different mushrooms love to dwell.
Some are always found on roadsides, as if seeking the notice of
passers-by. These are the Clitocybes and Stropharia, and many of the
cup-fungi, while the Boleti take shelter in clay banks and hide in every
cranny and nook that they can find. Russulas are seen in open woods,
rising out of the earth, also the Lactarius, which seems to like the
shade of trees. The Cortinarius also prefers their shelter. The Coprinus
loves the pastures and fields, near houses and barns, and dwells in
groups upon the lawns. The Hypholoma grows in clusters on the stumps of
trees. Marasmius is found among dead twigs and leaves. The white
Amanitas flourish in woods and open ground. There are some, like
Pleurotus, that grow in trunks of trees, and make their way through
openings in the bark. Every dead tree or branch in the forest is crowded
with all species of Polyporus, while carpets, damp cellars, plaster
walls and sawdust are favorite abodes of many fungi.

STRUCTURE AND GROWTH.

Mushrooms consist wholly of cells. These cells do not contain either
starch or the green coloring-matter, called chlorophyll, which exists in
other plants. They are either parasites or scavengers, and sometimes
both. The food of fungi must form a part of some animal or plant. When
they commence to grow it is by the division of cells, not laterally, but
in one direction, upward. As the mushroom grows the stem lengthens, the
cap expands and bursts the veil that surrounds it, and gradually gains
its perfect shape.

Every mushroom has a spore-bearing layer of cells, which is called the
hymenium. This hymenium is composed of a number of swollen, club-shaped
cells, called basidia, and close to them, side by side, are sterile,
elongated cells, named paraphyses. In the family called Hymenomycetes
there are mixed with these, and closely packed together, one-celled
sterile structures named cystidia.

The basidia are called mother-cells because they produce the spores.

There is one great group of fungi called Basidiomycetes, so named from
having their stalked spores produced on basidia.

The basidia are formed on the end of threadlike branched bodies which
grow at the apex, and are called hyphae. On top of the basidia are minute
stalk-like branches, called sterigmata (singular sterigma), and each
branch carries a naked spore. They are usually four in number. This
group of Basidiomycetes is divided into (1) Stomach fungi
(Gasteromyce