THE HONEY FUNGUS 165 



X 



cover them with a few handfuls of grass or bracken to 

 preserve the moisture round the stools and maintain suit- 

 able conditions for the germination of the spores. 



Perhaps the most convenient fungi for this purpose are 

 Daedalea quercina, a bracket-shaped fungus with large 

 labyrinthine pores on the lower surface : Hyplioloma fasci- 

 cularis, a toadstool not very unlike the honey fungus, but 

 smaller, scaleless, and with greenish -brown gills : and Collybia 

 velutipes, another tufted yellow toadstool with a black 

 velvety base to the stipe. But there are many other species 

 which by their commonness will commend themselves to 

 the intelligent sylviculturist. 



Hartig recommends that attacked trees should be at once 

 rooted out and all infected parts burned, and also that an 

 isolation trench should be dug round such trees to prevent 

 the spread of the rhizomorphs. This advice is ill-conceived. 

 An isolation trench round an infected tree can never be 

 actually harmful, but it is generally so much labour wasted. 

 Symptoms of the disease are usually evinced in spring or 

 summer, when transpiration is greatest and the needles die 

 and shrivel up through lack of water. But steps cannot be 

 effectively taken against the fungus till autumn, when the 

 toadstools appear and show the extent to which the fungus 

 has spread. It is then nearly always discovered that some 

 stump near the dead tree is acting as a base of attack. 



A trench dug round the affected tree which does not also 

 include this stump is about as much use as the isolation of 

 a single cow with foot-and-mouth disease on a farm which is 

 devastated by the complaint. The correct procedure is to 

 dig up and burn the roots of an infected tree as soon as the 

 attack is discovered, and to mark the place for treatment 

 in the autumn. At the end of September further action 

 should be taken. The first essential is to be able to recognize 

 the fructifications of the fungus ; it is thought that with 

 the help of the description and photographs in this chapter 

 any one unacquainted with it may familiarize himself with 

 its distinctive features. Armed with this knowledge the 

 area infected with the fungus can be surveyed, and all the 



