BOTANY 



tracts of woodland, extending once from Wansford to Market Har- 

 borough, with many outlying enclosures, yield a never-failing source of 

 interest to the cryptogamic botanist in the variety of fungi, and 

 amongst them many of extreme rarity, of which I will only mention at 

 present Agaricus racemosus, which on the same stem produces two different 

 kinds of fruit, and Agarkus Loveianus, which is parasitic on the pileus 

 of one of our best edible fungi, A. nebularis. . . . The very numerous 

 addition: which have been made to our list of species recorded by myself 

 and Mr. Broome in the Annals of Natural History, amounting nearly to 

 two thousand, have been supplied in great measure from these districts, 

 and other parts of the county are daily yielding a fresh harvest." 



A further reference is of still greater interest. ' I turn to a very 

 interesting class of fungi, and of some importance in an economical 

 point of view, viz. the truffles, whether belonging to the normal group 

 or to those which have been called false truffles — agreeing in their 

 hypogsous habit, but differing altogether in structure. It was once 

 thought that no esculent truffles were to be found in the county, except 

 artificially introduced ; their occurrence at Rushton in the early part of 

 the last century was supposed to have arisen from trees introduced in the 

 plantations from France, but I have seen Tuber cestivutn in the greatest 

 profusion at Apethorpe, and it is well known that the late Mr. Isted 

 collected truffles in some abundance near Northampton. We do not 

 possess at present the black truffle of France, but Tuber cestivutn is not to 

 be despised when in good condition, and indeed is almost the only kind 

 which appears in the London markets, principally from the chalk dis- 

 tricts. No one, as far as I know, has used truffle dogs systematically, 

 with a view to ascertain how far the search for truffles in Northampton- 

 shire would prove remunerative, as it does in Berkshire and Kent. I 

 have seen truffles at Milton, and hear of them elsewhere, as at Norman- 

 ton, in the neighbouring county of Rutland, and though I have myself 

 had no help except the diligent use of the rake, I have found many 

 species, and amongst them a very remarkable form abounding in a milky 

 fluid. Amongst them only one is of sufflcient size and of delicate flavour 

 enough to make it worth collecting as a culinary article ; but under the 

 oaks at Rockingham the large white truffle, belonging to a distinct genus, 

 has been found abundantly, and though not equal to the common summer 

 truffle, it, or a closely allied species, is collected abundantly in the north 

 of Africa, and Mrs. Lloyd Wynne, who has done so much for mycology, 

 saw it plentifully about Damascus.' "^ 



1 "Journ. Northants Nat. Hist. Soc, vol. ii. p. i6o (1882). ' Lot. cit. pp. 160, 161. 



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