grandis) may be frequently found in summer growing on toad-stools. This plant usually produces zygospores that are formed on the aërial mycelium. The zygospores are large enough to be recognized with a hand lens. The material may be dried and kept for winter study, or the zygospores may be prepared for permanent microscopic mounts in the ordinary way.
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Fig. 275.—Yeast Plants.
Yeast.—This is a very much reduced and simple fungus, consisting
normally of isolated spherical or elliptical cells (Fig. 275)
containing abundant protoplasm and probably
a nucleus, although the latter is not
easily observed. It propagates rapidly by
budding, which consists of the gradual extrusion
of a wart-like swelling that is sooner or
later cut off at the base by constriction, thus
forming a separate organism. Although simple
in structure, the yeast is found to be
closely related to some of the higher groups of
fungi as shown by the method of spore formation.
When grown on special substances like potato or carrot, the
contents of the cell may form spores inside of the sac-like mother cell, thus resembling the sac-fungi to which blue mold and mildews
belong. The yeast plant is remarkable on account of its power to
induce alcoholic fermentation in the media in which it grows.
There are many kinds of yeasts. One of them is found in the common yeast cakes. In the process of manufacture of these cakes, the yeast cells grow to a certain stage, and the material is then dried and fashioned into small cakes, each cake containing great numbers of the yeast cells. When the yeast cake is added to dough, and proper conditions of warmth and moisture are provided, the yeast grows rapidly and breaks up the sugar of the dough into carbon dioxid and alcohol. This is fermentation. The gases escape and puff up the dough, causing the bread to rise. In this loosened condition the dough is baked; if it is not baked quickly enough, the bread "falls." Shake up a bit of yeast cake in slightly sweetened water: the water soon becomes cloudy from the growing yeasts.
Parasitic fungi.—Most of the molds are saprophytes. Many other fungi are parasitic on living plants and animals (Fig. 285). Some of them have complicated life histories, undergoing many changes before the original spore is again produced. The willow mildew and the common rust of wheat will serve to illustrate the habits of parasitic fungi.
The willow mildew (Uncinula salicis).—This is one of the sac fungi. It forms white downy patches on the leaves of willows
