FAIRY RINGS. 
241 
found in plenty on the rings at Cheshunt, the champig¬ 
nons being of an excellent quality. In the interior of 
the ring, forming the first portion of the ring from the 
centre, we find sweet-scented vernal grass (Anthoxanthum 
odoratnm) ; next that, a broad ring of rank meadow 
grass; and, beyond that, a circle composed of various 
meadow plants, as glaucous heath grass, common thyme, 
mouse-ear hawkweed, with occasional sprinklings of 
Agaricus virosus and Ly coper don proteus. Of A. oreades , 
Withering says,—“ I am satisfied that the bare and 
brown, or highly clothed and verdant circles in pasture 
fields, called fairy rings, are caused by the growth of 
this agaric. We have many of them in Edgbaston 
Park: the largest, which is eighteen feet in diameter, 
and about as many inches broad in the periphery, where 
the agarics grow, has existed for some years .’ 7 
If we suppose, then, that some few specimens of mush¬ 
room spring up—as they do usually in the droppings of 
cattle—and, after attaining their full growth, scatter 
their spawn around them, we shall obtain immediately a 
miniature picture of a fairy ring. The fungi which first 
took possession of the soil have used up all its phos¬ 
phorus and potash, and have charged the mould with 
excretions injurious to themselves. Hence, the crop of 
fungi which spring from their seeds, or spawn, will form 
a circle all round the spot which was occupied by their 
predecessors. The centre, deserted by the mushrooms, 
will be taken possession of by grasses, which, rooting in 
a soil prepared for them, find additional nutriment in 
the phosphoric acid and potash which the fungi return 
to the soil, when they pass into decay. Crop after crop 
