Forest Lamps.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 458, 20 May 1932, Page 6

Forest Lamps.

Nature Notes

By

James Drummond.

F.L.S.. F.Z.S. M R J. MACKIE, Waiuku. Franklin County, Auckland Province, was surprised one night to find that a macrocarpa tree was luminous. In the morning he discovered on the tree hundreds of tiny fungi, which had lighted their lamps in the darkness. Specimens sent by mail shrivelled tip, and cannot be identified.

The way in which some fungi deck tree stems has attracted much attention. Dr H. O. Forbes, formerly curator of Canterbury Museum, was astonished at the effect produced by fungi in a forest in Sumatra - “ The stem of every tree blinked with a pale, greenish-white light which undulated across the ground like moonlight coming and going behind the clouds, from a minute, thread-like fungus invisible in the day-time to the naked eye. Here and there thick, dumpy mushrooms displayed a sharp, clear dome of light, whose intensity never varied or changed till the break of day; long, phosphorescent caterpillars and centipedes crawled out of every comer, leaving a trail of light behind them, while fire-flies darted about above like a lower firmament.”