FAIRY RING, the popular name for the circular patches of a dark green colour seen occasionally on permanent grass-land, either lawn or meadow, on which the fairies were supposed to hold their midnight revels. They mark the area of growth of some fungus, starting from a centre of one or more plants. The myce lium produced from the spores dropped by the fungus or from the "spawn" in the soil, radiates outwards, and each year's successive crop of fungi rises from the new growth round the circle. The rich colour of the grass is due to the fertilizing quality of the decaying fungi, which are peculiarly rich in nitrogenous substances. For further details see FUNGI.