164 
FUNGUS-HUNTING IN SPRING. 
FUNGUS-HUNTING IN SPRING.—II. 
BY W. B. GROVE, B.A. 
One of the most fascinating pursuits of the embryo 
mycologist is that of searching for leaf-fungi, for these are 
easy to find if one but goes the right way about it, and 
when found are, in general, easily determined. The dis¬ 
tinctions of the genera are not difficult to comprehend, and 
the species of the host-plant is, in nine cases out of ten, an 
infallible guide to the name of the parasite. And then one 
has, in Cooke’s “ Microscopic Fungi,” a convenient and ready 
helper in the study. 
To the mycologist it is one of the delights of spring 
that with its return there returns also the opportunity of 
finding these devourers of the tender leaves. This is the way 
for the beginner to commence his work. Having first 
obtained the indispensable book just mentioned, let him 
look therein for a species which is described as common, or, 
at least, as not rare, and which occurs in spring. Uredo 
conjluens, which grows in May and June on the Hog’s Mercury 
(MercuHalis perennis), is a good example of what I mean. 
In this district the host-plant is extremely abundant. One 
can walk for miles along the country lanes and find large 
patches of it every hundred yards or oftener. Moreover, 
coming so early as it does, before the hedge-rows are in leaf 
and before other and taller plants are advanced enough to 
overshadow it, this plant is easily detected and examined. 
Now although all the leaf-fungi do not produce con¬ 
spicuous markings upon the leaves on which they grow, yet 
the majority of them, including the one in question, do. 
Hence all ‘that is necessary for the discovery of Uredo con- 
fiuens, if it occurs in the district, is to walk a certain number 
of miles in country lanes, and patiently but superficially 
glance over every patch of MercuHalis one’s eyes may fall 
upon. If it is there, before long the eyes will be rewarded 
with a sight of a brilliant yellow blotch on a leaf or on a 
stem, and on closer examination the flat erumpent pustles of 
the Uredo will be seen, crowded together (on the leaves at 
least) in a more or less concentric form. 
The same process will be equally effective in finding the 
Puccinia on Anemone, and the Cluster-cups on Viola and on 
Ranunculus, always supposing that they occur at all in the 
district examined. I speak from personal experience when 1 
say that this method of starting with a definite object, with 
the intention of finding a particular fungus which one has 
