206 ROMANCE OF LOW LIFE AMONGST PLANTS. 



the one, in fact, being frequently the handmaid of the 

 other. The hardest wood, however, yields, though 

 more slowly, to the same agent, and indeed far more 

 rapidly than it would do under the action of mere 

 climatic conditions. A stump of one of our largest 

 trees, if once attacked by fungi, will in a short time 

 present a mere mass of touchwood, which is nothing 

 more than woody tissue traversed and disorganized 

 by mycelium. The same stump, if simply left to the 

 action of the weather, might be half a century before 

 it was fairly decayed. The appearance of such a 

 fungus as Polyponis sqnavwsus is the sure harbinger 

 of speedy decay. Nor is the case much mended 

 supposing vegetation still to exist in the stump ; for 

 though the mycelium cannot prey on cells full of 

 vital energy, life is so depressed by the presence and 

 contact of tissues already diseased that the healthiest 

 soon fall a prey to the spreading mycelium. There 

 are, indeed, hundreds of fungi of the most varying 

 size, form, and appearance, which more or less 

 speedily accomplish the same end ; and there is 

 sometimes a host equally fatal to some individual 

 species." 



In addition to the foregoing, it is scarcely neces- 

 sary to do more than mention the name of the " dry 

 rot," which exhibits the destructive ravages of fungi 

 in a somewhat extreme form. Although the mischief 

 is caused in the majority of instances by that which 

 is known as the " dry-rot fungus " {Mendiiis lacry- 

 inaJis), there are other and scarcely less destructive 

 species which work in a similar manner. The ravages 

 they commit in ships, and all kinds of wooden struc- 



