432 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [DECEMBER 
almost without cessation from the west, has not been spared by 
fire, and its steep banks were capped by a skeleton forest; on the 
north more recently burned than elsewhere and carpeted for miles 
with fruiting Marchantia. It is thus not till one has passed the 
small coal mine from which the stream takes its name, and which 
forms the objective point of the railroad, that, after a walk of 
six or seven miles from the town, he finds himself in the living 
forest. Even here destruction of another kind was steadily 
progressing during my visit, and the lumberman’s axe was rendering 
worse confounded the confusion already existing in the tangle of 
fallen trunks which seems to be characteristic of these woods. 
When one considers that the trees composing this forest in the 
immediate vicinity of my collecting ground belong to only two 
species of a single genus, the variety of fungi which inhabit it 
is unexpectedly great. That a heavy forest of often very large 
trees should develop under such climatic conditions as have been 
described, is surprising; but that beneath its shade a considerable 
flora of the more fragile and perishable forms of fungi should 
develop, is even more difficult to understand. Yet here are found 
Amanitas, ‘and other softer agarics, among which a very fine and 
large Coprinus is conspicuous, growing in masses from beneath 
fallen logs; Hymenogastreae are common and other soft hypogaeous 
forms, as well as Pezizae, Myxomycetes, etc., all flourishing and 
maturing in this valley; where, though the surrounding hills afford 
some shelter, the mercury can seldom rise much above 60° F., 
while freezing temperatures are common at night even in mid- 
summer, with frequent cold squalls of rain, hail, or snow. Although 
I made no special effort to collect them, I gathered about forty 
species of Myxomycetes, and I have never seen Hymenogastreae 
more abundant, in numbers of individuals at least. The more 
resistant forms of fungi were duly represented, especially the 
Pyrenomycetes; although the Polyporei, as elsewhere in the Chilean 
forests, were scanty, and here in bad condition. Of all these fungi, 
however, the most peculiar was the discomycetous Cyitaria, and 
the nearly spherical distortions of the esculent C. Darwinii, often 
reaching a diameter of several feet, were everywhere conspicuous 
on the trunks and branches, although I was too late to see in the 
