The "Gardener's Chronicle" has also sounded a note of warning that a species of Uredine has been very destructive to pelargoniums at the Cape of Good Hope. Hitherto these plants have not suffered much in this country from parasites. Besides these, there are many other less troublesome parasites, such as _Uredo filicum_, on ferns; _Puccinia Lychnidearum_, on leaves of sweet-william; _Uredo Orchidis_, on leaves of orchids, &c.
If we would sum up the influences of fungi in a few words, it could be done somewhat in the following form.
When eaten inadvertently. By the destruction of his legitimate food. In producing or aggravating skin diseases.
By deteriorating or diminishing their food supplies. By establishing themselves as parasites on some species.
By hastening the decay of timber. By establishing themselves as parasites. By impregnating the soil.
But it is not proved that they produce epidemic diseases in man or animals, or that the dissemination of their multitudinous spores in the atmosphere has any appreciable influence on the health of the human race. Hence their association with cholera, diarrhoea, measles, scarlatina, and the manifold ills that flesh is heir to, as producing or aggravating causes, must, in the present state of our knowledge and experience, be deemed apocryphal.
[A] A detailed account of the peculiar properties of this fungus and its employment as a narcotic will be found in Cooke's "Seven Sisters of Sleep," p. 337. It is figured in Greville's "Scottish Cryptogamic Flora," plate 54.
[B] Pour chaque 500 grammes de champignons coupes en morceaux d'assez mediocre grandeur, il faut un litre d'eau acidulée par deux ou trois cuillerées de vinaigre, ou deux cuillerées de sel gris. Dans le cas ou l'on n'aurait que de l'eau à sa disposition, il faut la renouveler une ou deux fois. On laisse les champignons macérer dans le liquids pendant deux heures entières, puis on les lave à grande eau. Ils sont alors mis dans de l'eau froide qu'on porte à l'ébullition, et après un quart d'heure ou une demi-heure, on les retire, on les lave, on les essuie, et ou les apprête soit comme un mets spécial, et ils comportent les mêmes assaisonnements que les autres, soit comme condiment.--_Morel Traité des Champignons_, p. lix. Paris, 1865.