These will, perhaps, be accepted as satisfactory | Some love stone, some timber, some find a conreplies to the inquiry as to the nature of fungi. genial birth-place in the marble detritus of the Let us now proceed to the more interesting de- sculptor, and some, alas! have an appetite for the partments of their natural history. The prevail- vegetable fibre of our joists and frame-work, and ing popular idea of these plants appears to be, imperil the stability of many a noble monument that they are all comprised in the familiar class of architectural skill by their invincible ravages. called mushrooms. Few have the remotest idea Strange to say, some are not only parasitis of the number and variety of the species, and of upon vegetable, but even upon animal organisms. their remarkable dissimilarity from each other. The vegetable wasp, a species of Polystrix, which While some are the pride and the glory of the constitutes so remarkable a fact in the natural hismarket-gardener, and are displayed by him with tory of the West India Islands, is an instance peripheries as large as a cheese-plate, others are where the powers of fungal life have overcome his unrecognized but well-known enemies in the even those of animal vitality. The insect becomes fruit-room, and rise in fanciful elegance and of filled with the filaments of the plant which thrives microscopic structure upon the withering dainties upon its juices, and penetrates to the minutest he has there stored up. While, again, some in- cavities of its body, ultimately projecting out of trude unwelcomely upon the romance of the deep it, and communicating a highly singular aspect to forest dell, others dwell in the wine-cellar; and the creature. The silkworm is subject to a siminot a few, to the aggravation of the housewife, lar disease, and perishes in large numbers by the revel upon the rich dainties of the preserve-closet. ravages of a fungus, which occupies every portion Lastly, while some attain a weight of several of its body. Even the common house-fly is inpounds, others float in the air like a thin smoke, vaded by this vegetable infection; and when it is and are wholly inappreciable by the most delicate seen, as often it may be, in the autumn, sticking balances. From these statements, it will be suffi- to the window-frame, apparently half enveloped in ciently apparent, that to suppose all fungi typified a whitish cloud, it will be found that a fungal has by the mushrooms, is an error well deserving an filled its body, and now reigns victorious in the ample refutation. Few plants, in fact, exhibit place of all the beautiful organs of the insect strucsuch an extensive range of growth and variety of ture which have perished before it. The larva of aspect. a New Zealand moth is attacked also by a paraThere are, probably, no fewer than from 4,000 sitic fungus, which enters it, perhaps, by some of to 5,000 species of fungi which have a place in the breathing pores, or spiracles, or by the mouth, the records of mycological science. This immense and, feeding upon its fluid parts, speedily replaces horde of these plants appears scattered throughout the whole interior by a mass of vegetable filaments. almost all regions; no country or clime but has Man himself is not exempt from their invasion. its fungal inhabitants; and neither can art contrive, On the removal of bandages from sore surfaces, nor nature contain, any place to which they will says one writer, a collection of funguses has been not or may not penetrate. The first plant of this found growing upon them, generally about the order, discovered by the eminent botanist, Wither-size of the finger, and on reädjusting the wraping, was found by him on the top of St. Paul's pings, a second crop came up in the course of cathedral; this plant was the Ge-astrum. Another twenty-four hours, and this for several days conwas found by Sir Joseph Banks in the following rather annoying position; having a cask of wine rather too sweet for immediate use, he directed that it should be placed in a cellar, that the saccharine matter it contained might be decomposed by age; at the end of three years, he directed his butler to ascertain the state of the wine, but on attempting to open the cellar door, he could not effect it in consequence of some powerful obstacle; the door was, consequently, cut down, when the cellar was found to be completely filled with a fungous production, so firm that it was necessary to use the axe for its removal. This appeared to have grown firmer, or to have been nourished, by the decomposing particles of the wine, the cask being empty, and carried up to the ceiling, where it was supported by the fungus. The vaults of the London Docks are not less the choice abodes of these creatures than are the rotting heaps of manure by the open way-side, for there they cover the walls with a dense, shaggy coating, and embrace the venerable casks with a living raiment. *Muxns, the Greek designation for fungus. secutively. Dr. Bennet informs us, that a species and we may adopt the a precise expression of the fact, "that their spira- | They have been, on this account, called entophyta, cles are so numerous, in a single individual I have just as the creatures which inhabit living animal reckoned above ten millions; so subtle, they are structures have been termed entozoa. scarce visible to the naked eye, and often resemble thin smoke; so light, raised perhaps by evaporation into the atmosphere, and are dispersed in so many ways by the attraction of the sun, insects, wind, electricity, adhesion, &c., that it is difficult to conceive a place from which they can be excluded." There is, therefore, no impossibility in the supposition that they may obtain access to the most secret recesses of the animal structure; although, as a cause of disease, it is impossible to understand their modus operandi, or to give any valid reasons for assigning any such influence at all to them. Among fungi of this class, we must also not forget to mention the Oxygena equina, which has the odd fancy for fastening itself on the hoofs of horses and on the horns of cattle. When we mention that several of the blights of the cereal plants, wheat and others, are due to fungous parasites upon vegetable structures, we shall sufficiently announce the alarming relation which is occupied by these despised plants to the well-being, or even the existence, of mankind. The kinds known as the Uredos and Puccinia, are among the most formidable visitations that can befall a corn district. Ask the farmer what he thinks of the "smut" in his corn, or of the "rust" and "red-robin," and there will be unfolded such a tale of woe, such a history of ruin and calamity, as will convey a painful impression of the enormous devastation wrought by a species or two of microscopical fungi. The researches of Mr. Hassall have demonstrated that the decay of fruit is, in a great measure, produced by them, and when the process has commenced, they then fatten upon the rotting matters. When our beer becomes mothery, (quaintly remarks Dr. Badham,) the mother of that mischief is a fungus. If pickles acquire a bad taste, if ketchup turas ropy and putrefies, funguses have a finger in it all. Their reign stops not here they prey upon each other; they even select their victims. There is the Myrothecium viride, which will only grow upon dry agarics, preferring chiefly for this purpose the A. adustus; the Mucor chrysospermus, which attacks the flesh of a particular Boletus; the Seleroticum cornutum, which visits some other moist mushrooms in decay. There are some Xylomas that will spot the leaves of the maple, and some those of the willow, exclusively. The naked seeds of some are found burrowing between the opposite surface of leaves. The close cavities of nuts occasionally afford concealment to some species; others, like leeches, stick to the bulbs of plants and suck them dry.-Esculent Funguses of England, p. 8. Let us now spend a few moments in vindicating the character of fungals in respect of beauty of color. Where the wind sweeps over the untilled Highlands of the North, where the soil has not strength to bear the exhaustive growth of the cereals, and rears a tribe of humble heaths or feeble mosses as its tallest children—there, at the due season, will be found a fungus whose gorgeous apparel bears comparison with that of the richest flower, and exceeds the highest efforts of the colorist's art. This fungus is the Agaricus muscarius, growing in a canopy of splendid scarlet, contrasted with a stalk and gills of the purest ivory. But woe to him who partakes of this inviting plant. If it does not destroy him, it will plunge him into a state of intoxication bordering upon lunacy. At the borders of the woods, particularly under the shelter of oaks, will be found another. fungus, the Cantharellus Cibarius, whose tincture might compare with that of many a more conspicuous occupant of our gardens: from spring-time to autumn its golden form may be seen glowing in the position described, and inviting the hand of the bypasser-nor in this case with a treacherous aspect, for it is as excellent in taste as it is beautiful in its yellow tinging. But these, lovely though they be, fade in the presence of some specimens of the Boletus luridus: here is a truly splendid fungal, the summit a snowy mound of velvet, lined with purple shaded into gold, and supported on a stalk passing from orange into the full lustre of a regal purple. This, too, is a magnificent enemy to the human economy. The Agaricus violaccus glories in beauty of another dye it is of a dark violet, approaching to black, glossed over with a most peculiar coppery lustre, which no art can truly render; and it, we may add, is not only an esculent, but possesses a peculiarly rich flavor. Upon pieces of the corrugated bark of oaks, in autumn, may sometimes be found a curious fungal of another variety of beauty: this looks more like pieces of orange strewed carelessly here and there over the bark, and altogether presents a very singular aspect. Principally under old oaks may be found, from July to November, a fungus which is gayest of the gay. "Few Agarics," writes Mrs. Hussey, "6 can boast of so excellent a development as this, whether the garb it selects for the nonce be of a lovely rose-color, or pervaded with lilac, having a changeable effect, or blotched, like a striped camelia, with rich crimson and white, according to the screen it has received from neighboring plants in its growth. Each of these various These fungi, we must repeat, are excessively colors, at various times and places, adorns the minute, or even microscopic in point of size. pileus, relieving it from the pure white gills beFrom experiment, it appears that their spores, or low. It gives no warning by its scent, or by any their fine contents, actually penetrate the stomata, other external circumstances, of its deleterious or breathing orifices, of the plants, entering thus quality. If the ignoramus should be tempted to into their structure, where they rapidly become taste, for a few moments all appears harmless, for developed, and fulfil their destructive mission. it is tardily acrid; but it fully makes up for the becomes a constant source of surprise to us to discover the most opposite of external characters combined in the various members of the same tribe. The fungals furnish us with some good delay, as the tortured investigator, with burning | apparently, kid-skin, smooth and soft; and some lips and fauces, and tearful eyes, seeks in vain for take, for instance, the truffle-are covered over alleviation. If not swallowed, however, the ef- with tubercles. fect shortly subsides." Upon yews and plumb- Perhaps, to the unlearned in fungal history, trees, in the summer-time, may often be seen a nothing will appear more singular than what we fungus which has all the aspect of a mass of sul-are about to state, as to the consistence of these phur. Another, as common among the sweet plants. So accustomed are we to take our genturf as can be, though a minute fungus, boasts eral impressions of the characters of a natural a glorious garb of orange and blood-red. High family from those of a well-known type, that it up in young oaks, in September, may be seen the "liver of the oak"-a fungal as near like the human tongue as can well be imagined, and hence termed by M. Paulet an eloquent tongue, proclaiming its own excellence, and inviting the passen- illustrations in point. Our impressions of them, ger to eat it. Says Dr. Badham, "It is so like as a family, are in the main derived from the coma tongue in shape and general appearance, that in moner sort-such as the mushroom; and here the the days of enchanted trees, you would not have well-known fragility of this species communicates cut it off to pickle, or to eat on any account, lest the same idea as a characteristic of the rest. the knight to whom it belonged should afterwards this is far from correct. Some hang upon trees come to claim it of you." But the doctor forgets like masses of trembling jelly; some are like that such an unhappy victim of mycological re- pulp; some are soft and mucous; others are search would not be able to make his demand sav-spongy and elastic; others, again, are meming in dumb show! "The surface is rough with branous and parchment-like; others form admiraelevated papillæ; the structure fibrous; the flesh | ble foot-balls, both in size and texture; others softly elastic; the color bright red, looking like are tough, like leather; others firm like cork; the tongue in the worst forms of gastro-enteritis !" and, lastly, some as hard as wood. Some are so As to shape, what geometry shall succeed in delicate as to perish on being touched; the stem defining their ever-varying outlines? of some breaks with the softest breeze; the sturdy form of others stands unshaken in the tempest, and will endure the thrust of the traveller's foot almost uninjured. How unlike are all these, in their various particulars, to the characters of the mushroom tribe! Some are simple threads, like the Byssus, and never get beyond this; some shoot out into branches, like seaweed; some puff themselves out into puff-balls; some thrust their heads into mitres; these assume the shape of a cup; and those of a wine-funnel; some, likeAg. mammorus, have a teat; others, like the Ag. Clypeolarius, are umbonated at their centre; these are stilted upon a high leg, and those have not a leg to stand upon; some are shellshaped, many bell-shaped; and some hang upon their stalks like a lawyer's wig; some assume the form of a horse's hoof; others of a goat's beard; in the Clathrus cancellatus you look into the fungus through a thick red trellis, which surrounds it. Some exhibit a nest, in which they rear their young; and not to speak of those vague shapes, If shapes they can be called, that shape have none But Neither have all fungals the characteristic odor and savor of the mushroom. The Agaricus alliaceus might cheat us into the belief that onions were at hand. The mucors have their own mouldy smell. Others, called by the anise-loving Linnæus suave-olens, diffuse a powerful scent of that cordial; thus leading the polite reader to form no very refined notions of the great naturalist's olfactory sensibilities. The Agaricus cinnamoneus, in color, and powerfully in odor, mimics the finest cinnamon. The Boletus salicinus has the reputation of smelling like sweet may-bloom. of such tree-parasites as are fain to mould them- The Chanterelle and the odorous Agaric are perselves at the will of their entertainer, (the fate of par- fumed like apricots and ratafia. But, alas! many asites, whether under oak or mahogany,) mention are of a positively nauseous and disgusting smell. may be made of one exactly like an ear, of which The Phallus impudicus cannot be borne in the the form is at once irregular and constant, which room, even for a few minutes. Dr. Badham tells is given, for some good reason, to Judas, (Auricula Jude,) clings to several trees, and trembles us of an unlucky botanist who had, by mistake, you touch it.-Esculent Funguses, pp. 9, 10. taken it into his bed-room, and soon became awakened by the intolerable fœtor it diffused around; so that he was glad to open the window and get rid of it, as he hoped, and the Phallus, together; here he was disappointed—“ sublatâ causâ non tollitur effectus"-the fœtor remaining nearly the same for some hours afterwards. A lady, who was drawing one in a room, was obliged to take it into the open air to complete her sketch. A fungus called the Clathrus becomes insupportably offensive in a short time, and its infective stench has given rise to a superstition entertained of it throughout the Landes, that it has the prop when As to surface, fungals still exhibit the same variety which marks their coloring and form. Some, to use Mrs. Hussey's expression, look like a nest of serpents, peeping forth from the trees on which they flourish in all their scaly horrors. Others are spangled, as if with particles of broken glass. Some have a delicate feathery aspect, comparable to nothing so nearly as to the parasols of feathers, which appear in Eastern grandeurs. Some again are zoned with concentric circles, of different hues; some are clothed in a garb of, erty of producing cancer in those who touch it; in consequence of which the inhabitants, who call it cancrou, or cancer, cover it carefully over, lest by accident some chance to touch it, and thus become infected with that horrible disease. with gems of radiance. The light arising from a large number of them becomes almost dazzling to gaze upon. Might not these fungi be introduced into our mines with advantage? The spawn of the truffle is luminous, and is thus sometimes discovered with great readiness. The olive-groves of Italy are sometimes seen to be dimly illuminated with a phophorescent agaric; and Rumphius, in Amboyna, and Mr. Drummond, at the Swan River, speak of similar phenomena. The light produced by these various species of plants is probably due, as in ordinary cases of phosphorescence, simply to the oxidation of a vegetable product containing We shall speak of the variances of fungal savor when we advert to them as articles of diet; but it may be here mentioned, that they are as many as those of form, color, consistence, and odor. Some are as fierce as fire in this respect. Capsicums are cool in comparison therewith. Mrs. Hussey tells of a young man, who, in spite of caution, insisted on tasting one species with the tip of his tongue-instantly he darted off, in a phosphorus. course apparently so objectless as to give painful doubts of his sanity, and was found ten minutes afterwards, his face half immersed in a brook which he had descried in the distance, vainly striving to cool the unquenchable flame communicated by the fungal to his tongue. All the varieties of the flavors understood by us under the terms sweet, sour, rich, rank, and acrid-many are quite without appreciable flavor of any kind. It is a remarkable fact that some fungi are phosphorescent. Mr. Gardner relates the following interesting circumstance in connection with this fact. "One dark night, about the beginning of December, while passing along the streets of the Villa de Natividade, I observed some boys amusing themselves with some luminous object, which I at first supposed to be a kind of large fire-fly; but, on making inquiry, I was told that it grew abundantly in the neighborhood on the decaying leaves of a dwarf palm. Next day I obtained a great many specimens, and found them to vary from one to two and a half inches across. The whole plant gives out at night a bright phosphorescent light, of a pale greenish hue, similar to that emitted by the larger fire-flies, or by those curious soft-bodied marine animals, the Pyrosome; from this circumstance, and from growing on a palm, it is called by the inhabitants the flor do coco.' The light given out by a few of these fungi in a dark room was sufficient to read by. It proved to be quite a new species, and, since my return from Brazil, has been described by the Rev. M. J. Berkeley under the name of Agaricus Gardneri, from preserved specimens which I brought home." In the coal-mines near Dresden are fungi of another species, which are a safer source of light even than the safety-lamp of the illustrious Davy. These fungi belong to the singular genus Rhizomorpha. A paper in a scientific periodical, published some years since, furnishes a good account of the curious effect produced by these plants in these otherwise dark and dreary excavations. The visitor has no need of artificial illumination-the sides and roof of the black tunnels glow with pale stars of light, which fill the abyss with a soft diffusive lustre, and create the belief that some enchanting power has locked us in a fairy palace, whose walls glitter Travels in the Interior of Brazil. 1846. That mushrooms come up suddenly, as in a night, is a popular aphorism, older than we dare state; and certain it is, that in the rapidity, power, and size of their growth, they are wonderful plants. At the seasons of warm rains in summer, puff-balls will grow with amazing rapidity. Particularly during electrical disturbances of the atmosphere, the fungi will sometimes spring up with a swiftness of growth akin to the marvellous. Perhaps their expansive powers in growing are even more remarkable. In the "Elements of Physiology," by Dr. Carpenter, a curious instance of the immense force of an expanding fungus is related :"In the neighborhood of Basingstoke, a pavingstone, measuring twenty-one inches square, and weighing eighty-three pounds, was completely raised an inch and a half out of its bed by a mass of toadstools of from six to seven inches in diameter; and nearly the whole pavement of the town suffered displacement from the same cause !" Dr. Badham says:-"I have myself recently witnessed an extensive displacement of the pegs of a wooden pavement, which had been driven nine inches into the ground, but were heaved up irregularly in several places by small bouquets of agarics, growing from below." on placing a Phallus impudicus within a glass vessel, the plant expanded so rapidly as to shiver its sides with an explosive detonation, as loud as that of a pistol. Of all vegetable structures, we should least expect such singular results from the expansion of the generally soft and fragile plants under consideration. We are taught by them an impressive lesson of the invincible power of the feeblest causes when their operation is constant. M. Bulliard relates, that Strange things are told as to fungal dimensions. Some, as we have observed, are invisible to the unassisted eye, floating perhaps in the vital air we inhale; but the dimensions of others we dare scarcely venture to state, and, making the venture, we shall only do so under the shelter of authorities. The family of the puff-balls is the most prolific in the production of giant fungi. Although their usual size is small, not exceeding that of an egg, Mrs. Hussey has figured one which fully justifies, without, as she declares, the smallest help of the pencil, the description conveyed under the Greek term xgaviov, from its striking resemblance in point of form and dimensions to the human skull. The nasal prominence and the frontal eminences, with the suture between them, are well mimicked out, and the animal motion was then so strong as in this curious fungus. This accomplished mycolo- to turn the head half-way round, first one way, gist states, that the specimen was found growing and then another, and two or three times it got out among some felled timber, and in a most confined of the focus. Almost every fibre had a different space, attaining the dimensions of a half-peck loaf. motion-some of them twined round one another, The environs of Padua produce, as it is said by and then untwined again, while others were bendCicinelli, enormous puff-balls, measuring two feet ing, extending, coiling, waving, &c." These in diameter ! Mr. Berkeley, whose opinions on movements may have been simply hygrometric. fungal history are sterling among botanists, quotes Other authors have entertained doubts of fungals the case of a fungus which in three weeks grew to being more than mere accidental developments of seven feet five inches in circumference, and weighed vegetable tissue, called into action, by special conthirty-four pounds! Baptist Perta speaks of a ditions of light, heat, soil, and air. These doubts, fungus which in a few days attained a weight of to quote the thoughtful observations of Mr. Berketwelve pounds, and was too large to be embraced ley, have been caused by some remarkable cirby both the hands. Mr. Angus informs us, that cumstances connected with their development, the in the woods of New Zealand large funguses stand most material of which are the following:-" They out from the parent trees so boldly and rigidly as grow with a degree of rapidity unknown in other to make commodious seats! But the giant fungus plants, acquiring the volume of many inches in the of all is one whose dimensions come down to pos- space of a night, and are frequently meteoric; terity on the authority of Clusius. This monstrous that is, springing up after storms, or only in parplant grew in Pannonia, was discovered by a ticular states of the atmosphere. It is possible fungus-loving family, who all partook of it until to increase particular species with certainty by an they could eat no more, and there remained behind ascertained mixture of organic and inorganic enough to fill a chariot! In the deep recesses of materials exposed to well-known atmospheric conwoods, and elsewhere, where suffered to grow ditions, as is formed by the process adopted by unmolested, the mycological traveller may often gardeners for obtaining Agaricus campestris—a stumble upon specimens whose enormous dimen- process so certain, that no one ever knew any other sions take away much of the apparent improbability kind of agaric produced in mushroom-beds, except from the last-quoted anecdote. The vis medicatrix a few of the dunghill tribe, where raw dung has naturæ, on which so much ink-shed has taken been placed near the surface of the bed. This place, is remarkably exercised in the case of the could not happen if the mushroom sprang from fungi. Let a snail come and take his morning seeds floating in the air, as in that case many meal out of the summit of a splendid boletus, this species would naturally be mixed together. Fungi power, be it what it may, immediately directs the are produced constantly upon the same kind of refilling of the cavity, and it is speedily accom-matter, and upon nothing else, such as the species plished in such a manner as to render the injury al- that are parasitic upon leaves; all which is conmost imperceptible. This power, of course, greatly tends to the preservation of the individual, and thus indirectly contributes to its vast enlargement in size. Those who have given most thought to mycology are still in a position of painful uncertainty, strange to say, as to the real nature of fungi! Will it be believed? it is even questioned whether they be plants at all; whether, in fact, they do not belong to some kingdom intermediate between plants and animals. And, certainly, if the extraordinary and life-like movements observed in the fibres of some species, such as those described in the next sentence, were a fair argument for such a theory, its supporters are not far from the truth; but, unfortunately for their idea, equally striking movements exist in many higher plants than fungi, upon whose vegetable nature no question can be entertained. The following movements are described in the words of their observer, Mr. Robson, who noticed their occurrence in the fibres of the fungus called the Clathrus. "At first," he says, "I was much surprised to see a part of the fibres that had got through a rupture in the top of the Clathrus moving like the legs of a fly, when laid upon his back; ་ sidered strong evidence of the production of fungi being accidental, and not analogous to that of perfect plants." Such, however, is far from the conviction of our own minds upon the subject. M. Dutrochet has instituted some curious experiments which may be quoted; he found that he could obtain at pleasure different species of mouldiness by using different infusions; he also states that certain acid fluids constantly yield monilias, and that certain alkaline mixtures produce botrytis. What is the conclusion to be drawn from these facts? That the fungi are mere metamorphoses of ordinary cellular tissue, without law of genus or species? Scarcely so. May we not rather bear in profitable recollection the recent discoveries of natural chemistry upon the mineral ingredients peculiar to each plant? When we mix up our compost for mushrooms, what is it that we do but bring together, it may be, those mineral ingredients most favorable to the development of mushrooms from spores already floating in the air, or existing hitherto unquickened in the soil? Why does the botrytis select an alkaline bed, if it be not that the alkali is most favorable to its development? I then touched it with the point Wheat will not grow in a soil destitute of of a pin, and was still more surprised when I saw siliceous matter, alkalies, and nitrogen; yet other it present the appearance of a little bundle of plants will grow there, and perhaps exclusively. worms entangled together, the fibres being all We are not, therefore, to attach much weight to alive; I next took the little bundle of fibres quite an argument drawn from the, at first sight, striking |