C. B. Grubb, Esq., residing on Lime street, in the city of Lancaster, inclosing an entire block, between Lime and Shippen streets, called my attention on the 23d of June, 1876, to a remarkable feature in his fine grass plot in the rear of his mansion. This was a well marked ring from six to ten inches wide, as if drawn by a radius of five feet from a common centre. The blades of grass within the ring seemed fresher and more luxuriant than those on the outside of the ring. On inspection the ring itself was found to be the result of an incrustration on the slender blades of grass chiefly from their centre to the tips; under the lens they seemed like a conglomeration of globular, ovoid or kidney-shaped bodies, of a purplish-gray color, slightly roughened, ser-rile; some were ruptured at the apex, and revealed minute bodies like sporules. As a whole, they appeared much like the sori or fruit dots on fern leaves - the sporangia, the membrane like an indusium - evidently, however, a parasitic fungus, analagous to the puff-balls. The diversified modifications of this parasite completely baffles my endeavors to reconcile it with fungo-ids - known in the production of what are known as "Fairy Kings." Allow me to quote from a dictionary of science, literature and art (Brande and Cox) on this subject: - "The green circles or parts of circles sometimes seen in pastures.

They are produced by a certain fungi, chiefly species of Agaricus, in this way: a patch of spawn spreads in every direction, and produces at its edge a crop of its particular fungus; the spawn exhausts the inner portion of soil, so that the spawn there dies, but the crop of fungi meanwhile perishes, and supplies a rich manure to the grass, which in consequence becomes of a vivid green. The spawn progresses outwards, and the process of exhaustion and renewal goes on, so that the ring increases in diameter year after year, till it is sometimes several yards across."

Agaricus oreades, gambosus and arvensis, are some of the principal species which give rise to these mysterious looking rings. I have met with rings formed in the soil in manner here referred to. But the term Agaricus is very vague. The A. gambosus is now the Tricholoma of Fries. A. oreades to Galarhaeus. These are all stiped and regular mushroom-like fungi. Another authority states that the Lycoperdon bovista is known to cause such a ring. The L. pratense is a smaller species, it is said. These are roundish tuber-like plants when ripe, exploding and emitting the sporules in the form of smoke, whence country people call the species puff-balls. The genus Leangium are small, wart-like plants resembling a minute Lycoperdon. The L. Trevelyani are scattered, of a pale brown, and found on the leaves of mosses. Sporangium sessile, peridium splitting into many regular- reflexed segments; columella very minute; sporules pedicellate. This latter accords more closely than any other of this extensive class or tribe of fungi.

Fungi are divided. 1st - into two great sections those that have simply the terminal joint or joints of the component threads or cells, altered in form from those which precede them, and at length falling off and reproducing the plant, in which case they are called spores. In the other they are formed from the contents of certain sacs or asci, and are usually definite in number, in which case they are called sporidia. Both spores and sporidia may be multicellular, and in germination give rise to as many threads of spawn as there are cells. They are again ranged in six principal divisions, variously regarded as natural orders or tribes, namely: - Hymenomycetes, of which mushrooms and sap-balls are well known examples; Gasteromycetes, represented by the puff-balls; Coniomycetes, of which the rust and bunt of corn afford ready instances; Hyphomycetes, to which belong the naked-seeded moulds; Ascomy-cetes, of which morels and insect Sphacioae are examples; and Physomycetes represents the common bread mould.

It seems desirable to become better acquainted with those causes of blight, mildew, rust and brand, and those that induce the dry rot, etc.

Berkeley's Introduction to Cryptogamic Botany and outlines of British Fungology, is an excellent work, but we need an American work as well - but alas! we find nothing systematic, that I know of.

My co-worker, Prof. S. S. Rath von, of this city, found a fungus which in one night grew around the stem of a geranium {Pelargonum) about two inches from the ground; externally, mealy of a cream yellow color; inside, spongy and black; the centre, dull rose or brick color, and slimy; the globular mass about two inches in diameter. This was on the night of June 21st, 1876. This evidently belongs to Class II., Pyrenomycetes, Div. 1, Sphaeriacei, in the second tribe of Gaster-omycetes. My readers will excuse these hard names - I did not name them - but thus these plants are classified into separate classes and sections grouped together; and yet, there seems to be such a diversity of forms in the same plants that, viewed at different periods, they are as readily referred to one genus and then to another; and yet it is well to have some general knowledge of these insidous plants.