GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 271 



"In any region whatever," writes Pries, "it is necessary, in 

 the first instance, to draw a distinction between its open naked 

 plains and its wooded tracts. In the level open country there is 

 a more rapid evaporation of the moisture hy 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, Agaricus pediades, certain 

 Tricholomata, and,, above all, the family Coprini, of which they 

 may be regarded as the speeial 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 luxuriantly 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 {Conifer (b) 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 Coniferw, 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 pines 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 required, we know not ; still less are 



