A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



instance. It was dying out there in 1876, and the last specimen was 

 gathered in November of that year. It is noteworthy that it also died 

 out about the same time from its original habitat at Rothiemurchus in 

 Invernesshire. This species, however, was refound in Norfolk by Mr. 

 C. T. M. Plowright, on sawdust, in West Briggs Wood, Wormegay, on 

 October 29th, 1899, on which occasion Nidularia conjiuens was added to 

 the county flora. 



The peculiar predilection certain species have for certain food-stufFs 

 does not, however, preclude some curious anomalies in their place of 

 growth : for instance, Agaricus campestris was found on a wall in Broad 

 Street, Lynn, a few years ago, the mycelium having extended through 

 the wall from a heap of stable manure on the other side ; Tulostoma 

 mammosum, a very infrequent fungus with us, used to grow on some 

 old walls in Norwich, from which however it has long disappeared, 

 was found on a wall at Heacham in 1896, but most extraordinary to 

 relate, it came up between the granite setts in the pavement in King 

 Street, Lynn, a couple of years previously. Morchella esculenta we 

 always associated with woods, but some years ago a single specimen 

 came up in a small garden of not more than sixty square yards area in 

 the middle of the town of Kings Lynn. Perhaps, however, the most 

 remarkable illustration is afforded by Psilocybe bullacea, which for two 

 or three years grew in the cranial cavity of a whale's skull at the West 

 Norfolk Farmers Manure Company's Works at Lynn. On the other 

 hand certain species can be gathered year after year, sometimes few in 

 numbers sometimes many, but always within a few feet of the same 

 spot. Volvaria taylori was first found on the sea bank, North Lynn, in 

 July, 1 87 1, and has regularly reappeared up to the present season (1900) 

 when specimens were brought me from the same spot. Clitocybe 

 incilis may be found year by year on the Castle Rising road, within 

 twenty yards of the spot in which the first specimen was gathered in 

 1880. Polyporus intybaceus has for the last twenty years grown inside the 

 same hollow oak in South Wootton, but although it is always the same 

 tree yet certain seasons the fungus fails to put in an appearance. 



What has been said about the pecuHar affinity of the larger sapro- 

 phytic fungi for certain food-stuffs applies equally to the smaller kinds : 

 for example, wherever a heap of spent hops is deposited sooner or later 

 Peziza omphaloides will appear on it ; old ivy sticks will develop Nectria 

 sinopica ; old nettle stems Peziza fusar hides . Other instances are afforded 

 by P. Jirma on dead oak ; P. echinophila on dead chestnut husks ; Phy- 

 comyces nitens on waste oil ; Nectria inaurata on holly sticks. 



With regard to parasitic fungi the tendency among biologists at 

 present is, if anything, to carry this too far and to make difference in 

 host-plant an index of the specific value of the fungus with the Uredineas 

 and Ustilagineae ; this however leads us beyond our present purpose. 



Norfolk is rich in JJredinece ; this is shown by the fact that we have 

 no less than twenty-two out of the twenty-eight species of the British 

 hetercecious Puccinis. It is interesting to remember that the heteroecious 



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