Fungi are intimately associated with autumn; unrobed prophets that see no sad visions themselves, but that bring to us thoughts of change and decay. Indeed, so close is this association that they may be called autumn’s peculiar plants. The bluebell still lingers on the wayside bank, and in the woods a few bright but evanescent and scentless flowers appear, but fungi and fruits form the wreath that encircles the sober and melancholy brow of autumn: fruits, the death of flower-life; fungi, the resurrection of plant-death. The seasonal conditions which arrest the further progress of all other vegetation, which cause the leaf to fall, and the flower to wither, and the robe of nature everywhere to change and fade, give birth to new forms of plant-life which flourish amid decay and death. From the relics of the former creations of spring and summer reduced to chaos, springs up a new creation of organic life; and thus nature is not a mere continuous cycle of birth, maturity, and decay, but rather a constant appearance of old elements in new forms. In many respects they are the most mysterious and paradoxical of all plants. In their origin, their shapes, their composition, their rapidity of growth, the brevity of their existence, their modes of reproduction, their inconceivable number and apparent ubiquity, they are widely different from every other kind of vegetation with which we are acquainted. In studying their history we walk amid surprises; and as we lift each corner of the veil, more and more marvelous are the vistas that reveal themselves.