Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 August 1895 — Luminous Mushrooms. [ARTICLE]

Luminous Mushrooms.

A man traveling in Australia found a large mushroom of this genius weighing five pounds. He took it to the house where he was stopping and hung it up to dry in the sitting-room. Entering after dark, he was amazed to see a beautiful soft light emanating from the fungus. He culled in the natives to examine it, and at the first glance they cried out in great fear that it was a spirit. It continued to give out light for many nights, gradually decreasing until it was wholly dry. Dr. Gardner, while walking through the streets of a Brazilian town, saw some boys playing with a luminous object, which he at first thought was a large firefly, but he found on inspection it was n brilliant mushroom (Agaric) which now bears his name. It gave out a bright light of a greenish hue, and was called by the natives “flor de coco," as it grew on a species of palm. The young plants emit a brilliant light, and the olde’r ones a pale greenish light. Many kinds of fungi are phosphorescent. Hiynboldt describes some exquisitely beautiful ones he saw in the mines. The glow In rotten wood is caused by its containing the threads of light-giving fungi.—June St. Nicholas.