198 DONCASTEK FUNGUS^ ETC. \July , 



neum and G. pratense, Verbascum Thapsus, Lycopsis arvensie, 

 Alchemilla alpina, Orchis viridis, Trollius europaiis, Vaccinium 

 Myrtillus, aud the different varieties of Heath and Ling^ among 

 the plants we met with in our various rambles. On the summit 

 of Goatfell we gathered most lovely specimens of Saooifraga stel- 

 laris, of a larger size and more luxuriant habit than any I have 

 seen on the mountains in the Lake district. 



Should this brief notice induce any lovers of scenery and wUd- 

 flowers to pass a few days or weeks in the Island of Arran, they 

 will in all probability be enabled to add many more plants to the 

 list here recorded. M. E. C. 



Birkenhead, May \GtJi, 1859. 



DONCASTEE FUNGUS, ETC. 

 By John Bohler. 



The Doncaster Fungus, of which there have been so much 

 paragraphing in the newspapers, and placarding as the " largest 

 Fungus in the world/' (although if carefully taken off the stone 

 and weighed, it would be under two ounces,) is the mycelium of 

 Merulius lachrymans, growing in an excavacation into a hill of 

 New Red Sandstone, made for the convenience of getting a main 

 sewer for the town drainage on to a lower level called the Carrs. 

 There are several oak-beams in this cavern always moist through 

 dampness. On one of these beams, about twenty months since, 

 a small nucleus appeared, thence spreading out like a fan into 

 a beautiful white byssoid film, creeping over the sandstone, and 

 adhering closely to all its inequalities. Commencing thus at a 

 single point on this roof-beam, it spread each way to the rock, 

 forming two elegant lobes, each lobe retaining its byssoid form 

 until its outer edge had spread three or four feet from the centre, 

 where it begins to show a veiny appearance ; the veins elongate 

 as it spreads outward. 



The elongation has extended by a li^t drab-coloured web, 

 until now it is about sixteen feet to the outer edge of each lobe. 

 The lobe on the western side of the cavern has shrunk into a 

 brown-coloured web, and is fast perishing. The opposite one is 

 still growing, and, as if subject to the influence of seasons, has, 

 since I saw it in November, 1858, revived, assuming a more 



