620 



of the flower :" wc are next told that "the whole body of the fungus" 

 is '' the analogue of the flower in higher plants" and lastly we learn 

 that "just in the same way as the calyx and corolla stand in the 

 relation of nutritive organs to the more especially reproductive stamens 

 and pistil, so do the pileus and stipes stand in the relation of nutritive 

 organs to the hymenium." It must be admitted that these assertions 

 are rather obscure and contradictory, and of course it is no part of 

 our duty to explain or harmonise them ; the pith of the paragraph 

 is in this line, " the whole body of the fungus is the analogue of the 

 flower in higher plants^ Now we believe this to mean that an 

 agaric, a mushroom for instance, is merely the flower of a plant, and 

 not an entire plant, as has been so frequently supposed. This we 

 take to be a true and valuable observation. Some years have elapsed 

 since a paper was written and handed about among botanists, entitled 

 the ' Theory of Fairy Rings.' It was pronounced to be wild and 

 hypothetical, and the author was dissuaded from committing himself 

 by its publication. But although all agreed in pronouncing the 

 entire paper worthless, some parts of it were thought less exception- 

 able than other parts, indeed it found readers who condescended to 

 borrow a passage here, and an idea there, to patronise a fact, or adopt 

 a suggestion, until in one shape or other the contents of the paper 

 have been pretty widely disseminated, although the paper itself was 

 pronounced valueless. 



The ' Theory of Fairy Rings' was something in this way. The 

 seed* of an agaric was supposed to be carried by the wind to a cer- 

 tain spot in some open down, and there to germinate ; assuming a 

 shape totally different from the mushroom from whence it sprang, it 

 was supposed to become entirely subterranean, to consist of white 

 tortuous thread-like fibres, the ramifications of which radiated from 

 the spot where the seed had fallen, their extremities forming the cir- 

 cumference of a small circle, the extent whereof was shown on the sur- 

 face of the soil, by the short herbage assuming a more intense green. 

 Up to this point it must be admitted much was conjectural, but here 

 observations and admeasurements began : the circles were found 

 to increase annually in size, and while the circumference retained 

 the brighter green, the centre reassumed the usual livery of the 

 down. Experiments, carefully conducted, proved the existence of the 

 fibrous fungus beneath the greener circumference of the circle and its 

 absence from the superficies. Here then appeared to be a new plant, 



* We use the terra in preference to either of the odd names which have been invent- 

 ed to mystify beginners. 



