HABITATS OF FUNGI. 31 



and colour [Antennaria cellaris) is peculiarly attached to 

 wine-cellars, where it is the pride of the merchant when it 

 hangs about the walls in black powdery tufts. It is not, how- 

 ever, the only occupant of wine-cellars. There is a Fungus, 

 whose exact character is unknown, which first attacks the 

 corks of wine-bottles, destroying their texture, and at length im- 

 pregnates the wine with such an unpleasant taste and odour 

 that it is perfectly unfit for use ; while another, equally ob- 

 scure as to its kindred, after preying upon the corks, sends down 

 branched threads into the liquid, at length I'cndering it a mere 

 caput mortuum. Dry-rot, again, is peculiarly attached to cel- 

 lars, to the destruction of wine-shelves ; and an instance is on 

 record in which this or some other Fungus attacked a cask of 

 wine, and increased to such an extent as to completely block 

 up the entrance. The wood of the cask was the first object of 

 attack, but the wine supplied a great portion of the sus- 

 tenance of this enormous monster, which is only equalled by 

 the great curtain of Dry-rot which lately covered the walls of 

 a sandstone railway tunnel in the north of England. 



Perhaps the most curious circumstance under which Fungi 

 are developed is when they arc found in situations apparently 

 completely excluded from the external air, as the Potato 

 Mould, in the cavities of the fruit of Tomato, Dactylium 

 roseum in the hazel-nut, or a red Penicillium in an egg. The 

 spawn of Fungi, however, is capable of making its way, and 

 that very rapidly, through the closest structures. In some 

 cases its progress from without is easily traced, in others it 

 is wholly obscure, and yet in multitudes of instances, as in 

 a large proportion of the Sphariacei, it is quite certain that 

 it must have penetrated at some period into the matrix, 

 whether in a living or a dead condition. A few minute 

 species, indeed, have never been found in any other situation 



