Fairy Rings

circles formed by cap mushrooms. Fairy rings are often found in meadows, more rarely in forests. The formation of fairy rings depends on the centrifugal growth of the mycelium in the soil, on the periphery of which fruiting bodies of the mushrooms are formed each year. From year to year the diameter of a fairy ring increases by 8-50 cm, and over a number of years the fairy ring may attain a diameter of several dozen meters. Within the fairy ring the grass is usually dwarfed because the nutritive substances and water are used by the mycelium, which competes with flowering plants; in old fairy rings the mycelium in the center of the ring dies off, and the grass develops more luxuriantly. Fairy rings are formed especially often by the fairy-ring mushroom and meadow mushrooms.

fairy rings

rings found in grassy meadows, once believed to have been produced by dancing fairies. [Br. Myth.: Brewer Dictionary, 345]See: Ring, Magic