Fungi: Their Nature and Uses

by M. C. Cooke

Auricularini.—The genera Hymenochœte, Stereum, and Corticium, with some species of Thelephora, run over corticated or decorticated wood; other species of Thelephora grow on the ground. The Pezizoid forms of Cyphella and Solenia, like species of Peziza, sometimes occur on bark, and of the former genus some on grasses and others on moss.

Clavariei.—The interesting, often brightly-coloured, tufts of Clavaria are usually found amongst grass, growing directly from the ground. Only in rare instances do they occur on dead leaves or herbaceous stems. Calocera probably should be classed with the Tremellini, to which its structure seems more closely allied. The species are developed on wood. The species of Typhula and Pistillaria are small, growing chiefly on dead herbaceous plants. One or two are developed from a kind of Sclerotium, which is in fact a compact perennial mycelium.

Tremellini.—These curious gelatinous fungi are, with rare exceptions, developed on branches or naked wood; Tremella versicolor, B. and Br., one of the exceptions, being parasitic on a species of Corticium, and Tremella epigæa, B. and Br., spreading over the naked soil. This completes our rapid survey of the habitats of the Hymenomycetes. Very few of them are really destructive to vegetation, for the Agarics and Polypori found on growing trees are seldom to be seen on vigorous, but rather on dead branches or partly-decayed trunks.

The Gasteromycetes are far less numerous in species, and also in individuals, but their habitats are probably more variable. The Hypogæi, or subterranean species, are found either near the surface or buried in the soil, usually in the neighbourhood of trees.

Phalloidei.—In most cases the species prefer woody places. They are mostly terrestrial, and have the faculty of making their presence known, even when not seen, by the fetid odour which many of them exhale. Some of them occur in sandy spots.

Podaxinei.—These resemble in their localities the Trichogastres. Species of Podaxon affect the nests of Termites in tropical countries.[D] Others are found growing amongst grass.

Trichogastres.—These are chiefly terrestrial. The rare but curious Batarrea phalloides, P., has been found on sand-hills, and in hollow trees. Tulostoma mammosum, Fr., occurs on old stone walls, growing amongst moss. Geaster striatus, D. C., was at one time usually found on the sand of the Denes at Great Yarmouth. Although Lycoperdon giganteum, Batsch, occurs most frequently in pastures, or on hedge banks in fields, we have known it to occur annually for some consecutive years in a garden near London. The species of Scleroderma seem to prefer a sandy soil. Aglœocystis is rather an anomalous genus, occurring on the fruit heads of Cyperus, in India. Broomeia occurs at the Cape on rotten wood.

Myxogastres.—Rotten wood is one of the most favoured of matrices on which these fungi develop themselves; some of them, however, are terrestrial. Æthalium will grow on spent tan and other substances. Species of Diderma flourish on mosses, jungermanniæ, grass, dead leaves, ferns, &c. Angioridium sinuosum, Grev., will run over growing plants of different kinds, and Spumaria, in like manner, encrusts living grasses. Badhamia not only flourishes on dead wood, but one species is found on the fading leaves of coltsfoot which are still green. Craterium runs over almost any substance which lies in its way. Licea perreptans was found in a cucumber frame heated with spent hops. One or two Myxogastres have been found on lead, or even on iron which had been recently heated. Sowerby found one on cinders, in one of the galleries of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Nidulariacei grow on the ground, or on sticks, twigs, chips, and other vegetable substances, such as sawdust, dung, and rotten wood.