A NEW FORM OF PYRUS.

The Rev. A. LEY has furnished us with the following notes contributed by him to The Journal of Botany for March, 1895.

IN 1893 I found a Pyrus in Breconshire, which appeared to me to be the wellknown P. scandica Syme, of Glen Catacol, Arran, and which I distributed through the Botanical Exchange Club under that name. Last year I had good opportunities of observing its flower and ripe fruit; and having, through the courtesy of the authorities at Kew, compared it with plants in that collection, I think it well to call attention to it by a short note in this Journal, leaving to a future opportunity to publish a fuller description, with, it is hoped, a drawing.

Pyrus minima, n. sp. or n. var. A small spreading shrub, much branched, with slender branches. Leaves linear-oblong, shallowly pinnatifid, with 3-4 principal lobes, bright green above, ashy-felted beneath.

Flowers open

early in June, freely produced, in loose corymbs, small, in size resembling those of P. Aucuparia Gaertn.; petals cream-coloured, unopened anthers creamcoloured; calyx erect and prominent upon the unripe fruit, and persistent till the fruit falls. Fruit small, globose, bright coral-red, ripening in the end of August, bitter. Very near the P. scandica Syme, of Arran, and perhaps a variety of that plant, from which the leaf-differences would scarcely separate it; but the small flowers, the very slender branching habit, and especially the small globose bright red fruit, seem to indicate specific distinction. Loc.:-On a limestone mountain cliff called Craig Cille, near Crickhowell, Breconshire; also on limestone rocks at Blaen Onnen, two miles westward from Craig Cille. Undoubtedly native, and in great abundance at the former station, where the shrubs clothe the limestone cliff to its head at an altitude of about 2000 ft.; seedlings also being frequent. P. Aucuparia Gaertn., P, intermedia Ehrh., and P. Aria Sm. var. rupicola also occur on the same cliff; but the very distinct habit and fruit of the present plant, as well as other reasons, forbid the idea that it can be due to hybridity. The anthers in P. intermedia seem uniformly to be pink; those of P. Aria and its varieties usually cream-coloured. What is the colour of the anthers in P. scandica?-AUGUSTIN LEY.

A FEW NOTES ON FUNGI.

BY DR. A. J. H. CRESPI.

My knowledge of the fungi lacks completeness and accuracy, but is sufficient to tempt me to write something about them. There are at least 12,000 species of fungi in England and the rest of the United Kingdom, and of these fully 4,000 are microscopic species; so that fungi are truly legion. Saccado's Sylloge Fungorum, finished twenty-two years ago, records 39,663 species existing in different parts of the world. A definition of a fungus is not easy, and what Dr. M. C. Cooke, of Kew, the author of some of the ablest works in the language on the subject, has failed to attempt I cannot hope to succeed in accomplishing. They grew almost everywhere-in houses, on wood, in the closed cavities of nuts, in animal tissues-in short, in and upon everything.

A blacksmith at Salem threw on one side a piece of iron which he had just taken from the fire, and next morning he found on this very piece of metal, lying over the water in his trough, a mass of fungi two feet in length; it had crept over the iron to some wood near, and not from the latter to the iron. This immense mass had formed in twelve hours. The Rev. M. J. Berkeley, F.R.S., saw a species of fungus on a lead cistern at Kew, and Sowerby found one growing on some cinders on the outside of the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral. The great puff ball will reach the size of a pumpkin in a single night, and Lindley calculated that the cells of which it is made up will multiply at the rate of 60,000,000 a minute. Dr. Greville records that a specimen of one of the largest British Fungi-the Polyporus Squamosus-reached a diameter of 7 ft. 5 ins., and weighed 34 lbs. It took four weeks to reach that size, growing at the rate of 19 ounces a day. A specimen of this species has been known to reach a diameter of 11 inches in a week.

The late Dr. Benjamin Carpenter, F.R.S., recorded an instance of the tremendous power which fungi exert in growing. Basingstoke was, many years ago, paved, and some time afterwards the pavement was found to be uneven. This increased until some of the heaviest stones were completely lifted out o place by the growth of enormous fungi underneath. One of these paving stones measured 22 inches by 21 inches and weighed 83 lbs. And something precisely similar has just taken place at Torquay, where in places the pavements have been upheaved by fungi. Dr. M. C. Cooke had a similar incident brought under his notice a large kitchen hearthstone being forced out of its bed by the growth of a fungus. Sir Joseph Banks relates a still more startling occurrence. A cask of wine leaked, and, after a time, there grew from the leakage a fungus which finally filled the cellar and lifted the cask to the ceiling.

Fungi, like human beings, give off carbonic acid, and not oxygen, as do most other vegetables. This is due, probably, to the absence of green colouring

matter.

A popular error is to suppose that fungi are eatable, and toadstools poisonous. There is no such line of demarcation, nor, strictly speaking, has toadstool any precise scientific meaning. Very many fungi are eatable, the number of poisonous varieties being greatly exaggerated. The common Agaric usually eaten in England is not the most palatable and wholesome; indeed, in Italy it is said to be condemned and not allowed to be sold in the fungus market, which is there quite an institution. But this assertion is a traveller's tale, and not more trustworthy than many of the narratives of visitors to foreign lands, who hastily jot down their first impressions and believe everything they chance to hear.

Few foods are more savoury or greater favourites than well-cooked fungi. The souls of good vegetarians hunger and thirst after them, and no wonder ! They have the reputation of being very nutritious, but physiologists say that this is an error, and that there is reason to believe that a given weight of them is not so sustaining as from its chemical composition it ought to be. This does not mean that they are not useful adjuncts to food. As flavouring ingredients they have no superiors. Far greater use of them ought to be made, and I cannot see why the supply of fungi should not be increased twentyfold. In this way a most valuable industry might be developed, or, more correctly, built up in our midst. Nothing is easier than to grow them, and they are very profitable.

A physician of repute, whom I have often met at the Woolhope fungus dinner at Hereford, has several times told me that he has freely experimented on fungi, and has eaten many species with impunity. If the smell was pleasant he tasted the raw fungus and then fried half of it. He rarely suffered temporarily, never permanently, and he believed that most fungi could be eaten with safety. I should not, however, advise my readers to try experiments for themselves until they can at least distinguish those species which are known to be poisonous. Some species are deadly poisons, and even a small piece will bring on violent illness sometimes ending in a most painful death.

The active chemical principle which, in very rare instances, causes inconvenience and even death from eating fungi, is called muscarine. It is the same principle which, I believe, is found in putrid poisonous meat. Some foul smelling and repulsive species are rich in it, but most fungi are harmless, and a few country walks in the early autumn in the company of a mycologist would furnish hints enough to be an invaluable guide to any person of common intelligence. Unfortunately, or perhaps I should write fortunately, no amount of reading will make a man a practical mycologist. It is in the fields and in the woods that the science must be learnt. There, and there only, and from the teaching of an old student, will the tyro learn to distinguish the wholesome from the dangerous.

We eat and cultivate the Agaricus campestris, or common field mushroom, and think it the only species fit to place on the table, but Dr. Cooke tells me that probably many other species could be as readily cultivated did we only know how, and that much still has to be found out as to the propagation and cultivation of many eatable species. I can assure the reader that the Lactarius deliciosus

and some of the Agarici proceri are excellent and abundant, and equal to the sorts held in the highest favour by the general public. The Fistulina hepatica and the Agaricus procerus, or "Parasol" mushroom, are far away better than the common field mushroom; so at least my honoured friend, Professor John Horsfall, M. A., F. R.C.S., the great surgeon of Bournemouth, tells me.

The best way to get information on this most difficult subject, which cannot, I repeat, be learnt from books, would be to have lectures on fungi from some practical teacher. I can imagine the excellent and brilliant address which such a lecturer as the Rev. John E. Vize, of Forden, Welshpool, would give In such a way, and in it alone, could trustworthy information be conveyed, which would be of invaluable service to learners. Mycologists rather ignore the utility of fungi as food, and think it a degradation of the subject to approach it from the dietetic side; but usefulness might play an important part in the matter, and in that way the general public would be led to see the beauty and value of the study of fungi.

THE NEW FOREST.

By ALFRED J. H. CRESPI, of Wimborne.

EVERYONE has heard of the New Forest, and knows that the pitiless Conqueror depopulated the southern districts of Hampshire to make himself a great forest, where he and his sons could hunt. But alas! for the truth of this familiar and pathetic story, a glance at the soil shows that it never could have carried a large population, so the tale has lost nothing in the telling. Everyone, too, has heard that the Conqueror's fierce son-the Red King-on the eve of an expedition to France, rode down from Winchester, 18 or 19 miles, to Canterton Glen, a spot henceforth memorable in history, where, struck by an arrow in the breast, he died. Perhaps some have wondered how his death came about; whether his companion, Sir Walter Tyrrel, shot him purposely, as Walter Savage Landor tries to prove, or whether the French Baron accidentally killed him, or whether, as a dark tradition whispered, some Saxon churl dispossessed of hut or lands, chancing to pass by, shot the Red King and brought his life of infamy to an end. Everyone also knows that the New Forest was fatal to three members of the Conqueror's family. There, in 1081, Richard, his second son, met his death. There, died, accidentally shot by an arrow, in May, 1100, another Richard, son of Duke Robert, and there, on the 2nd August of the same year, the Red King perished, to the grief of a few.

The New Forest is that portion of Hants bounded by Southampton Water on the east and by the Avon on the west, with the sea to the south, and a line from North Charford on the west to Wade and Owerbridge on the east. In Domesday Book the New Forest was said to have 17 tenants in chief, and 17 under-tenants, the latter corresponding to modern copyholders; 87 bordarii, or cottagers-that is people holding a bord for which they gave rent or service to the lord; 66 villani, and 232 serfs. The total area of the Forest is 91,000 acres; of this private owners hold 26,000 acres, while the Crown is absolute lord of 2,000, and to the remaining 63,000 acres, it has, in common with 850 proprietors, certain ill-defined claims. About 5,000 acres are covered with ancient and well-grown timber; 10,000 with timber nearly two centuries old, and as much more with young plantations, while many thousands of acres are barren waste and moor, usually dreary enough and swampy, though at certain seasons resplendent with flaming gorse and delicately-tinted heather in full flower.

In 1670 only 5,000 acres belonging to private individuals had been enclosed, while in 1783, 24,797 had been appropriated or enclosed, beside 901 acres of encroachments, and 625 of Crown copyhold. As for the timber, in 1608 123,927 trees were fit for cutting down, and these, with dotard and decayed trees, represented 315,477 loads of wood. This, in 1783, had been reduced by the peculations of the keepers, and the neglect of the verderers, to 20,830 loads. Deer were plentiful in the Forest for many centuries, but though large sums were paid by the Crown for hay, they seem to have been shamefully neglected, the