Abstract
THE rains have come, and we have heard from all sides of the prolific crops of mushrooms and toadstools:—paddock-stools, as they are termed in some northern districts—which have been springing up in the meadows, and woods of England, Wales, and Scotland. Not only is surprise evinced at the marvellously rapid up-growth of these fungi, for the popular mind may well be amazed at that until a knowledge of the biology of these plants is more universal, but country people and dwellers in towns alike exclaim at certain other phenomena associated with their growth in the fields, and at none, perhaps, so much as what have been known from of old as “Fairy-rings“ in England, Hexenringe and Cercles de sorcières on the Continent. Now fairy-rings, like very many other poetical objects, have of late years undergone the process of being explained away to an extent which, although it in noway removes the beauty from them, demands from us an admiration of a more stimulating and healthful character than the old awe which they inspired was capable of producing.
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Fairy-Rings . Nature 37, 61–63 (1887). https://doi.org/10.1038/037061a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/037061a0