Excerpt from British Fungi, Lichens and Mosses: Including Scale-Mosses and LiverwortsMushrooms, toadstools, the mildew on walls, the mould on bread, the rust on wheat, and the potato disease, are familiar objects to most of us but few, who are not botanists, are aware that they all belong to the large and varied group of plants com prised under the name of F ungi.It might be still more surprising to some to learn that the yeast with which bread is made and beer fermented, the vinegar plant which is used to turn sugar and water into vinegar, and the disagreeable skin-disease called ringworm, all belong to the same class of plants. The extent to which some kinds of fungi are used as articles of food in other countries, is probably almost unknown to those who have not lived abroad, for in England mushrooms, and occasionally trut¿es and morels are almost the only kinds used for culinary purposes.Many species that would be despised as loathsome toadstools in this country, form regular articles of diet in Italy, Russia, and other continental countries, while i_n China and Japan several kinds of fungi are cultivated on decaying trunks of trees in the same way that mushrooms are grown in the catacombs of Paris.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.