Journal of Proceedings. lxxiii 
grew in a line for several years. Such a catalogue if made would be 
very valuable, and if members of this Club will note and measure rings 
and determine the Fungi growing upon them they will be doing good 
service and new work. Why some Fungi grow in rings and others in a 
straight or an irregularly branching line it is difficult to say, but if 
hungi have been evolved from other fungus forms, and Fungi as we now 
see them have descended from one or more common ancestors, then those 
ancient precursors may have taken up with different habits which are still 
retamed by then- descendants. Fungi growing in rings or branched lines 
appear to me to be comparable with regular flowers, alternate and 
opposite leaves and similar phenomena seen amongst flowering plants. 
It is known that the flora of the inside of a ring is somewhat different 
from the flora outside, and that the grassy ring itself will support plants 
that neither grow outside nor inside the ring. A most useful piece of work 
would be the making of lists of grasses and other plants seen outside and 
“J® 1 " 3 rm §- During the present summer I noticed a profuse flowering 
ot the Common Eock Cist, Helianthemum vulgare, amongst the luxuriant 
grass of fairy rings. The plant occurred elsewhere, but it only flowered 
wefl on the rings. . To such an extent was this the case that I could 
distinctly see the rmgs as yellow circles from a long distance. The change 
of the flora is caused by the Fungi exhausting the ground and then re¬ 
manuring it with highly nitrogenous manure. This manure causes 
luxuriant vegetable growth for one year, which exhausts the circle to a 
still greater extent. The soil inside the ring is therefore different from 
the outside, and supports different plants. Another point that requires 
investigation is the source of the nitrogen so abundant in Fairy Ein^ 
Fungi. These Fungi only grow in bare pastures and other places where 
mtiogen is rare, yet they acquire so much nitrogen in themselves that 
when they perish they deposit so much of this material and potash on 
the soil that the manured circle resembles rather the grass of the richest 
meadow than an upland pasture. It has not yet been decided whether 
Fungi are capable of acquiring their large store of nitrogen direct from 
the air or from material in the soil.” 
Then followed Dr. Wharton, M.A., F.Z.S., who took for his subject a 
more utilitarian, but not less interesting, aspect of Fungus-lore in the 
following paper:— 
On Fungi as Food. 
We fungus-hunters will get more thanks from the world at large 
some day than we do now, when people who never aspire to being 
botanists know the variety and charm of the flavours we can introduce 
to them The inventor of a new dish has long been held worthy of the 
highest honour. How shall we stand when the rich realise the gratifica 
tions we can bring to their palates? They who relish so keenly the 
mushroom and the truffle have yet to learn the delicious changes we can 
find for them m what they have been taught to despise as ‘toadstools.’ 
Given even such a slight knowledge of Fungi as anybodv may obtain 
from Dr. Cooke’s httle book, and the will to hunt for and identify the 
right species, and anybody may Eve many years before he has tasted all 
the palatable dainties that are within his reach. The fungus-hunter has 
double the advantage of the poet, in that he is ‘made ’ as well as ‘ born ’ 
My own experiences may well illustrate the few remarks I wish to offer 
a w S E? W °r e S scientific Merest in Fungi may be sharpened by 
what the vulgar deprecate as ‘ pot-hunting,’ to hide their idle ignorance. 
