Stránka:book 1912.djvu/423

XIV* Mushrooms^ Fttngi^ or Toadstools Abundance SUPPOSE that during the night a swarm of fairies were to enter our home woods and decorate it on ground and trunk, with the most strange and won- derful fruits, of new sorts, unheard of in shapes and colors, some Hke fans, with colored lacework, some like carrots, others like green and gold balloons, some Hke umbrellas, spring bonnets, birds' nests, barbers' poles, and Indian clubs, many hke starfish and skulls, others imitating corals and others liHes, bugles, oysters, beefsteaks, and wine cups, resplendent with every color of the rainbow, deHcious to eat, coming from nowhere, hanging on no plant and dis- appearing in a few days leaving no visible seed or remnant — we should think it very strange ; we might even doubt our eyesight and call it all a pure fairy tale. Yet this very miracle is what happens every year in our land. At least 2,000 different kinds of toadstools or mushrooms spring up in their own mysterious way. Of this 2,000 at least 1,000 are good to eat. But — and here is the dark and danger- ous fact — about a dozen of them are Amanitas, which are known to be deadly poison. And as ill-luck will have it these are the most widely diffused and the most like mushrooms. All the queer freaks, like clubs and corals, the cranks and tomfools, in droll shapes and satanic colors, the funny poisonous looking morels, ink-caps and boleti are good