OF BRITISH FUNGI. 5 



fungus ; if pickles acquire a bad taste, if ketchup 

 turns ropy and putrefies, fungi have a finger in it all. 

 Their reign stops not here they even prey on each 

 other. The close cavities of nuts occasionally afford 

 concealment to some species ; others, like leeches, 

 stick to the bulbs of plants, and suck them dry ; and 

 some pick timber to pieces as men pick oakum." Hop- 

 mildew, vine-disease, turnip-mildew, bunt, smut, ergot, 

 potato-murrain, pea and wheat mildew, may all be 

 traced to them as the fertile source of mischief. 



That fungi may be developed under, apparently, the 

 most unfavourable circumstances, may be gathered from 

 an instance recorded by Schweinitz, of a blacksmith at 

 Salem, who, having thrown on one side a piece of iron 

 which he had just taken from the fire, was called off 

 to some other business, and on his return in the morning 

 was astonished to see on this very piece, lying over the 

 water on his smith's trough, a mass of fungi two feet in 

 length. It had crept from the iron to some adjacent 

 wood, and not from the wood to the iron. This im- 

 mense mass had grown during the space of twelve hours. 

 The Rev. M. J. Berkeley also found a species of fungus 

 vegetating on a lead cistern at Kew ; and Sowerby, the 

 author of an illustrated work on British Fungi, pub- 

 lished more than half a century since, found a species 

 growing on some cinders on the outside of the dome of 

 St. Paul's. 



Nor are these plants less worthy of notice on account 

 of the rapidity of their growth. The great Puff Ball 

 springs up in a marvellous manner to the size of a 



