OF SOl'TH A I STKA LI \ . 
•J1 
THE LOCALITIES AFFECTED BY THE DIFFERENT 
SPECIES. 
Tlit 1 larger fungi, and in fart the more microscopic forms as well, are often 
strictly confined to a particular habitat. We all know this practically when 
gall lering the common field mushroom for the table. As ils name implies, we 
find it in the open fields or in open sandy places. If we find a plant resembling 
it but growing under bushes or amongst trees in a forest, we usually diseanl it 
through being doubtful as to its nature. Not only does such a mushroom differ 
slightly from the field one in general architecture, but we may note that the gills 
do not go through a vivid pink stage or that the flesh when broken may show 
yellowish stains. In other words, these plants belong to closely allied species oi 
I’salliota, species which are it is true in most cases edible also, though liable to 
upset certain people. 
Fields and Grassy Places. — The fungi that grow in fields and grassy places 
in South Australia are not numerous, though more or less distinctive to such 
situations. If we walk through our parklands in autumn soon after the first 
rains we may find the common mushroom, one delicate Lrpiotn, a Tubaria, and 
a few others. On the grassy hillsides, we may find in addition some larger species. 
Thus there is Collybia rachicatd, a very beautiful fungus, with a rounded to plane, 
shining, dark chocolate brown cap, contrasting when picked with the snow-white, 
widely separated gills, supported on an unusually long whitish striate stem which, 
as is implied by the name, passes deeply into the ground by a long rooting portion. 
A large fleshy ( ollybia (('. abut tjm fen ), with a cap several inches in diameter, 
with a smoky brown to umber cap and smoky brown stem may be found amongst 
grass. Growing in compacted groups, with their irregular caps barely raised 
from the ground owing to the shortness of the stem, is a taniiv brown Clitocybf 
(<'. flaccida var. Isobatu ), Several pale buff species of this genus, some of which 
become whitish when, dry, also occur in fields, and a greyish species (0. paraditopa) 
has a strong smell of wattle blossom. 
The Forests of the Mount Lofty Ranges. — One of the places- that yields the 
greatest abundance of species is the quartzite formation of the upper parts of 
the Mount Lofty Ranges, with its forest trees, fallen timber, undergrowth, and 
sandy loam. Here we have a variety of habitat's — the living trees, their bases, 
the fallen trunks, the rotting twigs and fallen leaves wrapped often in a very 
moist environment under bushes, and the soil itself. On the living Kuculypt trees 
we may find bracket fungi belonging to the polvpores as well as a few agarics, 
It will be noted that, to enable the spores to fall vertically out of the tubes in 
the polypores or from the gill plates in the agarics, the fruiting bodies are either 
laterally attached without any stem at all, or have a short quite lateral stem, or 
a larger curved stem eccentrically attached to the cap so as to allow of the latter 
assuming a horizontal position. However, in the ease of , species of Corticium 
and similar fungi, with a smooth spore-bearing surface, and some kinds of Poria 
with very shallow tubes, the fungi are merely as it were plastered on the side 
of the tree, as the spores can so easily fall out and be blown away. 
The Fungi on Living Forest Trees. — After the first heavy autumnal rains 
high up and usually quite out of reach and growing from a decayed area or the 
sear of a dead branch, may be seen a large whitish-looking mass. This is 
PoH/poru.1 euoalyptonm. It may reach a foot or more in width and is several 
inches thick. When fresh it is heavy, moist, and fleshy -tough. The upper surface 
lias a pallid crust with a brownish tinge, the substance is thick and pure white, 
and the short' tubes form a thin hymeuial surface of a beautiful yellow colour. 
Tin- bracket is rapidly attacked by the larvae of beetles, whose food supply it 
constitutes. These riddle it through and through so that when it has dried, it 
appeal's like a white sponge-work from which a powdery substance escapes when 
handled, the separated remains of the beetles’ food. Its detachment from tha 
trunk has probably by now taken place, so that the mass is found near the base 
of the tree. It is the familiar substance we call “punk’’ in Australia, and 
smoulders like tinder when a match is applied, the burning being very slow if 
not. insect-eaten, more rapid if an open sponge-work. This, like other large 
bracket fungi found on living trees, tells a tale. The tree, as a yielder of timber, 
is valueless. Its dry heart-wood is permeated, perhaps for many feet, by the 
mycelial threads of the fungus, causing rotting. Many years ago, from a fungus 
bracket, on another tree, a spore had alighted on the scar of a dead branch or 
in a cleft or at an injured spot. This later had germinated, and its threads had 
