IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22352, 28 August 1934, Page 2

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

LATTICE-FUNGUS QUEER FORM AND HABITS. By J. DKUiIMOjtD. F.L.S., F.Z.S. Amongst fantastic forms taken by many sorts of fupgi there is one that Mr A. Wannop found ou sand bills near the seashore in the estuary of the Rangitaiki River, at Thornton, Bay of Plenty. The specimen he sent was shrivelled and discoloured when it arrived through the post. “It is a sorry object now,” he wrote, ‘‘but when I saw it lying ou the sandhills it ivas very beautiful. A dozen people w’ho saw it when it was in good condition admired it, but they knew nothing about it. I ha%'e been to the beach often, but I never saw one of these before. I thought that it bad come from the sea. Later, ray son was on the sandhills again. Thinking that he saw a hen’s egg on the sand, he broke the outer skin. To bis surprise, a frame inside expanded until it rvas about five inches in diameter. The frame was pure White, very firm, divided into sections, all sections joined symmetrically, and all in tubes or hollow pieces, each about a quarter of an inch thick. The whole made a perfect imitation bird cage, like the one I; bad found.”

This is the lattice-fungus, known also as basket-fungus, the bird-cage fungus, and the Devil’s purse fungus, fairly plentiful amongst grass in fields, on fresh roadside embankments, and amongst dead leaves on. the floors of forests; not eo often on sand near the sea. Everywhere it grows itvattracts attention. It is strange, and if may be beautiful, but it belongs to the group of carrion fungi. Allied to the puffbox, it is distinguished from them when ripe by an unpleasant odour emitted by a sticky, greenish substance in which the spores are embedded. After study-, ing this fungus in. New Zealand, . Mr 0. H. Cunningham concluded that the odour is intended By the fungus to serve a useful purpose. It lures insects.', They feed on the spores, which function like seeds : in higher plants, and the insects dissemi- : nate the spores. Those that pass through’ insects’' bodies germinate, more readily; than spores not eaten'by insects.

This device in followed by eoqie other fungi. They produce their spores in a sweet, green, sticky substance with a strong odour. Flies particularly are so fond of this substance that they gorge' themselves -with.-jt until they - become; almost comatose. The spores pass urn: harmed through the insects, and may be deposited a. Jong way from- the plant that produced them. The latticerfuogus, iseenjf- to be" independent" of' insects, rely- 1 ing mainly. off the wind, tse' only .dis-j 'geminating agcat employed by most fungi.’

Hundreds of particular species of fungi grow all over the world. Particular species of flowering plants are much more restricted in habitats. A fupgus’s spores arc like impalpable dust or thin smoke; They go up in clouds. A large percentage of them come to nothing.. ; I£ they were not so numerous some species of fungi now cosmopolitan would be rare. By computation, the number of spores assigned to a single common mushroom was 1.800.000. to a shaggy-cap fungus 5.000. to a dryad’s saddle, a species like the seat of a miniature saddle which grows on trees, 11,000,000,000, and to a large gjaht puffball billions. A more modest estimate gave an individual fungus^ 10.000. spdres.

Putting into simple language ; Mr Cun-, ningbam’s highly technical account of the life history of the lattice-fungus, the spores produce strands or threads. From .these is developed a sheath that originally wraps the fungus. At first the sheath is subterranean. As it matures it comes to the surface of the ground in the form of an egg. In it there is the part Mr Winnop calls the frame, lying in convolutions, and enclosing material that bears the spores. At this immature stage the fungus does not emit an unpleasant odour. The spores become embedded in a sticky substance; the frame, in developing, .exerts pressure; the egg is ruptured at the top: and the frame is released.

.A 9;the pressure is suddenly relieved-the. 1 frame • expands rapidly* ahdf -as occurredin . the Thornton individual; becomesseveral • times larger than - it was beforethe egg was ruptured. This is caused bythe folds of the confined frame suddenly! straightening out. The frame, With its; load -of; spores, is detached ffoni the hggl by the wind, which may carry '■■it"for" a I short distance. They ‘official Title l 'of- the!) lattice-fungus is Qlathrus cibariusl In; former times Maoris believed' that it had I a supernatural origin. The same species; grows in Australia and in Chile. It hasj close connections in Ceylon,' South | America. Africa, Europe, and many tropi-, cal islands. *

Stemless. rootless and leafless, the fungi have puzzled Systematic botanists. ( In size, they range from a minute species fatal to common house-flies to giant puff-i balls. As a class, they are characterised - by extraordinarily rapid growth, paralleled; by short lives. Their origin is a mystery. Formerly, there was a belief that they: were merely an accidental development'of' vegetable matter, called into being by special -conditions' of light,.; heat, earth and air.- All that'’can be said at present is that plapta. and that- their 'geological; history places them' aihofogst the most ancient : members of the vegetable kingdom.

They played l an important part in Devonian swamps, ages before the aristocracy of flowering plants was eetab: lisbed. Some Devonian fupgi were related to well-known garden peats of these times. Trees of the Coa) Age were attacked by fungi that lived on them, but the fungi did not always injure the trees. There is the same association between some fungi and trees to-day. Fungi cap be ranked into two. brigades, parasites, that prey on: living plants or animals, arid ..scavengers, that live, on rotting or decaying matter. Alb down the ages to the remote Devonian Period, and earlier, there were"the two brigades of fungi; and .the, earliest fvmgi known did not differ essentially from- fungi .that -grow around us.--, • • ‘■„

Mr G. A. Hawkes often has seen blackbacked. gulls drop pipis from a height of about 20 feet to break the shells on the rocky beach at Ouerahi, Whaugarei Harbour. More than this, he was told that across the harbour at Portland they drop pipis on iron rails on the whjirf, having learnt that one drop on a rail is better than several drops on wooden decking. At low tide a few, weeks ago, be saw a seagull .near a small rock stamping its feet in liquid mud, as if marking time quickly. The object seemed to bb. to alarm small fish or crabs that under the rock, in order that they ..would dart, out, when the seagull would capture them.

A wjiite heron seen by Mr Hawkes at Waikaraka, six miles down the Whangarei Harbour, was accompanied by blue herons. Whenever the white heron took a short flight, it was attended by a blue heron, or by several. The’ white heron seemed to be a queen, and the blue herons her bodyguard. Although much larger than the blue herons, the queenly stronger had the same manner of flight, legs trailing behind, heck bent back against the body, and chest pouting.