ON INDKUCHOT'ND FUNGI. 



disappointment. Still, after thin result, tlie late Mr. Disney, of the 

 Hyde, near lusatestone, made experiments in this direction, and he 

 was so confident of success that I was invited to witness the result of 

 his experiment, the failure of which mij^ht indeed have hecn antici- 

 pated, when it appeared that his experimental specimens of truffles 

 were obtained from the Italian warehouses, consisting of i-efusc slices 

 of truffles, dried by artificial heat. lu one case alone something like 

 germination seemed to have taken place. Experiments more rationally 

 conducted were made at the Horticultural Gardens at Chiswick, but 

 the truffles merely rotted without anything like germination. The result 

 was so unsatisfactory that the experiments were not renewed. Better 

 attempts were made by others in more favourable quarters. In the 

 south of France the Viscomte Noe, who was once well known in this 

 country as an emigre, raised truffles in some abundance by enclosing 

 a tract of ground in the forest to keep off the wild boars, which would 

 at once have devoured everything. The ground was then well watered 

 with fluid in which fresh truffles had been grated, and thus he obtained 

 a supply ; but this could scarcely be called cultivation. Another plan 

 is adopted with gi-eat success in Poitou, which yields the best truffles 

 of Paris. A tract of ground is selected on the downs, and when pro- 

 perly enclosed is sown with acorns, and in a few years, when the seed- 

 lings are w'ell established, there is always an abundant supply which 

 continues for several years, when it generally ceases. It was supposed 

 that the young truffles were parasitic on the rootlets of the seedling 

 oaks, but this has not been proved ; and in many countries they are 

 by no means confined to oaks, indeed, are most abundant when there 

 is an admixture of beech, hazel, and even of conifers. Their site is 

 sometimes easily detected by the presence of an insect belonging to the 

 genus Leiodes, which hovers about them with the view of depositing 

 its eggs in a favourable situation for their introduction into the 

 fungus, and thousands of specimens are in this way destroyed by the 

 larvae of the beetle. 



It is time, however, that 1 should say something of underground 

 Fungi in a scientific point of view. 



It is well known to every one who has paid the least attention to 

 the structure of Fungi and their classification that there are two great 

 types, namely, those which produce their reproductive bodies (spores) 

 on the tips of certain privileged cells called sporophores or basidia, and 

 those which are developed tcithiii certain organisms which are called 

 asci or sacs. The former is considered in general the higher division, 

 including the large tribe of mushrooms, and their numerous close allies 

 for which we have no general popular name, though most of us know- 

 that of the puffballs, and our smell informs us too unpleasantly of the 

 presence or neighbourhood of the stinkhorns, a few, however, of which, 

 especially of exotic species, are extremely beautiful objects. As regards 

 the other branch we have the cup-shaped Fungi, known under the 

 name of Pezizas, some of which attract notice by their splendid 

 colour. 



