196 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



of boys trailing through the forest. This account recalls one which 

 Olaus Magnus gave in 1652 of the way in which luminous fungi and 

 wood are arranged at intervals through the forests of remote countries 

 of the north. Sometimes only the fruit-body is luminous, sometimes 

 the mycelium also, sometimes the mycelium alone ; in these last the 

 wood affected also is luminous, and this caused some concern occasionally 

 in the early days of the War, when townspeople had to learn to move 

 about in the dark out of doors. It had its uses sometimes in the trenches 

 to prevent collisions ; and Ben Jonson refers to one which does not appear 

 to be practised — ' While she sits reading by the glowworm's light, Or 

 rotten wood, o'er which the worm hath crept.' 



G. H. Bryan in 1923 recommended the use of the ' inky juice ' of 

 Coprinns comatus for retouching or painting out defects in photographic 

 negatives. 



Hottentot ladies use the spores of Podaxis carcinomalis, which grows 

 on ant-hills, as a face-powder. Miss E. L. Stephens, who told me of 

 this, says that the spore-colour suits their special complexion. This is 

 equalled by an account of the examination of ' An European Mummy,' 

 from a Roman cemetery near Budapest, which is best given in the 

 original. 9 ' As I examined the contents of the boxes I found by 

 mikroskopical way, that they contained the face powder of the women 

 prepared of a mixture of rice-flower and the reddish brown spores of 

 the mushroom Tolyposporium junceum added evidently with the purpose 

 to diminish the white colour of the rice flour. As powder puff served a 

 piece of sponge.' 



It is puzzling to know what is behind the fact that John de Warrenna 

 (ob. 1347), Earl of Sussex and Surrey, held the manor of Gymyngham 

 (Gimingham, County Norfolk) by the rendering to the King a mushroom 

 (campernolle) yearly. 



We are so accustomed to think that wood attacked by fungi is worthless 

 that mention may be made of two or three examples to the contrary. 



The wood of birch infected with Polyporus betulinus is powdered and 

 used for burnishing watches in the Swiss watch industry. The soft 

 flesh of the fungus served our ancestors for making razor-strops ; ento- 

 mologists use it for pinning insects. 



The well-known ' green wood ' of Tunbridge Ware is usually oak or 

 birch (though other deciduous trees are affected) containing the mycelium 

 of Chlorosplenium ceruginosum. The mycelium, as well as the fruit-body, 

 is a brilliant green and colours the wood. Thin strips of different coloured 

 woods are assembled into blocks so that their ends form the pattern or 

 picture required. The woods are glued and bound together under 

 pressure. When set, thin slices are cut across the block with a circular 

 saw. The slices show the pattern, and are glued on the table, box, or 

 other object to be decorated, carefully smoothed off and polished. The 

 art which died out for some years in Tunbridge Wells has recently been 

 revived. 



Some of the decorative wood which is occasionally seen is ordinary 

 wood infected with some fungus, such as Armillaria mellea or Ustulina 

 • F. Hollendonner in Magyar Botan. Lapok. XXXII (1933), 107. 



