“Fairy Rings”

Abstract

YOUR article on “Fairy Rings” (November 17, p. 61) peaks of rings of 100 feet in diameter as wholly exceptional. In the parish of Stebbing, in Essex, there is a field containing numerous rings of Paxillus giganteus. The largest of these is incomplete, being broken in places by gorse bushes and stopped on one side by a hedge and ditch. Measurement is consequently difficult, but the diameter of the ring cannot be less than 120 feet. At Bunchrew, in Inverness-shire. I once saw the same fungus covering about a rood of ground. The grass all over this was very coarse and dark green in colour, being chiefly Dactylis glomerata, but there was no trace of a ring.