TWO FUNGI GROWING IN HOLES MADE BY WOOD-BORING 
INSECTS. 
BY PERLEY SPAULDING. 
The relation existing between some of the fungi and the 
wood-boring insects is as yet but little understood and its 
significance is generally thought to be of slight importance. 
There are, however, strong and ever-increasing indications 
that its solution will form one of the most interesting 
chapters in the history of vegetable pathology, while the 
economic importance may prove to be much greater than 
is suspected at the present time. 
The curious habitat of two of the fleshy fungi as observed 
in the southern pine district of eastern Texas has been very 
interesting to the writer because of the influence which 
insects were seen to exert upon the distribution of the fungi. 
In this section Pinus palustris is the tree which is almost 
exclusively cut for timber. Lumbering has been carried on 
within a year and there are large amounts of tops and small 
logs which were left to lie on the ground and rot. The 
bark has begun to fall off in many places but the wood can 
hardly be called rotten, although it shows the effects of 
beginning decay. This rotting material is the home of an 
immense number of wood-boring insects, of which one, 
making a hole about one-fourth inch in diameter, is present 
in every log in large numbers. On many of these rotting 
logs were growing numerous fungi of the Agaricus type 
and evidently belonging to two quite different species. 
Specimens have been very kindly identified by Professor 
Chas. H. Peck, who found them to be Flammula 
sapineus Fr. and Claudopus nidulans (Pers.) Pk. 
Nothing was thought of the matter until it was noticed 
quite accidentally that they were growing out of the 
holes made by the large wood-borer. It was found that 
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