I02 Cheesman : Christmas Aftcnioons Fungus Ramble. 



almost useless to look for fungi down the drives and open spaces 

 in the wood ; in September these were all ablaze with Amanita 

 muscaria, the big- scarlet king of fungi, which is at once the 

 handsomest as well as the most poisonous of our British species; 

 the orange-coloured Pesiza aurantia, and many others. Our 

 examination of old stumps and rotting wood proved most 

 fruitful : Polystictus versicolor, with its varied hues and multi- 

 coloured zones ; the ubiquitous Sfereuni hirsutum, and here and 

 there S. purpureum and Xylaria hypoxylon, the black and 

 white 'candle-snuff' fungus; Corticiuni lacteum, C. sehaceuni, 

 Polystictus velutimis, Poria vaporaria, etc. On the under sides 

 were one or two species of resupinate Hydnei^ especially 

 H. farinaceum ; also Merulius lacrynians, the dry-rot of timber, 

 which, when in growing state, exudes drops of water. My boy, 

 after asking its name, said that second word {lacrymans) meant 

 something about crying, as it occurred in his last Latin lesson 

 at school, and he did not see why a fungus should be called by 

 that name ; but when I pointed out to him the tears it was 

 shedding, perhaps for the havoc it had wrought, his face 

 brightened, and he seemed to realise this old botanical 

 ' chestnut.' In one corner of the wood devoted to oak trees 

 Scleroderma vulgare, a hard, rough-coated puflF-ball, was very 

 abundant, and not far away wc found on ash trees a few- 

 specimens of Hypoxylon co?icentricum, about tv/o inches in 

 diameter, shaped like the half of a potato, as hard as wood, 

 brown outside, black inside, and with concentric zones like 

 woody rings. The spores of this plant being enclosed in asci 

 fixes its position in the order Ascomycetes, and is widely 

 removed from the puff-balls. 



A solitary Dcedalia quercina was growing on an oak tree 

 which had been cut to accommodate a fence. On the same tree 

 was a large old beefsteak fungus [Fistidina hepatica) ; probably 

 the spores of both had got to the tissues of the tree through 

 the wound made for the fence. 



My scout here signalled for help, and I found him struggling 

 with an old broken plank floating in a deep drain. The plank 

 had on it several patches of a white resupinate Polyporus which 

 I afterwards found to be Poria mcdulla-panis. We had a narrow 

 escape from a ducking whilst trying to land the big fish, but 

 eventually it was gaffed. Some of the white Poria was 

 collected, and what had appeared to me from the bank as 

 a strip of red rag on the plank was really a Poria, also in form 

 like the medulla-panis, but brilliant scarlet in colour. It took 



Naturalist, 



