NATURE NOTES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21882, 18 August 1934, Page 1 (Supplement)

NATURE NOTES

BY J. DRUSIMOKD, F.L.8., F.Z.S.

CONTRASTS IN FUNGI

A fungus that led to an inquiry from Mr. A. AVannop, of Thornton, Bay of Plenty, brings to mind the strange behaviour and tho many contrasts among fungi as a natural order of plants. Some create loathing by their lurid appearance, some vio with butterflies in exquisite beauty; some are rank poisons; some are relished by epicures, and others are credited with medicinal virtues; some have intolerable putrescent odours; some fill the air around them with a sweet aroma; some grow slowly, some by leaps and bounds, apparently springing up in a night and melting away in the early morning sunshine; some are almost fluid, some are fleshy, papery, leathery or horny; all are soft and yielding in texture, but their strength is prodigious; a few of them dislodged and raised a paving-stone twenty-one inches square which had been cemented down, and a single fungus burst a glass vessel in which it was confined; some are tragical, some are comical; all are born in death and decay, but some look too delicate and ethereal for this world.

Particularly, Mr. Wannop describes a fungus that grew on sandhills at Thornton. It was pure white, and it so closely resembled a hen's egg that a boy stooped to pick it up. When the outer skin was broken it expanded to a diameter of about five inches, but retained a firm shape. Twelve hours later it had shrunk to half its original size. It had lost its dazzling whiteness, and was discoloured. Colour changes by fungi are regarded as one of their strangest tricks. The flesh of many species, when broken and exposed to the air, changes to either duller colours or to more brilliant ones, occasionally to a deep indigo blue. The change is explained by the presence in these fungi of a ferment and of a vegetable colouring substance, which, acted upon by acids and alkalies, produces unusual high colours. If a shaggy-cap fungus is cut down through its stem, gill-like structures on the underside of the cap often change from white to a rosy tinge, then to lilac, and finally to a dingy purple or black.

An English friend of the fungi, who likes them in their habitats and at the meal table, advises people not to eat any that have begun to change colour and to decay. They are as apt to produce toxins then as is meat or fish in the same condition. He cannot lay down a general rule to distinguish poisonous fungi from edible fungi. His experience and observations have ruled out all popular beliefs. There is a general belief thai? 3 all fungi nibbled by rabbits or 6aten by slugs are edible. The danger of accepting this theory is demonstrated by the fact that slugs thrive on the most poisonous species of fungus known. A fungus which, when cut, bruised or broken, quickly turns deep blue or greenish, should be held under the gravest suspicion.

The simplest and safest plan is to eat no fungus unless it is known unquestionably to be edible. Above all, avoid the fly-agaric. A scarlet cap, sometimes six inches in diameter, studded with white buttons, _ makes this fungus one of the most brilliant plants in the world. Nestling in small groups at the feet of lofty trees, fly-agarics catch and hold the eye. In disposition they are beautiful poisoners. This species has been reported in the Dominion only three times, twice in the North Island, once in the South Island. The Maoris formerly ate jellylike sheaths at the feet of stems of a species of fungus. The Rev. M. J. Berkeley described the food as execrable. The common mushroom gathered in the field is the only, fungus recognised as food in New Zealand, except the Jew's-ear, exported to China. Several species of edible fungi, are cultivated in England, but Paris is tho seat of the most extensive and intensive mushroom-growing industry. Increase in insect pests and in cost of labour has increased the cost of production, and mushrooms are not as popular in Paris as they were before the war.

Whether he would or not, man must become closely acquainted with fungi. They are too willing to become closely acquainted with him as rusts, moulds, mildews, parasites and diseases, often attacking in massed formation. They are no longer credited by superstitious people with miraculous properties; medical science has turned its back on cures in which they took a leading part; but they still have an important place in industry, and there many of them are indispensable. As a stranger visiting their world, the average person sees them at their best. He discards prejudices against them, -politely ignores their faults and foibles, wonders at their manifiold devices, admires their ingenious contrivances. In addition to puff-balls, earth-balls, earthstars, cups, globes, caps, goblets, umbrellas, imitation corals, sponges, birds' nests and other large fungi, there are hosts of minute species whose attractions aro disclosed by the microscope. A singlo group, the elegant moulds that live in decaying vegetable substances, was found by an English student to make up fairy forests and gardens, with features as varied and fruits as multiform as among the trees and flowers of the earth.

Now Zealand's strange poverty in native land-mammals is emphasised by comparison with California's riches in these animals, disclosed in a review of them by Mr. Joseph Grinnell, published by the University of California Press. The Maori dog and the Maori rat were hero when Europeans first arrived. Both seem to have been brought from Polynesia by early Maori voyagers. They are not regarded as indigenous. The Maori dog has been extinct for many years. The Maori rat may become extinct soon, if it is not extinct already. This leaves New ZeaInn poor inded in native land-mammals, with not more than six species, including the seals, which spend much time in the sea.

California has more than four hundred and forty species and sub-species or 1 land-mammals. There aro thirtyfour species of bats, the same number of species of kangaroo rats, thirteen species of wood-rats, twenty-four species of meadow-mice, twenty species of rabbits and six species of weasels. On the list are badgers, foxes, porcupines, lynxes, otters, wolves, wolverines, bears, coyotes, coons and scores of other interesting animals. The cougar, panther or puma, popularly called mountain lion, still ranges most parts of California. Black bears and brown bears hold their own. California had six species of grizzly bears. Their absence from the State's list of living mammals is the most important entry in this record. Every species is extinct in that iarge area, but there remains Bret Harte's poem to the grizzly-he knew, a lazy, shambling, shuffling giant who robbed wild bees of their honey and' squirrels of their nuts.