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name of Phycomyces ; but this notion is now abolished, and
it takes its place as the prince of these powers of putrescence.
One of the most curious properties of certain Fungi is their
capability of growth in substances which arc in general destructive
to vegetables. Taimin is one of these substances, and
yet a Fungus very frequently makes its appearance on the
wood with which the tan-pits are lined. I t is perhaps not so
surprising, that many species prefer spent tan to almost any
other substance, though even this docs not seem favourable to
phænogams, except so far as it is useful in raising the temperature
of the houses in which they grow. Many vegetable
poisons, as opium, though innocuous to the plants by which
they are produced so long as they remain in their proper cells
or receptacles, are positively destructive when mixed with
the fluid which is taken up by their roots. More than one
species of Fungus, however, is developed on extracted opium,
and the factories in India have sufi'ercd greatl}! from their
presence. Solutions of arsenic, sulphate of iron, sulphate of
copper, etc., though highly concentrated, do not prevent the
growth of some Fungi of a low order, though at once destructive
to others. A few years since, a little Mould, developed in
the solution of copper used for clcctrotyping in the department
of the Coast Survey of Washington, proved an intolerable
nuisance. Strange to say, it decomposes the salt, assimilating
the sulphuric acid, and rejecting the copper, which is
deposited round its threads in a metallic form.* These productions,
indeed, are sometimes referred to Algae, from their
submersed mode of growth; but they are mostly common
species of Mould, and very distantly related to Algæ.
One of these Moulds is sometimes developed in strong wine,
as in Madeira. A Mould, however, of a very different habit
* Ilarvoy, ‘ Nereis Boreali-Americana,’ part i. p. G.
and colour [Antennaria cellaris) is peculiarly attached to
winc-ccllars, where it is the pride of the merchant when it
hangs about the walls in black powdery tufts. I t is not, however,
the only occupant of winc-ccllars. There is a Fungus,
whose exact character is unknown, which first attacks the
corks of wiiie-bottlcs, destroying their texture, and at length impregnates
the wine with such an unpleasant taste and odour
that it is perfectly unfit for use ; while another, equally obscure
as to its kindred, after preying upon the corks, sends down
branched threads into the liquid, at length rendering it a mere
caput mortuum. Dry -rot, again, is peculiarly attached to cellars,
to the destruction of winc-shelves ; and an instance is on
record in which this or some other Fungus attacked a cask of
wine, and increased to such an extent as to completely block
up the entrance. The wood of the cask was the first object of
attack, but the wine supplied a great portion of the sustenance
of this enormous monster, which is only equalled by
the great curtain of Dry-rot which lately covered the walls of
a sandstone railway tunnel in the north of England.
Perhaps the most curious circumstance under which Fungi
arc developed is when they arc found in situations apparently
completely excluded from the external air, as the Potato
Mould, in the cavities of the fruit of Tomato, Dactylium
roseum in the hazel-nut, or a red Pénicillium in an egg. The
spawn of Fungi, however, is capable of making its way, and
that very rapidly, through the closest structures. In some
cases its progress from without is easily traced, in others it
is wholly obscure, and yet in multitudes of instances, as in
a large proportion of the Sphæriacei, it is quite certain that
it must have penetrated at some period into the matrix,
whether in a living or a dead condition. A few minute
species, indeed, have never been found in any other situation