Mushrooms. Historical artwork of four types of mushroom. These are an earth star (Geastrum limbatum, top), a fly agaric (Amanita muscaria, centre), a scarlet elf cup or carmine peziza (Sarcoscypha or Peziza coccinea, lower left) and a flat-horned sphaeria (Sphaeria or Hypoxylon sp., lower right). The fly agaric mushroom is poisonous. The outer cover of the earth star has split and peeled back to reveal the spore sac. Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of a fungus. They develop and release the reproductive spores that will form a new fungal body. From The Instructive Picture Book or Lessons from the Vegetable World, Charlotte Mary Yonge, 1857.