h at base,
everywhere with a downy surface. The spores are white, 8x5.

To my mind there is no more appetizing mushroom than the "Fairy Ring"
mushroom. Figure 101 will give an accurate notion of the plant and
Figure 102 will show how they grow in the grass. It is found in all
parts of Ohio. Every old pasture field or lawn will be full of these
rings. The plant is small but its plentifulness will make up for its
size.

There are many conjectures why this and many other mushrooms grow in a
circle. The explanation is quite obvious. The ring is started by a clump
or an individual mushroom. The ground where the mushroom grew is
rendered unfit for mushrooms again, the spores fall upon the ground and
the mycelium spreads out from this point, consequently each year the
ring is growing larger. Sometimes they appear only in a crescent form.
One can tell, by looking over a lawn or pasture, where the rings are,
because, from the decay of the mushroom, the grass is greener and more
vigorous there.

Long ago, in England and Ireland, before the peasantry had begun to
question the reality of the existence of the fairy folk and their
beneficent interference in the affairs of life, these emerald-hued rings
were firmly believed to be due to the fairy footsteps which nightly
pressed their chosen haunts, and to mark the "little people's" favorite
dancing ground. "They had always fine music among themselves, and danced
in a moonshiny night around or in a ring, as one may see to this day
upon every common in England where mushrooms grow," quaintly says one
old writer. And the Rev. Gerard Smith still further voices the belief of
the people as to the nature of these grassy rings:

"The nimble elves
That do by moonshine green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe bites not; whose pastime 'tis
To make these midnight mushrooms."

It is a very common plant, and it will pay any one to know it, as we
cannot find anything in the markets that will equal it as a table
delicacy.

Found in pastures and lawns during rainy weather from May till frost.

[Illustration: Figure 102.--Marasmius oreades. Showing a fairy ring.]

_Marasmius urens. Fr._

THE STINGING MARASMIUS.

Urens means burning; so called from its acrid taste.

The pileus is pale-buff, tough, fleshy, convex or flat, becoming
depressed and finally wrinkled, smooth, even, one to two inches broad.

The gills are unequal, cream-colored, becoming brownish, much