. Plant life and plant uses; an elementary textbook, a foundation for the study of agriculture, domestic science or college botany. Botany. 384 THE NON-VASCULAR PLANTS. *- pTflr I pf : -W jag? which grow on stumps and logs are relatives of the mush- rooms. Puffballs are edible. The giant puffball, which sometimes gets as big as a watermelon, is, when fresh, one of the best of the edible fungi. The puff of dust which rises when you step on an old puff- ball is a cloud of spores. Some of the large bracket fungi be- come hard with age and may endure for years. The brackets are sporophores. The sp
. Plant life and plant uses; an elementary textbook, a foundation for the study of agriculture, domestic science or college botany. Botany. 384 THE NON-VASCULAR PLANTS. *- pTflr I pf : -W jag? which grow on stumps and logs are relatives of the mush- rooms. Puffballs are edible. The giant puffball, which sometimes gets as big as a watermelon, is, when fresh, one of the best of the edible fungi. The puff of dust which rises when you step on an old puff- ball is a cloud of spores. Some of the large bracket fungi be- come hard with age and may endure for years. The brackets are sporophores. The spores are borne inside the many pores which are on the under surface. b. Bread Mold.—Moist bread kept where it is fairly warm will soon begin to be covered with a white, furry growth. This is the mycelium of bread mold. Branches of the myce- lium grow into the bread and absorb food from it. Hyphae which branch away from the mass of the mycelium in this manner and absorb food are called haustoria, in this or in any other fungus. (See Figure 183.) After the mold has be- come well developed, little ver- tical branches appear, and the swollen tips of these branches turn black. These branches are sporophores, and the blackness of their tips is the color of the ripe spores which Fig. 181.—Young puffballs. When in this condition, puffballs are good to eat, the only drawback being the worms which may be found in the firm white meat inside. The wormy parts may be cut away, and sometimes large puffballs are found quite free from worms. The puffball is a sporophore. The white tissue within becomes a mass of spores, and the tough skin turns brown. Trillions of spores may be contained in one puffball. When the ball is kicked the spores rise from it like a puff of dust. — After Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble th
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectbotany, bookyear1913
