FIELD CLUBS AND SOCIETIES. 
69 
Edward Step on the 2nd inst. at the club’s rooms, St. Mary 
Newington Schools, Newington Butts, s.e. The lecturer first 
shewed how the presence of the green substance chlorophyll in 
a plant shewed that it “earned an honest living” by deriving its 
nourishment from the soil direct. But toadstools, and the great 
family of fungi generally, were “aristocrats,” living on the proceeds 
of others as true parasites,—and they had no chlorophyll whatever 
in their composition, as, for instance, had the little Protococcus 
the microscopic plant appearing on posts and trunks of trees after 
rain, which the lecturer showed lor comparison. The lowest 
forms of fungi were illustrated by the yeast plant (. Torula ) and the 
way in which it abstracted the oxygen from sugar and gave out 
carbonic acid gas and alcohol were explained. It was but a step 
from the yeast plant to the blue moulds (. Penicillium ) which were 
practically a collection of yeast cells put end to end to form an 
upright stalk, crowned by divergent filaments made up also on 
the same principle. The white moulds ( Mucor ) differed from 
these in having the cell-walls, all broken away, so that the stem 
was one long cell, at the summit of which a globular body called 
a sporangium was developed. In the interior of this the spores 
were produced escaping as fine powder on the ultimate bursting 
of the sporangium. Coming to the higher forms of fungi, the 
lecturer said it was an error to suppose a mushroom the pro¬ 
duction of but a single night, as the underground threads orhyphae, 
which formed its preliminary stage, had been growingfor perhaps 
a year. The enormous strength which fungi displayed in growing 
was illustrated by the case of the town of Basingstoke, which, 
after being repaved, had had its flag-stones actually forced from 
their beds by the growth of large toadstools beneath ; one stone 
thus lifted measured twenty-one inches by twenty-one inches 
and weighed twenty pounds. Some fungi took a considerable 
time in developing. The morel took thirty-one days, the Geaslcrs 
or “ earth stars” six months, and the truffle of commerce a year, 
before arriving at maturity. The lecturer then proceeded to des¬ 
cribe a number of edible and poisonous fungi, photographs and 
drawings of which were exhibited on the screen by means of the 
oxy-hydrogen lantern. Some specimens were also shewn round, 
but very few had been obtainable owing to the dryness of the 
season. One of the most interesting was a specimen of the local 
Sparassis crisp a, from Esher, which looked something like a 
cauliflour and was very good to eat Among those described 
were the fly agaric, the parasol mushrooms, the Russules, the 
milky Lactarii, the chantarelle (one of the most delicious) the 
puff balls, oyster mushrooms, Boleti, and truffles. The lecturer 
warned his audience against buying mushrooms, for those sold in 
London were far from fresh, as evidenced by the blackness of 
their gills, and under these circumstances these and other fungi 
of an edible character might prove dangerous. He also spoke in 
