FUNGUS STONE

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 39, 16 February 1933, Page 7

FUNGUS STONE

A VEGETABLE MARVEL

The latest copy of the ••Gardeners' Chronicle" has' the following interesting article:—"At a recent meeting of the Linnean Spciety Mr. J. ttamsbottom gave au account of the nature of one of those vegetable marvels, the fungus or mushroom stones, which, in past ages excited so much curiosity and fZ ?.t0 m _Ch n*ive ''conjecture, liven today, when the nature of the mystery has been declared: the wonder still remains—as it always does, even after science has said its last Word, ihe tungus stone, once not uncommon in italy, possesses the uncanny power when it is watered, of producing a mushroom or a crop of mushrooms. The stone may weigh as much as 501b and is, in fact, no more than a chance'mixture of rock and earth and pebbles bound together or permeated by the threads (mycelium) of a fungus, Polyporus tuberastir. The-myceUuni- acts as. a sclerotium, a resistant, resting stage of the fungus, and, as so often happens, the sclerotium when supplied with water sets to work and builds up a fruiting body—the fungus or so-called mushroom..The ancients who, of course knew nothing of mycelia or such things' displayed, however, a curiosity which is often lacking in these scientific days yet, if we copy them, questions are bound to propound themselves to which answers are not obvious. "How comes it that the mycelia of tins fungus-is able to bind together imto a^ «i_tone'' ; the heterogeneous material of the soil on which it lives? And why as the mass dries .up should it separate itself from the surrounding earth, taking the form of a stone-like object? It may,be that it is not the tungus only which leavens the soil debris m the lump. Some quality of the water is responsible, perhaps, and that might account for the limited range of locality in which mushroom stones are found—round about Naples and in Sicily. Or if we are severely practical and fond of mushrooms,. may not the idea suggest itself that in the fungus stone is a suggestion which some enterprising firm might work upon. How convenient it would be, if, instead of having to purchase spawn and then set about making up a mushroom bed, we could purchase ready-made true mushroom stones which would need nothing but watering to give us one large mushroom, or, better still, a crop of mushrooms? No need, then for the grower to haye the cultural skill of a Beckett m order to produce mushrooms out of season. The stones would become as plentiful as Dutch cheeses and yet more popular. Nature has shown us how to do it; all we need is to copy, her Even although the agaric, which we call the mushroom, would not serve there are nevertheless plenty of other fungi which are just, or almost, as good as it and surely among them' one or other might be found which would bind together its own food into a neat ball Here, is a subject for enterprise, and if successful a novel and acceptable Christmas present."