60 
whether, under similar conditions, the same fungus may not appear in widely 
separated countries. 
Funguses, as well as other plants, require nutriment for their support, and a 
strong nutriment, too, that enlarges their cellular structure, and induces that 
impulsive sudden growth that fills the woods with Agarics and other fungi at the 
autumnal season in so short atime. The impulse is almost as sudden as the dis- 
charge of a gun, but exhaustion very soon follows, and some Agarics are so fragile 
after their expansion that a breath withers them, and others dissolve into liquidity 
very soon after gathering. The impulsive force that elevates an agaric or boletus 
must be very great, for instances have been known of their lifting considerable 
weights. Only a fortnight since the flag pavement in front of a tradesman’s resi- 
dence in the High-street, Worcester, was lifted up and this so near his celler grating, 
that he believed that burglars had made an attempt upon his premises, and the 
police were sent for to investigate the matter. On the flag-stone being entirely 
removed, three huge mushrooms were found beneath it, having very thick com- 
pressed stalks, and these, in their efforts to see the light of day, had considerably 
uplifted a flag-stone of more than 80 pounds weight. The incident was inserted in 
the Worcester Herald, with the heading, ‘‘ Attempted Burglary by Mushrooms.” 
That certain funguses do suddenly appear—perhaps from peculiar meteor- 
ological conditions—and then disappear altogether from the locality they were 
noticed in, is certain ; but I must admit also, that imperfect observation may in 
some instances account for apparent anomalies—not, however in all. Dr. Wither- 
ing, late in the last century, detected and described the Agarics and Boleti that 
grew in Edgbaston Park, near Birmingham, and several of these have never 
appeared again, though the park has been searched by myself and other observant 
botanists. Mr. Stackhouse, a correspondent of Dr. Withering, also mentions 
some rare Agarics that he gathered in Caplar Wood, near Hereford, which 
we have since searched for in vain. Mr. Berkeley in his “Outlines of 
Fungology,” mentions several species figured and]idescribed by Bolton in his 
‘* Fungi of Halifax,” and by Sowerby, in his “‘ English Fungi,” which have never 
been again observed in this country. Indeed, it must be within the experience of 
every practical fungologist, that unless he gathers an uncommon fungus at the time 
he notices it, he willnot find it again at the same spot another year. So that there 
is no certainty that localities put down for rare Agarics or Boleti, as well as other 
funguses, will reproduce them in successive years. I have been often disappointed 
in searching for rings of Zricholoma gambosus and Clitocybe geotropus where they 
were evident to view the year before. and so with many other of the rarer species 
of fungi, I have, however been in the habit for many years past of sketching all 
funguses that came under my observation, and some of those that I have only been 
able to find once or twice through a lapse of years, may excite your curiosity and 
deserve attention for their rarity. 
[Mr. Lees then exhibited many careful drawings illustrative of his remarks, 
which included Agaricus flabelliformis,?Marasmius alliaceus, Nyctalis parasitica, 
