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A kind of ball-shaped fungus (Lycoperdon giganteum, and other species of the same genus) full of dustlike spores when ripe; -- called also bullfist, bullfice, puckfist, puff, and puffin.

A fungus (Polyporus fomentarius, etc.) sometimes dried for tinder; agaric.

ust of rot and murrain die. Milton. Bitter rot (Bot.), a disease of apples, caused by the fungus Glæosporium fructigenum. F. L. Scribner. -- Black rot (Bot.), a disease of grapevines, attacking the leaves and fruit, caused by the fungus Læstadia Bidwellii. F. L. Scribner. -- Dry rot (Bot.) See under Dry. -- Grinder'…

A minute mold or fungus forming reddish or rusty spots on the leaves and stems of cereal and other grasses (Trichobasis Rubigo- vera), now usually believed to be a form or condition of the corn mildew (Puccinia graminis). As rust, it has solitary reddish spores; as corn mildew, the spores are double and blackish.…

A simpleton; a saphead; a milksop. [Slang] Sap ball (Bot.), any large fungus of the genus Polyporus. See Polyporus. -- Sap green, a dull light green pigment prepared from the juice of the ripe berries of the Rhamnus catharticus, or buckthorn. It is used especially by water-color artists. -- Sap rot, the dry rot. See…

A disease of potatoes producing pits in their surface, caused by a minute fungus (Tiburcinia Scabies).

Pertaining to, or designating, an acid obtained from ergot or the sclerotium of a fungus growing on rye.

Wood that readily takes fire; touchwood; also, a kind of tinder made from a species of fungus; punk; amadou. Sir T. Browne.

A kind of fungus of the genus Phallus, which emits a fetid odor.

The stem of a fungus or mushroom.

A sheath; a case; as, the theca, or cell, of an anther; the theca, or spore case, of a fungus; the theca of the spinal cord.

A kind of fungus with an irregularly wrinkled, somewhat globular pileus (Helvella, or Gyromitra, esculenta.).

A disease of wheat and other grasses caused by the rust fungus Puccinia graminis; also, the fungus itself.

oms (Bot.), tufted and distorted branches of the silver fir, caused by the attack of some fungus. Maunder (Treas. of Bot.) -- Witches' butter (Bot.), a name of several gelatinous cryptogamous plants, as Nostoc commune, and Exidia glandulosa. See Nostoc. -- Witch grass (Bot.), a kind of grass (Panicum capillare) with m…

A form of fungus which grows as indvidual rounded cells, rather than in a mycelium, and reproduces by budding; esp. members of the orders Endomycetales and Moniliales. Some fungi may grow both as a yeast or as a mycelium, depending on the conditions of growth. Yeast cake, a mealy cake impregnated with the live germs of…