June^ 1834. 



EDIBLE FUNGUS. 



299 



After this process of fructification has taken place^ the 

 whole surface becomes honeycombed^ with empty cells (as 

 represented in the accompanying woodcut)^ and the fungus 



shrinks, and grows tougher. In this state it is eaten by the 

 Fuegians, in large quantities, uncooked, and when well 

 chewed has a mucilaginous and slightly sweet taste, together 

 with a faint odour like that of a mushroom. Excepting a 

 few berries of a dwarf arbutus, which need hardly be taken 

 into the account, these poor savages never eat any other 

 vegetable food besides this fungus.* 



I have already mentioned the sombre and duU cha- 

 racter of the forests,t in which two or three species of 

 trees grow, to the exclusion of all others. Above the forest 

 land, there are many dwarf alpine plants, which all spring 

 from the mass of peat, and help to compose it. The central 

 part of Tierra del Fuego, where the clay-slate formation 



* In New Zealand, before the introduction of the potato, the root of 

 the fern was consumed in large quantities. At the present day I should 

 think Tierra del Fuego was the only country in the world, where a crypto- 

 gamic plant afforded a staple article of food. 



t Captain FitzRoy informs me that in April (our October) the leaves of 

 those trees which grow near the base of the mountains change colour, but 

 not those in the more elevated parts. I remember having read some obser- 

 vations showing, that in England the leaves fall earlier in a warm and fine 

 autumn, than in a late and cold one. This change in the colour being 

 retarded in the more elevated and therefore colder situations, must be 

 owing to the same general law of vegetation. The trees of Tierra del 

 Fuego during no part of the year entirely shed their leaves. 



