200 



is dead. The tree, however, has a forlorn hope (seldom gratified) that some 

 passing fungologist may for the time being play the part of a bailiff's officer, and 

 present a writ of ejectment in the shape of a powerful knife. When this does 

 occur to the "vegetable beef-steak," there's a moral in the terrible fate of the 

 lodger, for the fungus will certainly undergo vivisection and pass through the 

 fiery ordeal of the frying-pan. 



In all these pictures the spore, and the fungus it produces, is made the 

 type of treachery and deceit, the active agent of silent but inevitable destruction; 

 but this is not true to nature. The spore does not cause the decay of the tree ; 

 it simply grows upon the disease and decay it finds there. The fungus protrud- 

 ing from the bark is indeed often the very first sign of anything being wrong 

 with the tree, but it tells the thoughtful owner of the existence of decay there 

 as plainly as possible. He must cut down the tree at once if he would save his 

 timber, or if the tree's life is an object, he must seek out the cause of its partial 

 decay and quickly remove it. 



Thus from this Life on Decay and Death, in all its varied forms of interest 

 and beauty, the poet and the moralist might draw brighter and more hopeful 

 lessons, and their greater truthfulness to nature would lend a force to the 

 picture and a soundness to the moral which they cannot otherwise possess. 



It is not the object of this paper, however, to enter into the subject of 

 the uses and merits of Fungi, nor to discuss the part played in nature by this 

 form of vegetable life, but simply to point out the several species that inhabit 

 trees. 



The parasitic fungi of forest trees are very numerous ; the varieties are of 

 every shape, and size, and quality : amongst them figure the largest as well 

 as the most minute, and the hardest as well as the softest of all known fungi. 

 Some are often so large as to resemble a table both in size and substance, whilst 

 others are so small as to require the microscope to detect their presence. "When 

 once established, whether large or small, they live at the expense of the tree on 

 which they grow, and indeed sometimes hasten its decay. Some large ones 

 distil the sap in drops from the tree, as Poly poms dryadeus, Fr., common on 

 the oak, and Polyporus hkpidus, Fr., common on the ash. The minute fungi for 

 the most part are content to prey upon the leaves, the small twigs, or even the 

 fallen and half decayed leaves of the previous year. 



All these parasitic fungi originate from spores beyond a doubt, and that 

 they should always be ready to appear under circumstances which favour the 

 growth, will not be so much wondered at, when the infinite multitude of spores 

 which is produced from a single fungus is taken into consideration. These 

 minute reproductive bodies, invisible to the naked eye, as separately they are, 

 will yet by their aggregate incomprehensible numbers, form a thick dust beneath 

 a single Polyporus. As these spores are set free when ripe, they are carried in 

 every direction by the wind. Such few as may alight on the decayed spot of a 

 tree, or other suitable nidus immediately germinate, and all others are lost. 



