194 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



The heaps are not inoculated artificially. They are watered, sometimes 

 with brine rice-wash or the scum of sugar-cane juice and last for some time, 

 usually bearing after about a fortnight. Because the fungus occurs on 

 ant-hills and on fallen wood and decaying plants after rain, which is 

 usually accompanied by thunder and lightning, the Philippine natives 

 call it ' The flower of thunderbolts and lightning ' : it will be recollected 

 that the Greeks similarly accounted for the formation of truffles. 



Truffles and morels have always been highly esteemed, and numerous 

 attempts have been made to grow them as a crop, but so far without 

 success. Some of the methods reported at different times as successful 

 remind one of a belief formerly common among English farmers that 

 mushrooms are produced by salt. To judge from official correspondence 

 there is at present a keen interest in the possibility of growing truffles 

 on a commercial basis in this country ; there would be a ready market 

 for them at high prices. It seems worth noting that Pseudobalsamia 

 microspora, one of the Tuberacese, is a common invader of mushroom-beds 

 in America ; it has recently been recorded for this country. 



From time immemorial truffles have been hunted by pigs, dogs, and 

 more rarely goats. The truffles which are on sale in London shops 7 

 are chiefly the Perigord truffle [Tuber melanospermum) though Tuber 

 brumale is occasionally seen. The white truffle of Piedmont [Tuber 

 magnatum) apparently is not exported. Closely allied forms, terfas or 

 kames [Terfezia), are commonly sold in the native markets of north Africa, 

 and one species, T. leonis, is an article of commerce in south Spain and 

 Portugal. 



It is now often overlooked that species of edible truffle occur in this 

 country, but fifty years ago English-gathered truffles were on sale in 

 Covent Garden. Dogs were used to hunt them in Wiltshire and Sussex 

 until just before the War. Here it may not be out of place to mention 

 that it was owing to truffles being found in Wiltshire that British mycology 

 gained one of its most valuable recruits. C. E. Broome was living at 

 Rudloe, Wiltshire, in 1841, when on the advice of Leonard Jennings he 

 sent an alga to the Rev. M. J. Berkeley for naming and two sketches of 

 moulds. Berkeley asked him whether truffles were found in his neigh- 

 bourhood. Broome succeeded in finding some, and, his appetitite being 

 whetted, he enthusiastically searched for them for the rest of his life, 

 never being without a rake on his travels. He found several species 

 new to science, and added many to our fungus-flora, being the only British 

 mycologist who has had any success in this direction. He collaborated 

 with Berkeley, being responsible for most of the drawings and measure- 

 ments of microfungi, and from 1848 to 1886 they worked so assiduously 

 that the authority ' B. & Br.' is one of the best known in taxonomy. 



To round off the story, mention should be made of the use of poisonous 

 fungi. The intoxicating effects of Amanita muse aria and its uses in the 

 religious rites of certain Siberian tribes, as well as for killing flies, are well 

 known. 



The historical accounts of the poisoning of priests, poets and kings, 



7 France produced 200,000 kilos of truffles in 1933 at a total value of over 

 13J million francs ; 92,700 kilos were exported fresh, dried or marinated. 



