ear, grows abundantly in the North Island. This the Maoris and
others collect, dry, and pack into bags, for export to China, where
it is highly prized for its flavor and gelatinous qualities as an
ingredient in soup. It is a species nearly related to our Jew’s-ear.
The value of this fungus exported from New Zealand in 1877 was stated
at over £11,000.—_Good Words._
* * * * *
When we reflect how little we have done
And add to that how little we have seen,
And furthermore how little we have won
Of joy or good, how little known or been,
We long for other life, more full, more keen,
And yearn to change with those
Who well have run.
—_Jean Ingelow._
* * * * *
A TALENT for any art is rare; but it is given to nearly every one to
cultivate a taste for art; only it must be cultivated with earnestness.
The more things thou learnest to know and enjoy, the more complete and
full will be for thee the delight of living.—_Platen._