243 



POLYPOKUS ANNOSUS. Fr. 



Several specimens of a fungus were then exhibited which had been found 

 growing on the shoring timber of an unused gallery in the "Park Slant" coal 

 mine, Tondu Iron "Works, near Bridgend. They were kindly sent by Wm. 

 Adams, Esq., President of the Cardiff Naturalists Society. 



Mr. Adams was desirous of knowing whether they were the fruit 

 of the Bhizomarpha suhterranca, as the matted mass of fibres and fila- 

 ments has been called, which in the coal mines of Germany often shows a 

 beautiful phosphoresence and lightens up with indeseribeable splendour the 

 vaulted arches and passages of the mines, Mr. Adams instituted inquiries 

 amongst the miners as to whether this phoephorescent mycelium had ever been 

 seen in the Welsh colleries, and he obtained distinct evidence that the ap- 

 pearance of the phosphorescent light was well known to the working colliers. 

 In consequence of these inquiiues the funguses now exhibited were brought to 

 him, but there was no evidence of any phosphorescent light about them. They 

 have been carefully examined by Worthington G. Smith, Esq., F.L.S., and 

 pronoxmced to be specimens of PoJyporus annosus Fr., a fungvis of very variable 

 appearance, and which usually grows on old larch stumps. Berkeley thus 

 describe it "pUeus woody, convex, then flattened, rough with tubercles. In 

 the first season brown and silky ; in the second and when old covered with a 

 rigid, smooth, black crust ; substance white ; margin obtuse, whiteish as weU 

 as the middle-sized obtuse pores. Extremely variable, common in some districts." 



There is no record of the mycelium ever having been observed to bo 

 phosphorescent, and therefore Mr. Adams' question cannot positively be 

 answered. However, from the inquiiies he has instituted, he will, doubtless, 

 be told when the phosphorescent light is again observed in the coal mines. 

 Then by a careful examination of its source, and by observing whether it 

 . produces any distinct fungus much more Ught may be thrown upon it. 



FAIRY RINGS. 

 Dr. Bdll said he would take that opportunity of reminding the members 

 of the club that at the last meeting of the ensuing year — the one appointed for a 

 " Foray amongst the Funguses" — a discussion would take place on the causation of 

 "Fairy Rings." It was a subject of considerable difficulty, and there could be 

 no hope of any satisfactory result being arrived at unless they would take the 

 trouble to make careful observations through the year. They were aware that 

 the most commonly accepted theory of their formation was what was called 

 the "centiifugal theory," that is, that they sprung from a single fungus, and 

 that the mycelium or underground plant would not grow two years on the same 

 ground, and could only grow therefore on the outer margin of the exhausted 

 soil, and so the ring grew larger from year to year. Mr. Lees, on the contrary, 

 in the excellent paper read at their last meeting, maintained that the rings 

 often appeared of large size at once, that the mycelium would grow wherever 



