The Homes and Habits of Fungi 
the .allen leaves. On the outskirts of the wood, green and red 
Russulas vie with the flowers in the brilliancy of their colouring. 
Pink or violet Clavarias, dainty corals, border the wood path, and 
golden Clavarias lighten up the sombre wood tints with their 
yellow branches. In dry pastures and along wood roads, puff- 
balls, large and small, send up their puffs of brown smoke, to the 
delight of every passing child who strikes them with a wand. 
On lawns and hillsides the Oreades cause fairy rings to grow. 
The fairy rings are circles, or parts of circles, of impoverished grass 
of a lighter colour and less luxuriant growth than that of the grass 
immediately surrounding the circle. Before the existence of fairy 
folk came to be doubted, it was firmly believed that these fairy 
rings were the dancing grounds of the fairies. 
“The nimble elves 
That do by moonshine green sour ringlets make 
Whereof the ewe bites not ; whose pastime ’tis 
To make these midnight mushrooms,” 
Rev. GERARD SMITH. 
The rings on the commons increase in size until sometimes 
two or more rings intersect to form a labyrinth of green network. 
Rings appear year after year in the same place, and then disap- 
pear, to reappear after an interval of a few seasons. As long as 
the fairies existed in the imaginations of the people, it was easy to 
account for these strange happenings—the fairies danced in the 
moonshine, and the grass was worn down under their feet. If 
they were displeased and left the neighbourhood, the rings disap- 
peared too. As this fancy was given up, other solutions of the 
mystery were sought. Some believed that the ring was caused 
by a thunder-bolt entering the ground at this spot, and still others 
were confident that it was caused by moles. The true solution 
is not hard to find, to one familiar with the habit of growth of the 
fungus plant. One fungus plant growing alone upon the lawn 
will soon exhaust the soil directly beneath it of all true fungus 
food. Of all the spores which fall from the parent plant only 
those will grow which fall without this impoverished spot, and 
so a ring of toadstools is formed. Again, only those spores 
which fall outside the ring will find good fungus food, and so 
the ring widens always outward, forming a perfect circle, unless 
something on one side or other interferes with its travels. The 
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