GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 271 
“In any region whatever,” writes Fries, “it is necessary, in 
the first instance, to draw a distinction betwcen its open naked 
plains and its wooded tracts. In the level open country there is 
a more rapid evaporation of the moisture by the conjoined action 
of the sun and wind; whence it happens that such a region is 
more bare of fungi than one that is mountainous or covered by 
woods. On the other hand, plains possess several species pecu- 
liar to themselves; as, for example, Ayaricus pediades, certain 
Tricholomata, and, above all, the family Coprini, of which they 
may be regarded as the special habitat. The species of this 
family augment in number, in any given country, in proportion 
to the extent and degree of its cultivation; for instance, they 
grow more Juxuriantly in the province of Scania, in Sweden— 
a district further distinguished above all others by its cultivation 
and fertility. In well-wooded countries moisture is retained a 
much longer time, and,.as a result, the production of fungi is 
incomparably greater; and it is here desirable to make a distinc- 
tion between the fungi growing in forests of resinous-wooded 
trees (Conifere) and those which inhabit woods of other trees, 
for these two descriptions of forests may be rightly regarded, as 
to their fungaceous growths, as two different regions. Beneath 
the shade of Conifere, fungi are earlier in their appearance; so 
much so, that it often happens they have attained their full de- 
velopment when their congeners in forests of non-resinous trees 
have scarcely commenced their growth. In woods of the latter 
sort, the fallen leaves, collected in thick layers, act as an obstacle 
to the soaking of moisture into the earth, and thereby retard 
the vegetation of fungi; on the other hand, such woods retain 
moisture longer. These conditions afford to several large and 
remarkable species the necessary time for development. The 
beech is characteristic of our own region, but further north this 
tree gives place to the birch. Coniferous woods are, moreover, 
divisible into two regions—that of the piues and that of the firs. 
The latter is richer in species than the former, because, as is 
well known, fir-trees flourish in more fertile and moister soils. 
Whether, with respect to the South of Europe, other sub- 
divisions into regions are requircd, we know not; still less are 
