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Arlene Hall, age 7, of Boise, Idaho, for her question:

Why do toadstools brow after the rain?

Most of the toadstool is buried under the ground. The part that pokes up like a little umbrella is the fruit of the plant and inside it are the seedlets. It grows up when the main part of the plant, which is below ground, has enough moisture to feed it. The time for this is when the weather is warm and there has been a heavy rainfall.

The main part of the toadstool may be buried several inches below the ground and perhaps covered with grass and moss. It has no leaves, no brown stem and it dons not look at all like a plant. If you dig it up, you might think that the toadstool plant is dust a matted wad of roots. It is a mass of fine white threads all tangled together. These threads do the work of stems and roots. They provide the food for the umbrella when the right time comes.

The toadstool is a very weak and fragile plant. This is because it has no green leaves. Most plants have green leaves and use them to make their food from air, water and sunshine. The poor toadstool cannot make its own food in this way. So it relies on the food made by other plants.

It finds this food in rich soil. This soil may be a mass of decaying leaves or the rotting stump of an old tree trunk. Here is a pantry full of food and chemicals made by a plant which had green leaves. Here the poor pale toadstool can find enough food to grow.

For most of the year, the toadstool has no reason to poke its nose above the ground. It feeds and feeds on the rich food in the soil, growing more and more healthy. It is getting ready for the most important fob in its life. The toadstool is getting ready to grow seedlets and hand on life to a new generation of toadstools.

The busy little parent plant knows when spring is here because the ground is warmer. Now it needs only moisture, so it waits for a rainy day. It soaks up the rain and uses it to turn sumo of its stored food into a little bud. The little bud sprouts up from the tangled rootlets and soon pokes its nose above the ground. It grows a chunky base and the little cap on top opens up like a chubby umbrella. Each toadstool plant sends up a number of these pale umbrellas and after the rain a field or lawn may be dotted with toadstools.

Each umbrella is a .roof to protect the precious seedlets. The seedlets are fine as powder and they are hidden in ridges under the roof. They ripen and get ready to leave home. At the right tuna they break free and float off on the breezes like a cloud of dust. The little toadstool has now done its work and withers away. It has brought its children above the ground, where they can fly off on the wind and find new homes of their own.

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