110 SAPROPHYTES IN THE HUMUS OF WOODS, MEADOWS, AND MOORS 
Woods are also the special abode of fungi, and the damp ground is covered towards 
autumn by innumerable quantities of their curious fructifications. Dropped needles 
and cones, leaves and sticks strewn upon the ground, fallen trunks, and even the 
dark amorphous dust arising from the mouldering of these bodies and of the 
numerous roots ramifying in the ground, appear to be perforated by and wrapped 
in the protoplasmic threads of plasmoid fungi, or similarly invested by a plexus 
of filaments, the so-called mycelia of other forms of fungi. Amongst the scaly 
fragments of bark, peeling from the trees, they appear in the form of slimy strings, 
or as a dark trellis and net-work, inserted between the bark and wood of the 
rotting tree; on the stripped white trunk they are in dark zigzag lines like 
those of forked lightning; and between, the white mycelia of huge toadstools and 
tremellas are woven in all directions. Here and there large areas of the brown 
decaying soil are flecked and speckled by these mycelia, and even the dead stems 
of the mosses on the ground are festooned with white fleece, and wrapped round 
by hyphee. 
It is worth while to glance too at the reciprocal relations of these woodland 
plants. We find mosses, lycopods, and various ferns and phanerogams living 
upon the fallen twigs and needles, and on the mouldering roots of pines and fir- 
trees. The dead remains of those plants afford sustenance to the fungi, which lift 
their fructification above the bed of moss. In their turn the rotting fructifications 
of the larger fungi form a nutrient substratum for smaller fungi, which cover the 
decaying caps and stalks with a dark-green velvet. Lastly, these little fungi, too, 
fall a prey to corrupting bacteria, and are resolved into the same simple imorganie 
compounds as were absorbed from the air and earth, in the first instance, by the 
pines and fir-trees. In the depths of forests there is going on, for the most part 
unseen by us, a mysterious stir and strife, accompanied by an uninterrupted process 
of exchange between the living and the dead, and a marvellous transformation of 
those very substances whose secret we have only partially succeeded in solving. 
The results of cultivation have proved that in the group of flowering-plants 
belonging to the woodlands of Central and Northern Europe, which derive sus- 
tenance partially or entirely from the organic compounds afforded by the humus, 
are to be included, amongst others, the various species of coral-wort (Dentaria 
bulbifera, D. digitata, D. enneaphyllos), Circea alpina, Galiwm rotundifolium, 
and Linnea borealis, and above all a large number of orchids. Of these, Dentaria 
prefers mould produced from the beech leaves, and Circea, Galium, and Linnea 
appertain to the mould of pine-woods. Of the orchids some are provided with 
green leaves, as, for instance, the delicate little Listera cordata, Goodyera repens 
remarkable for its villous petals, and the various species of Cephalanthera, Epi- 
pactis, and Platanthera; others, such as Limodorum abortivum, the bird’s-nest 
orchis, the coral-root, and Epipogiwm aphyllum have none. Limodorwm abortivum 
belongs rather to the warmer districts of Central Europe. It has fleshy root- 
fibres, twisted and twined into an inextricable ball, and a slender steel-blue stem, 
over half a metre in height, bearing a lax spike of fairly large flowers, which 
