242 
BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 
of fungi follow, each one receding from the centre, and 
passing outwards on to new soil, followed up at the same 
time by the rampant grasses. The central grass will 
soon have used up the rich deposits formed by the first 
crop of fungi, and, losing its rankness, will allow of the 
growth of other meadow plants. Common daisy and 
other plants will then spring up in the centre, and now 
and then a few agarics will appear, and other tribes of 
fungi, now enabled to vegetate in consequence of the 
refreshment the soil has received from the grass—the 
soil being charged with the spawn of various species, 
waiting only the conditions necessary to their growth. 
Thus the interior of the ring becomes a mixture of thin 
grass, meadow and heath plants, and various fungi; and 
while this has been taking place, the ring of rich and 
rank grass has been following the outer ring of fungi, 
luxuriating in the soil which each succeeding crop 
deserts; and thus extending, by a steady though slow 
process, the dimensions of the ring itself. In addition 
also to the suitability of the soil for grass, when it has 
become unfit for fungi, the latter retain the potash and 
phosphorus of the soil in a collective form for the 
nourishment of the grass, and take possession of new 
soil beyond that they previously occupied. The fungi 
and the grass are then pitched in battle one against the 
other—the fight is unequal, and the grass conquers; and 
thus, what it does not gain by the voluntary desertion 
of the soil by the fungi, it accomplishes by overgrowing 
and choking them—continually advancing from within 
outwards, feeding, as it extends itself, upon the remains 
of its fallen foe. 
