Who has not seen and wondered at the Fairy-ring, dotting the lawns or pastures, with its eccentric habit of growing in circles or arcs of circles, and shrinking and expanding under the influence of drought and moisture? Yet how few are acquainted with its admirable qualities! But even here one must distinguish between the false and the true, and not mistake it for two of its genus, the poison buff-coloured Champignon and poison Fairy-ring, which it resembles and with which it is sometimes found associated. In like manner, the rufous hues of several edible Russulas must not be confounded with the engaging crimsons of the alveolate Boletus, or the brilliant shades of the unwholesome R. emetica, one of the most tempting of fungi to the eye. Its glowing satiny scarlet cap, set off by its white stem and gills, forms a dash of colouration on the woodland carpet that immediately challenges admiration. With various others of the alluring but dangerous fungi, it suggests some luscious tropic fruit, the flame of tulips, or the flush of Ghent azaleas. What a revel of reds, what greens and golds, what soft violets and greys, what rich russets and maroons are not unfolded by these strange fungoid flowers! The beefsteak-mushroom (Fistulina hepatica) is familiar to many as it reveals its red velvety layers or shelves on the dead trunks of oaks and chestnuts in the midsummer woods. But despite its appetising name, it has a somewhat acid flavour and leathery taste, and cannot be said to possess very palatable qualities, conditions also shared by the common Agaricus ostreatus, or oyster-mushroom.