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The Museum Gazette 



SEASONAL NOTES— OCTOBER. 



The following are some of the more noteworthy fungi now 

 on view in the Museum Vivarium at Haslemere. 



POLYPORUS SULPHUREUS, THE HeARTWOOD ROT. 



A wound parasite, which usually gains entrance to a tree 

 through a cut or bruised surface. It attacks the heartwood 

 first, then the sapwood. The diseased wood becomes a 

 reddish-brown colour, and cracks appear, with patches of 

 mycelium within. Perhaps no fungus in its method of attack 

 more clearly demonstrates the need to protect cut surfaces of 

 trees. All that is required is to paint freshly cut surfaces with 

 tar ; a diseased branch should be cut off far behind the point 

 of attack, and the surface washed with a saturated solution of 

 corrosive sublimate prior to smearing it with the tar. It is 

 one of the very few fungi that occur on the yew. There are 

 at present very fine specimens growing from the trunk of a 

 yew at Inval. It also occurs on the great Kiffold Yew. 

 Placed near the above is an oak branch attacked by the 

 mycelium of a small, cup-shaped fungus, known as Chloro- 

 splenium aeruginosum. The part attacked has been stained a 

 bright green. The hard heartwood is completely invested 

 but not coloured. The mycelial condition of the fungus is of 

 common occurrence in this district, but the sporophores are 

 uncommon. 



The Fly Agaric. 



Perhaps the species which attracts more attention than any 

 other is the Fly Agaric (Amanita muscana), one of the noblest 

 of its tribe, resplendent in a scarlet cap, flecked with white 

 warts. The warts are the remains of a volva or sheath, 

 which, in the early state, covered the entire fungus ; this may 

 be easily determined by examining plants in various stages of 

 growth. It always occurs under or in the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood of birch trees. The cap is usually from four to 



