QuEKETT on Fungus. 
73 
had lost one of its finest limbs, and some idea may be formed 
of the size of it when I tell you that, at the fractured part, it 
was nearly three feet in diameter, and its length, to the first 
bifurcation, just twenty-seven paces. On examining the frac- 
tured surface, I was surprised to perceive that in the very 
centre there was a white flocculent mass, about a foot in 
diameter, which at once reminded me forcibly of the appear- 
ance presented by a thin layer of cotton wool cemented to 
the surface of wood by gum or glue. I looked at it very 
carefully, and considered that it must be a filamentous 
fungus ; and, on examining it with my pocket-glass, I dis- 
tinctly saw some sparkling crystals amongst the filaments ; 
some of these were very minute, others sufficiently large 
to be visible to the naked eye. The wood, at a cursory 
glance, appeared perfectly sound, was very moist from the 
quantity of sap present, and had a powerful acid smell, like 
that of vinegar, which was very perceptible on approaching 
the fractured portion. Having satisfied myself of the pre- 
sence of a fungus, I turned my attention to the examination 
of the fractured surfaces, both of the tree itself and of the 
limb, and I could discover no hole or trace of a hole, or 
any dead wood leading from the circumference to the centre, 
either of the tree or of the limb, but still there was a 
peculiar appearance in those parts of the wood itself near the 
white filamentous mass above-mentioned, which was due to 
the separation of those woody fibres, that were involved in 
the fracture. This appearance is still present in a speci- 
men of wood I brought away at the time, but which has now 
become hard and dry. All its surfaces exhibit a very remark- 
able kind of roughness different from that of any oak wood 
that has been split by artificial means, and I have tried in 
vain to get a surface at all like it by splitting. Having 
removed as much of the wood covered with the white mass as 
I well could with the aid of a pocket-knife, I took it home 
for microscopical examination, and the structure most com- 
monly exhibited is that shown in fig. 7, pi. IX. The woody 
fibres were much separated in parts, and the spaces between 
them occupied by a filamentous fungus and rather large pris- 
matic crystals. 
An idea may be formed of the size of some of the crystals 
by the power under which the drawing, fig. 8, was made — 
viz. 50 diameters. On removing a portion of the filamentous 
mass for examination with higher powers, I found the fila- 
ments intimately mixed up with the crystals ; the former were 
on an average l-500th of an inch in diameter, whilst some of 
the latter were l-8th of an inch square ; most of the filaments 
