NOTES: ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 111
like one end of such an egg sticking up among the dead leaves. At this
stage there usually ensued a period of quiescence, varying from a couple
of days up to, I believe, a fortnight—the duration of this resting stage
depending, no doubt, on the temperature and the rainfall in combination.
Examination of the egg, or volva, at this period showed that it was soft
and flabby to the touch and filled with a thick, glary, unpleasant-looking
yellowish-white slime. Then suddenly some morning one found that the
"egg" had hatched (so to speak) and the fungus had sprung up to its
full height of from five to eight inches. How long this development
occupies I know not, but as I never saw an example whilst it was in progress
I take it that the change is rapid, occupying no more than an hour or,
at most, a few hours.
It was interesting, too, to observe what happened immediately after
this sudden development of the fungus was completed.
The comparatively small thimble-shaped cap, or pileus, which now
tops the thick upright stem, has on its upper surface a number of raised
ribs, arranged in an irregular reticulated pattern. Further, the whole
top of the cap is covered by a thick glutinous slime, dark green at first,
afterwards becoming almost black, which covers both the raised ribs and
the depressed spaces between them. In this sticky slime are enclosed
the spores of the fungus, and from it emanates the horrible smell always
associated with the plant.
Immediately on the complete development of the fungus this putrid
smell attracts numerous large flies of various kinds (chiefly the large black
wood-fly and the blue-bottle), which settle thickly upon and often com-
pletely cover the cap. The flies at once start to devour the dark-coloured
slime, and in so doing they become more or less smeared with it (or at least
get some of it upon their feet and legs). Then, their appetites sated,
they fly away, carrying with them some of the sticky slime, some of
which they inevitably deposit wherever next they happen to alight.
They thus effect a more or less wide dispersal of the spores of the fungus,
which are contained in the slime. Occasionally, late in the summer, I
saw wasps on the pileus, also apparently consuming the black slime (and,
no doubt, afterwards helping, like the flies, to disperse widely the spores
contained in it), but I have no note of having seen any other insect similarly
engaged.
After this the entire fungus soon begins to wilt, bends over sideways,
gradually rots away, and finally disappears altogether.—Miller Christy,
F.L.S.