508 WILD FLOWEES OF 



appearance can only be accounted for by the supposi- 

 tion that they are " anamorphoses" of the cellular 

 tissue of plants.* Undoubtedly the minute sporidise 

 must be carried up into the system by the circulation 

 of the sap, and imbibed from the moisture amidst 

 which they were disseminated. 



The great mass of casual fungi are well known by 

 the common names of mushroom and frogstool, and 

 their appearance seems to depend, in a great degree, 

 upon meteoric causes. Hence in wet weather various 

 species of orange, brown, or green Tremellince, appear 

 suddenly on the ground or branches of trees, as if 

 fallen from the sky; while in seasons of great drought 

 the edible mushroom is scarcely procurable, and 

 TcetcJiup becomes dear. On this account LIKNJETJS 

 called the fungi nomades or wanderers, from the curious 

 fact that their vagrant tribes may appear in a place in 

 the utmost profusion in one season, and then be alto- 

 gether absent for a number of years, or even never 

 return again either lying dormant in the soil till the 

 meteorological circumstances under which they ap- 

 peared again arise, or else their viewless spores rising 

 in the atmosphere and borne by the winds to far dis- 

 tant countries, may there hurried downwards by rain, 

 once more spot the green earth. In corroboration of 

 this latter view, out of fifty-six species of fungi 

 gathered by BEETEEO in the distant island of Juan 

 Fernandez, two-thirds were found to be referable to 

 well-known European species. "With respect to the 

 former, I well remember gathering, many years ago, 

 the splendid crimson-red Agaricus rutilans, in a par- 

 ticular fir grove near "Worcester ; but though I have 



* See HOOKER'S Brit. Flor,, Vol. II., Part 2., by BERKELEY, p. 326. 



