110 SAPROPHYTES IN THE HUMUS OF WOODS, MEADOWS, AND MOORS 



Woods are also the special abode of fungi, and the damp ground is covered towards 

 autumn by innumerable quantities of their curious fructifications. Dropped needles 

 and cones, leaves and sticks strewn upon the ground, fallen trunks, and even the 

 dark amorphous dust arising from the mouldering of these bodies and of the 

 numerous roots ramifying in the ground, appear to be perforated by and wrapped 

 in the protoplasmic threads of plasmoid fungi, or similarly invested by a plexus 

 of filaments, the so-called mycelia of other forms of fungi. Amongst the scaly 

 fragments of bark, peeling from the trees, they appear in the form of slimy strings, 

 or as a dark trellis and net-work, inserted between the bark and wood of the 

 rotting tree; on the stripped white trunk they are in dark zigzag lines like 

 those of forked lightning; and between, the white mycelia of huge toadstools and 

 tremellas are woven in all directions. Here and there large areas of the brown 

 decaying soil are flecked and speckled by these mycelia, and even the dead stems 

 of the mosses on the ground are festooned with white fleece, and wrapped round 

 by hyphse. 



It is worth while to glance too at the reciprocal relations of these woodland 

 plants. We find mosses, lycopods, and various ferns and phanerogams living 

 upon the fallen twigs and needles, and on the mouldering roots of pines and fir- 

 trees. The dead remains of those plants afford sustenance to the fungi, which lift 

 their fructification above the bed of moss. In their turn the rotting fructifications 

 of the larger fungi form a nutrient substratum for smaller fungi, which cover the 

 decaying caps and stalks with a dark-green velvet. Lastly, these little fungi, too, 

 fall a prey to corrupting bacteria, and are resolved into the same simple inorganic 

 compounds as were absorbed from the air and earth, in the first instance, by the 

 pines and fir-trees. In the depths of forests there is going on, for the most part 

 unseen by us, a mysterious stir and strife, accompanied by an uninterrupted process 

 of exchange between the living and the dead, and a marvellous transformation of 

 those very substances whose secret we have only partially succeeded in solving. 



The results of cultivation have proved that in the group of flowering-plants 

 belonging to the woodlands of Central and Northern Europe, which derive sus- 

 tenance partially or entirely from the organic compounds afforded by the humus, 

 are to be included, amongst others, the various species of coral-wort (Bentaria 

 bulbifera, B. digitata, B. enneaph/yllos), Circcea alpina, Galium rotundifolium, 

 and Linncea borealis, and above all a large number of orchids. Of these, Bentaria 

 prefers mould produced from the beech leaves, and Circcea, Galium, and Linncea 

 appertain to the mould of pine-woods. Of the orchids some are provided with 

 green leaves, as, for instance, the delicate little Listera cordata, Goodyera repens 

 remarkable for its villous petals, and the various species of Cephalanthera, Epi- 

 pactis, and Platanthera; others, such as Limodorum abortivum, the bird's-nest 

 orchis, the coral-root, and Epipogium aphyllum have none. Limodorum abortivum 

 belongs rather to the warmer districts of Central Europe. It has fleshy root- 

 fibres, twisted and twined into an inextricable ball, and a slender steel-blue stem, 

 over half a metre in height, bearing a lax spike of fairly large flowers, which 



