Would you ever think, looking at a clump of mushrooms along a woody path, that these delicate plants can actually push up a concrete floor? Or that tiny lichens are able to manufacture soil out of the solid mass of rock on which they grow? Those little black dots you can see on fern leaves in the late summer are really thousands of spore cases—and each case holds from forty-eight to sixty spores!

These are strange facts, just as the whole story of mosses, ferns, and mushrooms is strange. This book tells that fascinating story and gives detailed descriptions of the various species for easy identification. The differences between poisonous and edible mushrooms are particularly interesting.

Add to all this the bits of intriguing lore attached to the only plants that have neither seeds nor flowers, and you have a book designed for many pleasurable excursions into a part of nature well worth exploring.

An authoritative introduction to flowerless plants by the author-photographer team of Insects and the Homes They Build.

From the dust jacket