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XVIII. — The Parasitic Fungi of the British Farm. A Lecture 

 delivered in the Shire Hall of the City of Norwich, at the 

 Annual Meeting of the Society, July 18, 1849. By the Rev. 

 Edwin Sidney, A.M. 



My Lords and Gentlemen, — I have no common satisfaction 

 in addressing you in a county where for many years my humble 

 efforts, made long before similar exertions had become at all 

 general, were so favourably received and kindly acknowledged by 

 all classes of persons. I will not, however, indulge myself by 

 any further preface, but proceed at once to the task I have cheer- 

 fully undertaken. I shall endeavour to describe in simple 

 popular language the nature, habits, and, as far as I can, the 

 preventives or palliatives of the principal parasitic fungi of the 

 British farm, beyond which, of course, I cannot go ; avoiding 

 all needless technicalities, and stamping my explanations with 

 those characters which will promote their currency with every 

 hearer. Whenever I am obliged to use a scientific term, I shall 

 try to explain it ; and I commence by remarking that the epithet 

 parasitic applied to a plant, means that it lives at the cost of that 

 on which it grows. A fungus is a cellular plant without flowers, 

 living on air, and nourished through a stalk, stem, or spawn, called 

 its mycelium. It is propagated by minute seeds or spores, or 

 sporules, either colourless or not, but never green, and occasionally 

 enclosed in skinny coverings, termed sporidia, or spore- cases. 

 Fungi live by imbibing juices impregnated with the peculiar 

 principles of the matrix on which they grow. The spores mostly 

 germinate either by a protrusion of the inner membrane, or by a 

 lengthening of the outer covering ; and the spawn is the develop- 

 ment of these spores., or of itself already produced, possessing 

 the power of imbibing the juices just alluded to. The most 

 familiar example is common mushroom spawn, which the little 

 seeds will sometimes throw out on strips of glass, so as to be 

 well observed. Fungals most commonly grow upon animal or 

 vegetable substances in a state of decomposition ; but many of 

 simplest organization attack tissues, in which its commencement 

 is at least not ascertainable, or, if commencing, hasten it beyond 

 recovery. 



The simplest form of a fungus is common mouldiness, which 

 has two types. The first, as may be seen by the aid of the mi- 

 croscope, is composed of jointed threads made up of simple 

 cells placed end to end, which separate and seem capable of 

 rej)roduction. This is represented in Fig. 1, where the little 

 cells may be seen placed as described. These cells are ca- 

 pable of being separated, and appear to be reproductive. The 



