10 



JOUENAL OF HOETICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



[ July 8, 1866. 



From Havant Thicket I passed on to Stoke's Bay, and as I sat 

 upon the beach watching the " Pearl " steaming up and down 

 the Bay, in sight of the fair Isle of Wight, I gathered close by 

 my side the handsome yellow Glaucium flavum, Sedum angli- 

 oum, Statice armeria, Hieracium pilosella, the silvery Poten- 

 tilla anserina, and many another little flower which gladdened 

 the sandy waste by its bright presence, while the neighbouring 

 eorn fields were brilliant with the deep blue of Centaurea 

 qyanus, and the fiery Papaver rhajas. 



I noticed in the hedges Polystichum angulare, but I did not 

 make any particular search till I arrived in the neighbourhood 

 of the New Forest, where, in many a grassy lane and sheltered 

 hedge, I knew that I should be rewarded by finding Ferns of 

 many species, and, as I hoped, of many varieties. I remem- 

 bered how in days gone by, the adders and I had glided in and 

 out amongst Bracken and silvery Birch and Hornbeam, at- 

 tracted by the same sunbeams playing on our path, and each 

 darting away scared at the other's presence. I remembered 

 the tall Lastreas in the Embley Wood, and how I had sat 

 down there on a stile, puzzling with rueful face over different 

 aperies which to my untutored eyes would not seem distinct. 

 I remembered the deep blue of the undulating distance trans- 

 formed into liquid light as the rich gleams of tho setting sun 

 fell upon it ; the sheltered nooks, with the pretty cottage, and 

 the gleeful children playing about the doors ; the white bloom 

 of the " merry » trees. I called to mind the tall Osmundas 

 of the forest ; the green banks of Asplenium adiantum-ni- 

 grurn; the ditches of Blechnum spicant, together with the 

 fair waters of the Ehododendron-bordered lake, where for the 

 first time I had found the bright Narthecium ossifragum, and 

 over whose surface, when frozen, I had been many times 

 ignommiously skated in a chair. I knew the home of 'Lastrea 

 montana, and the lanes where Polystichum aculeatum would 

 leave no room for angulare. I had heard how Asplenium tri- 

 chomanes had gradually retreated from its old haunts to more 

 out-of-the way localities; so, armed with my trowel and my 

 bag, I had little else to do than to rush off to the different 

 spots, collect what I required, searching as I went for anything 

 new. 



I found no Lastrea cristata var. spinulosa, but I did find a 

 handsome form of Lastrea, of which one of our best Fern 

 authorities writes—" This Lastrea is one that has puzzled me 

 a great deal, and I have often in the lake district gone up to 

 it believing it to be an Atlryrium, and then found out my mis- 

 take. Whether it is a species or a variety of propinqua (I think 

 certainly not of Filix-mas), I cannot yet determine. It is de- 

 lieiously hay-scented, which is different to the other forms." 



Of Athyrium Filix-fcemina I found a beautiful varietv, in 

 form like odontomanes, but more delicately chiselled. I have 

 long cherished a hope that eventually what is now called the 

 Tariety odontomanes may be recognised as a species, and a 

 separate place in Ferndom be assigned to it. 



Should my Athyrium prove worthy, I shall dedicnte it to 

 Miss Florence Nightingale, for it grew where her footsteps 

 must have often fallen as she walked to and fro on her errands 

 of mercy. — Febn-Hunthess. 



NOTES on TRUFFLES and TRUFFLE CULTURE. 



BY C. E. BROOME, ESQ. 



The numerous varieties of Fungi that are exposed for sale 

 in the markets of France and Italy must induce a feeling of 

 surprise that so little attention has been paid to their culture 

 by the horticulturists both of Great Britain and the Continent. 

 The Mushroom is the only species at all commonly made use 

 of in this country ; the Blewitt may sometimes, indeed, be 

 seen in Covent Garden, hut it is a species far inferior in flavour 

 to many others of our Fungi, and it is certainly not the pro- 

 duce of our gardens. Truffles, which are frequently seen, and 

 so highly esteemed in continental markets as to command a 

 high price, are comparatively rarely to be met with in our own, 

 and even Covent Garden can boast but of one native kind, and 

 that an inferior one— viz., Tuber ;r;stivum. There are, how- 

 ever, various reasons for this neglect of Nature's benefits that 

 operate with us, that do not apply with equal force to our con- 

 tinental neighbours, such as distressing cases of poisoning from 

 the indiscriminate use of Fungi gathered by persons ignorant 

 of the qualities of the various species, a danger in great measure 

 guarded against abroad by the appointment of an official person 

 capable of determining the noxious or innocent nature of the 

 species brought for sale. What tends, however, still more, I 



perhaps, to increase our objection to their use, is the natural 

 inaptitude of our countrymen to acquire the art of cookery, 

 which is a very important element in suiting these plants to 

 human digestion ; added to which, there is the difficulty of 

 adopting new customs, or changes of diet. Were a taste for 

 these productions, however, once established, we should soon 

 find numerous species brought forward as valuable additions 

 to our means of sustenance. 



Notwithstanding that Truffles have been considered articles of 

 luxury, and have commanded a high price from the time of the 

 Romans down to the present, and that it has ever been the 

 aim of horticulturists to bring them into the number of re- 

 gular garden crops, they seem hitherto to have defied all efforts 

 to reclaim them, and to resemble, in their intractable disposi- 

 tion, the wild ass, ' ' whose house has been made the wilderness, 

 and the barren land his dwellings, who scorueth the multitude 

 of the city, and the range of the mountains is his pasture." 

 If this, then, be a correct representation of their character, it 

 is a question whether it would not be easier to cultivate them 

 by assisting Nature in her own way, than to restrict her within 

 our limits by forcing these denizens of the forest to occupy a 

 place in our kitchen gardens. It would seem, indeed, that the 

 amount of shade they demand is such as to be incompatible 

 with the requirements of a garden. But let us see what has 

 been done hitherto in the various endeavours made to grow 

 Truffles by the assistance of art. And here we cannot do 

 better than give the information with which the Messrs. Tu- 

 lasne present us in their beautiful work on Hypogasous Fungi. 

 They mention four species of Truffles exclusively in use in 

 France — viz., T. melanosporum, T. brumale, T. restivum, and 

 T. mesentericum, of which two, or perhaps three, occur in 

 Great Britain. Tuber icstivum is apparently the only species 

 to be met with in a recent state in our shops ; T. mesentericum 

 may at times occur, but it has not yet been noticed there. 

 T. brumale, if our plant is identical with Tulasne's, has 

 hitherto been found in England of too small a size to be worth 

 sending to market. In Italy there are other kinds, one of 

 which, T. maguatum, commands a higher price than any other; 

 and in the southern parts of Italy, Sicily, Syria, and Africa, 

 another species, Terfezia leonis, is of common use as an 

 article of food. 



The true Truffles have rough seeds, which, seen under the 

 older and imperfect microscopes, resembled somewhat a Truffle 

 in miniature, and early writers concluded that the mature 

 plant was merely one of these seeds largely developed in all 

 directions. The Tulasnes have proved, however, by careful 

 observations that they germinate in the same way as do those 

 of most other Fungi — viz., by giving origin to delicate threads, 

 which spread in the surrounding soil, and that from such 

 threads the young Truffles arise, probably after some kind of 

 impregnation, which is as yet, notwithstanding the researches 

 of recent observers, involved in obscurity. The fact of the 

 existence of a mycelium in Truffles, resembling that of Mush- 

 rooms, must be taken into consideration in any attempt that 

 may be made to cultivate them. 



The soils in which edible Truffles are found in France are 

 always calcareous or calcareous clays, which accords generally 

 with my own experience. Tuber mesentericum occurs, how- 

 ever, in ferruginous sands, as is also the case with another 

 species, Hydnotrya Tulasnei, which, or a closely allied kind, is 

 largely eaten in Bohemia, under the name of Czerwena Tar- 

 toffle. Messrs. Tulasne describe the soil of a Truffle district 

 near Loudun, Vienne, as composed of rolled fragments of cal- 

 careous matter, mixed with fine quartzose sauds, lying on a 

 thick bed of compact marly clay, which easily splits up into 

 thin layers. It contains, in 1000 parts, 500 of calcareous 

 matter, 325 of clay and iron, 150 of quartzose sand, and 

 25 parts, more or less, of vegetable mould. But they attribute 

 a still great influence in the production of these plants to the 

 presence of trees — a condition necessary perhaps to their 

 growth, in order to keep off the heat of the direct sun-rays. 

 Our authors testify, indeed, that this is not always indispens- 

 able ; and I have seen Truffles dug up on the bare sloping 

 sides of the Italian mountains. 



Some persons have supposed that these Fungi are parasitia 

 ou the roots of trees. This the Tulasnes expressly deny, on 

 the strength of observations and inquiries instituted to that 

 end, and I can confirm them in this matter, and would remark 

 that the frequent presence of certain galls attached to the 

 small roots of Oaks, resembling young Truffles so strongly as 

 often to deceive me for a time, may have given origin to this 

 error. 



