22 
THE LARGER FKXGI 
pdiietYated gradually into the old heart-wood, and once established there spread 
up and down, causing decay. The fungus fed on the old wood and gradually 
stored up a reserve stock of food material in its threads, preparatory to pushing 
out from some area, where it had reached the surface, a dense mass of hypliae 
compacted to form the bracket. From this develop spores in millions, one of 
which may perchance lodge in a suitable environment and reproduce the species. 
Once the fungus lias grown sufficiently in the interior of the tree to produce a 
bracket, it will keep on doing so under suitable weather conditions probably 
annually. Some species may form several brackets, bursting out of different’ 
parts of the trunk. Others, like Polyporus euoalyplomm, seem to exhaust them- 
selves after the first heavy rains in one supreme effort, and no more fruit bodies 
will appear till the next autumn. Meanwhile the mycelium is at work, laying up 
the food material necessary for the next year’s fruit. 
On stringy -bark trunks, in the Mount Lofty Ranges, a rather soft bracket- 
fungus, Poly poms ntroliispiclm, with a brown hairy upper surface and pale 
tubes, turning brownish when bruised, is not uncommon. Several of our 
l-lucalypts and the Sheoak ( Camarina stricifi Ait.) may bear, a few feet up 
the trunk, hard woody hoof-shaped gilvous- brown brackets of Fames robustus 
and F. rvmosux. As already mentioned, the hoof-shaped or plate-like large 
brown Qanoderma applawxtum and the stalked Polyporus Soliwevniteii have been 
occasionally found at or near the bases of living trees. 
The agaric Myoena siibgaleriC'iilata, with conical olive-brown caps and 
long whitish stems, grows in dense caespitose clusters from interstices between 
the bark on the trunks of stringy -bark Kucal.vpts at Mount Lofty. There are 
Other agarics and polypores of less common occurrence on some of our living 
trees. 
Sand Dunes. — Even such a seemingly inhospitable habitat as shifting sand, 
either along the coast-line or in the interior, may yield a few species not found 
elsewhere. A Naueorki, a Psihcybe, and a Coprinus have all been found grow- 
ing in such a situation. 
The Dung-Inhabiting Fungi. — Fungi, growing in cow or horse-dung and con- 
fined to such habitats, must, in the case of Australia, all belong to introduced 
species. The dejecta of our native animals .are so unlike cow or horse-dung 
in texture, and probably composition, that it would lie unlikely that a species, 
originally strictly confined to such material, would be able to develop on that 
of these introduced domestic animals. Moreover, few species have yet been 
collected on the dung of native animals. As, then, these dung-loving species 
have been imported, it almost necessarily follows that they have been observed 
and described from other parts of the world. Nevertheless, though it is easy 
to place most’ of these species, in the case of several we have been much puzzled 
to find descriptions that accord with the plants found here. 
Stropharia semifflobata ( S . stercorarta) is common. This species has a 
yellow-brown viscid cap, a long stem with a ring on it, and broad greenish- 
black gills. The cap in S. scmiglobatco is described as hemispherical, and remains 
so, whilst in 8. sterewaria it expands later. Wo seem to have both of these, 
and, if so, there seems to be no real specific difference between them. 
Htropharin mrrdaria grows near dung, and sometimes on it; the colour is 
browner than that of S. semiglobala, the cap more expanded, the gills less deep, 
the stem not so long, and the ring usually indistinct. Two or three species of 
PsUoeybe grow on dung; these are darker coloured and more delicate, w%tb 
long slender stems. Pameolw relirugis is very common ; the cap is hemi- 
spherical-conical, the colour greyish, drying paler; there are anastomosing vein- 
like elevations on the cap, the gills arc clouded grey, and the stem is long and 
slender. Several species of Coprinus, with their deliquescing gills, are found 
on dung only. C. sterquilinus is fairly large, with a small but definite cup or 
volva at the base of the stem. C. nivern is rather small and pure white (except, 
the gills) and shaggy. A brown-gilled Galera also grows on dung and on 
manured straw a. larger agaric, a species of liolbitius, with a. viscid cap and 
brown sub-deliquescent' gills, is not uncommon. 
