NOTABLE PHENOMENA. 111 
genus. Mr. Worthington Smith has recorded his experiences of 
some specimens of the common Polyporus annosus which were 
found on some timbers in the Cardiff coal mines. He remarks 
that the colliers are well acquainted with phosphorescent fungi, 
and the men state that sufficient light is given ‘to see their 
hands by.” The specimens of Polyporus were so luminous 
that they could be seen in the dark at a distance of twenty 
yards. He observes further, that he has met with specimens of 
Polyporus sulfureus which were phosphorescent. Some of the 
fungi found in mines, which emit light familiar to the miners, 
belong to the incomplete genus Rhizomorpha, of which Humboldt 
amongst others gives a glowing account. Tulasne has also 
investigated this phenomenon in connection with the common 
Rhizomorpha subterranea, Pers. This species extends underneath 
the soil in long strings, in the neighbourhood of old tree stumps, 
those of the oak especially, which are becoming rotten, and 
upon these it is fixed by one of its branches. These are cylin- 
drical, very flexible, branching, and clothed with a hard bark, 
encrusting and fragile, at first smooth and brown, becoming 
later very rough and black. The interior tissue, at first whitish, 
afterwards of a more or less deep brown colour, is formed of 
extremely long parallel filaments from ‘0035 to ‘015 mm. in 
diameter. 
On the evening of the day when I received the specimens,* 
he writes, the temperature being about 22° Cent., all the young 
branches brightened with an uniform phosphoric light the whole 
of their length; it was the same with the surface of some of the 
older branches, the greater number of which were still brilliant in 
some parts, and only on their surface. I split and lacerated many 
of these twigs, but their internal substance remained dull. The 
next evening, on the contrary, this substance, having been ex- 
posed to contact with the air, exhibited at its surface the same 
brightness as the bark of the branches. J made this observa- 
tion upon the old stalks as well as upon the young ones. Pro- 
longed friction of the luminous surfaces reduced the brightness 
* Tulasno, ‘Sur la Phosphorescence,” in ‘‘ Ann. des Sci. Nat.” (1848), vol. ix. 
p. 340, &c. 
