Journal of Proceedings. lxxiii
grew in a line for several years. Such a catalogue if made would be
very valuable, and if members of this Club will note and measure rings
and determine the Fungi growing upon them they will be doing good
service and new work. Why some Fungi grow in rings and others in a
straight or an irregularly branching line it is difficult to say, but if
Fungi have been evolved from other fungus forms, and Fungi as we now
see them have descended from one or more common ancestors, then those
ancient precursors may have taken up with different habits which are still
retained by their descendants. Fungi growing in rings or branched lines
appear to me to be comparable with regular flowers, alternate and
opposite leaves and similar phenomena seen amongst flowering plants.
It is known that the flora of the inside of a ring is somewhat different
from the flora outside, and that the grassy ring itself will support plants
that neither grow outside nor inside the ring. A most useful piece of work
would be the making of lists of grasses and other plants seen outside and
inside the ring. During the present summer I noticed a profuse flowering
of the Common Bock Cist, Helianthemum vulgare, amongst the luxuriant
grass of fairy rings. The plant occurred elsewhere, but it only flowered
well on the rings. To such an extent was this the case that I could
distinctly see the rings as yellow circles from a long distance. The change
of the flora is caused by the Fungi exhausting the ground and then re-
manuring it with highly nitrogenous manure. This manure causes
luxuriant vegetable growth for one year, which exhausts the circle to a
still greater extent. The soil inside the ring is therefore different from
the outside, and supports different plants. Another point that requires
investigation is the source of the nitrogen so abundant in Fairy King
Fungi. These Fungi only grow in bare pastures and other places where
nitrogen is rare, yet they acquire so much nitrogen in themselves that
when they perish they deposit so much of this material and potash on
the soil that the manured circle resembles rather the grass of the richest
meadow than an upland pasture. It has not yet been decided whether
Fungi are capable of acquiring their large store of nitrogen direct from
the air or from material in the soil."
Then followed Dr. Wharton, M.A., F.Z.S., who took for his subject a
more utilitarian, but not less interesting, aspect of Fungus-lore in the
following paper:—
On Fungi as Food.
" We fungus-hunters will get more thanks from the world at large
some day than we do now, when people who never aspire to being
botanists know the variety and charm of the flavours we can introduce
to them. The inventor of a new dish has long been held worthy of the
highest honour. How shall we stand when the rich realise the gratifica-
tions we can bring to their palates? They who relish so keenly the
mushroom and the truffle have yet to learn the delicious changes we can
find for them in what they have been taught to despise as ' toadstools.'
Given even such a slight knowledge of Fungi as anybody may obtain
from Dr. Cooke's little book, and the will to hunt for and identify the
right species, and anybody may live many years before he has tasted all
the palatable dainties that are within his reach. The fungus-hunter has
double the advantage of the poet, in that he is 'made' as well as ' born.'
My own experiences may well illustrate the few remarks I wish to offer,
and show how one's scientific interest in Fungi may be sharpened by
what the vulgar deprecate as 'pot-hunting,' to hide their idle ignorance.