FUNGI. 253 



to seek them in fields where sheep were browsing. It 

 is a curious phenomenon, the suddenness with which all 

 fungi appear in a locality, often following upon some 

 new dressing of the land. In a pamphlet on the botany 

 of Gloucestershire, I saw a note illustrative of this. An 

 intelligent farmer gave a heavy dressing of salt to a field 

 of grass which had been frequently flooded by an adjacent- 

 brook, the inundations of which had rendered the grass 

 sour. The following; autumn the field was covered with 

 mushrooms, "one person -alone sold £20 worth of buttons 

 for pickling." In this and analagous cases the proba- 

 bility is that the spawn is already present in the soil, but 

 needs some extra principle to enable it to spring into 

 vitality. In the Gloucestershire pasture, the wanting 

 element was evidently supplied by the salt. 



The Field Mushroom (P. arvensis) is a large and 

 coarse species, also edible, and much sold in Covent 

 Garden for stewing. 



The Verdigris psalliota (P. aeruginosus, Plate XVII., 

 Jig. 11), is remarkable for its rare tint. The full glaucous 

 green is very seldom found among fungi, and we hailed 

 it with triumph one autumn morning when we were 

 gathering hops in a Kentish lane. In youth this fungus 

 is conical, but spreads as it nears maturity, but the 

 raised centre of the cap never becomes plane. The 

 hemispherical Psalliota (P. semiglobatus) is a frequent 

 denizen of stubble fields and pastures, its cap brown, and 

 its folds filling in the cupola formed by the rounded 

 head — the spores here are darker than in the other 

 members of the group. 



The Hypholoma group is characterised by a web-like 



