HABITATS. 245 



others, we have examples of one spheeriaceous fungus growing 

 upon another. 



Mr. Phillips has recently indicated the species of fungi found 

 by him on charcoal beds in Shropshire,* but, useful as it is, that 

 only refers to one locality. A complete list of all the fungi 

 which have been found growing on charcoal beds, burnt soil, 

 or charred wood, would be rather extensive. The fungi found 

 in hothouses and stoves are also numerous, and often of con- 

 siderable interest from the fact that they have many of them 

 never been found elsewhere. Those found in Britain, f for in- 

 stance, are excluded from the British Flora as doubtful, because, 

 growing upon or with exotic plants, they are deemed to be of 

 exotic origin, yet in very few cases are they known to be inha- 

 bitants of any foreign country. Some species found in such 

 localities are not confined to them, as Agaricus ccepestipes, 

 Agaricus cristatus, JEthalium vaporarium, &c. It is somewhat 

 singular that certain species have a predilection for growing in 

 proximity with other plants with which they do not appear to 

 have any more intimate relation. Truffles, for instance, in asso- 

 ciation with oaks, Peziza lanuginosa under cedar-trees, Hyd- 

 nangium carneum about the roots of Eucalypti, and numerous 

 species of Aqaricini, which are only found under trees of a par- 

 ticular kind. . As might be anticipated, there is no more fertile 

 habitat for fungi than the dung of animals, and yet the kinds 

 found in such locations belong to but a few groups. Amongst 

 the Discomycetes, a limited number of the genus Peziza are 

 fimicolous, but the allied genus Ascobolus, and its own imme- 

 diate allies, include amongst its species a large majority that are 

 found on dung. If we take the number of species at sixty-four, 

 there are only seven or eight which do not occur on dung, whilst 

 fifty-six are fimicolous. The species of Sphceria which are found 

 on the same substances are also closely allied, and some Conti- 

 nental authors have grouped them under the two proposed 



* "Gardener's Chronicle," 1874. 



J- W. G. Smith, in " Journ. Botany," March, 1873; Berkeley, in " Grevillea," 

 vol. i. p. 88. 



