48 
THE ESSEX NATURALIST. 
Dipsacus sylvestris, Great Warley ; Bidens tripartita, Shenfield, 
Ingrave; Achillea ptarmica, South Weald, Little Warley; 
Matricaria chamomilla, South Weald, Little Warley, East 
Horndon ; M. suaveolens, Great Warley, Chelmsford ; Picris 
echioides, Bulphan ; Crepis biennis, Shenfield ; Lactuca virosa, 
East Horndon; Hottonia palustris, Shenfield, Doddinghurst ; 
Anchusa sempervirens, Shenfield ; Melampyrum pratense, Great 
Warley, Little Warley ; Lamium galeobdolon, South Weald, 
Blackmore, Stondon ; Euphorbia esula, Shenfield; Luzula 
pilosa, Ingrave ; Lenina polyrrhiza, Ingrave ; Carex pendula, 
South Weald, Margaretting, Buttsbury ; Alopecurus myosuroides, 
Bulphan, Little Warley, South Weald ; Cynosurus echinatus, 
Shenfield, South Weald ; Melica nutans, South Weald, Little 
Baddow; Glyceria distans, Shenfield; Lolium temulentum, 
Bulphan ; Ceterach officinarum, Great Warley. 
[Those who wish to compare the floral poverty of Warley Common 
to-day, as set forth in Mr. Clarke's notes here printed, with its wealth 
eighty years ago, should refer to an article entitled “ A notice of Plants 
growing spontaneously in and about Warley Common, in Essex,” by Dr. 
Aeneas MacIntyre, published in the Proceedings of the Botanical Society 
of London, in 1839 (voli., pp. 16-21), which enumerates many interesting 
species (701 altogether) and speaks of Osmunda regalis as “ very 
abundant” in a boggy wood, otherwise uninteresting, on its eastern side. 
I call attention to this paper because, though Gibson evidently knew of 
its existence (see Flora of Essex , p. xxii.), he knew apparently nothing of 
its contents, none of which is quoted in his Flora. — Ed.)] 
Fungus on Stem of Oak Tree.—A very large fungus has flourished for 
years on the base of the stem of a fair-sized oak-tree growing on a hedge- 
bank by the side of the road between my house and Chelmsford, and in 
the parish of Writtle. I have seen it many hundreds of times. It is some 
eighteen inches across by fifteen inches deep, and it appears to be about six 
or eight inches through. It grows just on the top of the bank, in a fork of 
the base of the stem, where two main roots begin to divide. During the 
summer, it is usually of a rosy or pinky-buff colour ; but, as winter ap¬ 
proaches, it takes on a pallid, washed-out, pastey complexion. During 
summer, too, it exhibits (especially near its lower margin) a large number 
of deep holes or pores, about half-an-inch across, in each of which stands 
a large glistening drop of water, apparently of a deep rich brown tint. 
These drops have, when the sun is shining on them, the bright pellucid 
appearance of a cat’s eye, and render the whole thing strikingly hand¬ 
some. To some extent, I believe, the water in these pores drips away 
and is lost ; but it is renewed regularly (no doubt from the sap of the tree), 
thus always keeping the pores rim-full, until the coming of winter, when! 
they largely close. In the lower part are a number of bullet-holes, left 
by someone who has used the fungus as a target for revolver-practice. 
At the bottom, dead grass has grown through, or become enclosed in, 
the body of the fungus. 
This striking fungus evidently belongs to the genus Fomes. I do not 
recollect seeing another specimen quite like it ; or,at least, not so 
large.— Miller Christy, Chignal St. James, Chelmsford. 
