FUNGUS-BLIGHTS OF QUEENSLAND. 389 



such as wood, decomposed bark, &:c. ; such, therefore, should 

 never be referred to as bhghts. The species of this habit are 

 not restricted to any particular tribe or genus, for one meets 

 with some of the largest forms of Agaricini and Polyporei in 

 these situations.- And, again, some amongst the moulds should 

 not be classed as blights infesting living vegetation, ahhough 

 such may appear to be the case to the superficial observer. 

 Such plants are rather means employed in the economy of 

 nature for the utilisation of dead matter. Of course under 

 cultivation dead or decaying matter is removed by the culti- 

 vator, and therefore fungi of the kinds above referred to are 

 seldom taken any notice of, except in a botanic sense. The 

 amateur cultivator, however, with which class Queensland is 

 so well stocked, looks with alarm at many such species, 

 and thus when he sees by his ill-cultivation that his young 

 plants of tobacco, &c. are, as the gardener terms it, " damping 

 off"," he at once fancies that some new subtle fungus pest has 

 attacked his crop, and he flies off to the mycologist to inform 

 him as to the name of the particular fungus, and for some 

 particular specific for its destruction. These misfortunes also 

 occur to the cultivator of experience, but he will not accuse 

 the innocent fungus which may be at the time found upon the 

 rotting plants, and which has not been the first cause, but is 

 only carrying out one of the first laws of nature in utilising 

 matter. He will at once attribute the loss to its true cause, 

 that he has not given suflacient attention to drainage, has 

 sown too thickly, watered too freely or insufficiently, or some 

 sudden change in the weather over which he had no control, 

 but, having learned by experience, will do his best to guard 

 against a future loss from a similar cause. 



By some cultivators, whose practical knowledge of agri- 

 culture and horticulture is but hmited, the deaths which 

 frequently occur in plants of rapid growth during our summer 

 time is attributed to some fungus, when no plant of this kind 

 has had anything to do with the cause of death, and if a 

 fungus is present it will be found to belong to those common 

 to all decomposing vegetable matter. In all probabihty these 

 deaths are caused by the root being overcharged with water ; 

 they become, as it were, "dropsical." Passion vines, pelar- 

 goniums, and many soft-wooded rapid-growing plants are 

 very apt to die off" in this manner in the months of October, 

 November, and February. 



I have been led to extend these remarks to probably a 

 greater length than will be deemed advisable in a paper to 



