76 



In another county, many years ago, a ring, partly beyond a tree, and 

 partly under its braucLes, produced mushrooms graduating from the campestris 

 to the Oeorgii form at the same time. 



These observatiDns seem to indicate that some cause, to us unknown, 

 varies these plants from year to year, and that the Agaricm campestris and 

 A. Oeorgii, are really but one species. 



As the question of fitness for food is involved in some of their vaiiations, 

 and as mushrooms are now much cultivated, these peculiarities may be worth 

 attentive remai-k. 



Postscript. — This year (Sept., 1867,) some mushrooms have grown under 

 a tree, which, thin in cap and slender in stem like Agaricus cam})estris, have the 

 peculiar whiteness of Agaricus Georgii (White Caps is its name in Covent Garden 

 market), and turn yellow on being bruised ; the gills are paler than in a really 

 good mushroom, but not so pale as in A. Georgii, and they have scarcely any 

 scent. They appear exactly intermediate, and are an additional instance of what 

 ij said above. 



Dr. Bull said they were very much obliged to Mrs. Key for introducing 

 the subject of Funguses to the notice of the club, in the paper which had just 

 been read. Whether the two funguses she had named were merely different 

 phases of the same fungus, he would not pretend to say. He vpas not quite 

 sui-e which fungus was meant by the Agaricus Georgii. Berkeley and Cook 

 agreed in calling the Agaricus gambosus "the true St. George's mushroom.V 

 Now this was an early fungus, which appeared in rings at the end of April and 

 May (Saint George's day being April 23rd), whilst the Agaricus cami^estris, or the 

 ordinary mushroom, was an autumnal species, and did not grow so universally in 

 rings. These funguses Berkeley makes not only to be distinct, but he places 

 them in a different genus. From the description given, however, the Agaricus 

 arvensis of Berkeley, or Agaricus (xquisitus of Badham, "the horse mushroom," 

 aa it is called from its larger size, is the kind meant, and this kind is called 

 by Withering and Hooker the Agaricus Georgii. This fungus is also thought 

 generally to be distinct from the ordinary mushroom, and by some is even 

 placed in a separate section. He had gathered them last year at the same time 

 and in the same field, at Eotherwas, the common small mushroom growing 

 aeparately, the horse mushroom growing in rings and large clusters. He did not 

 think the fact of different funguses growing in the same ring proved anything 

 very definitely, for they often did so, and when the seasons of the different 

 kinds were not the same, they would of course succeed each other in the ring. 

 Thus the Agaricus Dryopkilus, personatus, and urens would grow in the ring of 

 the Oreades. Such facts told in favour of there being something peculiar in the 

 condition of the soil in the course of the ring which favoured the growth of 

 funguses. He would not, however, attempt to give any opinion of his own, but 

 would suggest that the observations should be sent to Mr, Cooke, the editor of 

 Science Gossip and the author of British Fungi, 



