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 FOOTNOTES 
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE.
 
 PRINTED BY THOMAS CONSTABLE, EDINBURGH, 
 FOR 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 DUBLIN : WILLIAM BOBERTSON. 
 EDINBURGH: EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS. 
 GLASGOW : JAMES MACLEHOSE.
 
 1. Sphagnum obtnsif olium . 3. Polytrickum commiane . 
 
 2. rtcrsmmn ~bryaide s . 4 1 . Brynm pimctattLio .-. 
 
 5. Brjrnm ligixLatiun .
 
 FOOTNOTES 
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE 
 
 FIRST FOKMS OF VEGETATION. 
 
 EEV. HUGH MACMILLAN, 
 
 FELLOW OF THE BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH, ETC. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Cambridge: 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND 23, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, 
 
 1861. 
 
 [The Itif/lit nf Trniislntion is rcwrrrtl.)

 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE different chapters of this work were first com- 
 posed and delivered in the form of a series of popular 
 lectures. Re-written, and considerably extended, they 
 are now published with the view of awakening the in- 
 terest of the reader in a department of nature with 
 which few, owing to the technical phraseology of botani- 
 cal works, are familiar. Those who have derived plea- 
 sure and profit from the study of flowers and ferns 
 subjects, it is pleasing to find, now everywhere popular 
 by descending lower into the arcana of the vegetable 
 kingdom, will find a still more interesting and delightful 
 field of research in the objects brought under review in 
 the following pages. This work is neither a text-book 
 nor a guide to species, but simply a popular history of 
 the uses, structural peculiarities, associations, and other 
 interesting facts connected with the humblest forms of 
 plant life ; and, as such, it may be regarded as an intro- 
 duction to more scientific treatises, which deal with 
 
 particular orders and species. 
 
 H. M. 
 
 FREE MANSE OF KIRKMICHAEL. 
 
 2091195
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION, . . . . . . . .1 
 
 CHAPTER I. MOSSES. 
 
 Beauty of Mosses Classification Appearance Stems Roots 
 Leaves Harmonies of colours Spiral arrangement of leaves 
 Organs of fructification Antheridia, Pistilidia, and Phytozoa 
 Gemmse Proliferous mosses Power of regeneration General 
 diffusion Alpine mosses, and theory of their distribution Par- 
 ticular limitations of mosses Splachnum growing on animal sub- 
 stances Social character of mosses Bog-moss Historical and 
 personal associations Illustrations of the beauty of mosses 
 Uses in the economy of man and of nature Formation of peat 
 Liverworts Structure and peculiarities Lycopods Hygro- 
 metric properties of Selaginella Structure and fructification of 
 Club-mosses Uses Analogical affinity Geological facts con- 
 nected with Lycopods, ...... 21 
 
 CHAPTER II. LICHENS. 
 
 Viewed as {esthetic objects Diversity of forms Description and 
 associations of Written Lichen Hue and Gabet's Tree of Ten 
 Thousand Images Structure of lichens Peculiar modes of Re- 
 production Longevity Geograph ical distribution Lichen s of 
 Antarctic regions Belts of vegetation on Chimborazo Alpine 
 lichens Lichens as pioneers of all other plants Adaptations of 
 lichens to their circumstances Uses on trees Reindeer moss 
 Iceland moss Tripe de Roche associated with Franklin Manna 
 of Israelites Lecanora esculenta Medicinal properties Uses 
 in arts and manufactures Dye-lichens : Orchil, Cudbear, Perelle 
 Ruskin on lichens, . . . . . .61 
 
 CHAPTER III. FRESH-WATER ALG^E. 
 
 Importance of microscopic objects Interest of Confervse derived 
 from the element in which they live Forming the boundary line 
 between plants and animals Nature and structure of green
 
 i CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 slime on ditches and streams Curious mode of propagation 
 Uses in the economy of nature River Lemania Water-flannel 
 Moor-balls Zygnema with spiral structure Oscillatorise : 
 their remarkable diversity ; curious movements and resem- 
 blances to animals Algw in chemical infusions Red snow- 
 Green snow Gory dew and associations History of Blood-pro- 
 digies Primitive alga Nostoc Life within life Algae within 
 animal bodies Diatoms or Brittleworts ; their universal diffu- 
 sion in the atmosphere, waters, rocks, and soils ; their geologi- 
 cal history Edible earths Connexion with storms Curious 
 shapes Anomalous position in nature Extraordinary method 
 of propagation, . . . .,'> .122 
 
 CHAPTER IV. FUNGI. 
 
 Autumn's peculiar plants Origin Chemical properties Lumino- 
 sity Insensibility to the influence of light Rapidity of growth 
 and brevity of existence Simplicity of organization Capacity 
 of regeneration Enormous development Variety of consist- 
 enceQualitiesColours andforms Illustrations of the curious 
 shapes of Fungi Description of structure and mode of propa- 
 gation Analysis of the classes and orders of British Fungi 
 Doctrine of spontaneous generation considered Spores of 
 Fungi in connexion with epidemic diseases Geographical 
 distribution Ubiquitous habitats Snow-moulds Fungi on 
 insects Fly-disease Silk-worm mould Gold-fish disease 
 Mould protean in shape, and universal in distribution Myco- 
 derms of mucous and ulcerated surfaces Fungi parasitic on 
 man Vinegar plant Fungoid nature of Yeast Uses of Fungi 
 in nature and in human economy Poisonous properties In- 
 toxicating Siberian Fungus Edible Fungi Morell Truffle, etc. 
 Artificial propagation Destructive effects Cereal blights : 
 smut, bunt, mildew, rust, and ergot Potato-murrain Grape 
 disease Black mildews Dry rot Means of obviating and re- 
 moving Fungoid diseases Fossil Fungi Association of Fungi 
 with Franklin's Expedition to the Polar Regions Beauty and 
 picturesqueness of Fungi, ...... 187
 
 BOTANICAL TERMS NOT EXPLAINED 
 IN THE TEXT. 
 
 Acrogens. Summit-growers, applied to mosses, etc., because they 
 increase only by additions of matter to their top or their growing 
 point. 
 
 Archegonia. Spherical bodies originating in the small clusters 
 or rosettes of leaves on the top of moss stems, containing in- 
 ternally a central nucleus from which arises the fructification 
 of the moss. 
 
 Cellular. The fleshy or succulent parts of plants are so called, 
 because they are composed entirely of cells of irregular shape, 
 forming a homogeneous mass, without a vestige of fibre. 
 
 Cellulose. A substance closely allied to starch, forming an 
 essential part of the structure of vegetable cells and vessels. 
 
 Cilia. Minute hair-like filaments attached to cells, endowed with 
 a vibratile motion. 
 
 Coniferous. Cone-bearing ; applied to structure consisting of 
 punctuated, disc-bearing, woody tissue, like that of the pine 
 tribe. 
 
 Cryptogamic Applied to all plants which are propagated by 
 spores instead of seed, and which have no flowers. 
 
 Cyphellce. Collections of powdery reproductive matter, gathered 
 into little cavities on the upper or under surface of lichens. 
 
 Endochrome. Granular matter of a green colour occurring in the 
 interior of the germinating shoots of mosses, and in the fila- 
 ments of the fresh-water algae. 
 
 Filiform. Thread-like, slender. 
 
 Flocculent. Woolly, presenting an appearance as if covered with 
 down. 
 
 Foliaceous. Applied to mosses, etc., because they exhibit leaf- 
 like organs, like those of flowering plants. 
 
 Frond. Cellular expansion of flowerless plants, resembling a leaf, 
 but destitute of its fibrous structure. 
 
 Fasciculate. Gathered into bundles. 
 
 Homologous. Of similar structure, functions, and uses.
 
 x BOTANICAL TERMS. 
 
 Laticiferous. Vessels of plants, such as gutta percha, dandelion, 
 lettuce, etc., are so called, because they contain a fluid like 
 milk. 
 
 Matrix. The substance upon which a plant grows. 
 Membranous. Tissue which is composed uniformly of similarly- 
 constructed cells is so called. 
 
 Medullary rays. Lines which radiate from the pith to the bark all 
 round the stem of common forest trees. 
 
 Nidus. The nest or cavity in which a parasitic plant is developed. 
 
 Phytozoa. Microscopic thread-like bodies, with movements re- 
 sembling those of animals, occurring in the reproductive organs 
 of the flowerless plants. 
 
 Proliferous. Applied to plants which propagate themselves by 
 forming new growths upon the old decaying bases. 
 
 Phanerogamous. Applied to all the flowering plants, because they 
 are propagated by conspicuous flowers and seeds. 
 
 Scalariform. Tissue is thus called whose fibres are so broken up 
 as to appear in the form of bars or lines, like the steps of a lad- 
 der, seen beautifully in tree-ferns. 
 
 Sessile. Seated on the vegetative basis, without stem or pedicel. 
 
 Sinuses. Deep grooves or hollows. 
 
 Soredia. Collections of mealy powder scattered over the surface 
 of lichens, and capable of propagating them. 
 
 Spore. The ultimate germinating cell of flowerless plants, with- 
 out lobes, resembling a particle of fine dust. 
 
 Sporule. A minute round cell, capable of reproducing the parent 
 plant, resembling buds in not being developed by a process of 
 reproduction, but differing from them in being produced in 
 special organs. 
 
 Sporidia. The compound spores of lichens, containing minuter 
 . spores in their interior. 
 
 Sporangia. The hollow cases or receptacles which contain the 
 spores. 
 
 Striae. Delicate grooved lines or markings. 
 
 Tartareous. Applied to the lime-like appearance and structure of 
 some lichens. 
 
 Thallogens. Applied to flowerless plants whose vegetative part 
 consists of thin cellular expansions, increasing generally in a 
 centrifugal manner. 
 
 Vascular. Woody tissue, consisting of bundles of fine cylindrical 
 fibres, often of great length, tapering at both ends.
 
 " URNS of beauty, forms of glory, 
 Shapes with frosted silver hoary ; 
 Fair cups of light that pearls enfold, 
 Set in transparent gauzy gold ; 
 Lucid sprays of emerald dye, 
 Could e'en an empire's treasures vie, 
 With all these jewels that emboss 
 Each separate leaflet of the moss. 
 Voices from the silent sod, 
 Speaking of the perfect God. 
 
 " Fringeless or fringed, and fringed again, 
 No single leaflet formed in vain ; 
 What wealth of heavenly wisdom lies 
 Within one moss-cup's mysteries ! 
 And few may know what silvery net 
 Down in its mimic depths is set, 
 To catch the rarest dews that fall, 
 Upon the dry and barren wall. 
 Voices from the silent sod, 
 Speaking of the perfect God."
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 LIFE is everywhere. " Nature lives" says Lewes ; 
 " every pore is bursting with life ; every death is only 
 a new birth ; every grave a cradle." " The earth-dust 
 of the universe," says Jean Paul, "is inspired by the 
 breath of the great God. The world is brimming with 
 life j every leaf on every tree is a land of spirits." The 
 tendency to vegetate is a ceaseless power. It has been 
 in operation from the earliest ages of the earth, ever 
 since living beings were capable of existing upon its 
 surface ; and so active in the past history of the globe 
 has been this tendency, that most of the superficial 
 rocks of the earth's crust are composed of the remains 
 of plants. It operates with undiminished and tireless 
 energy still. Vegetation takes place upon almost every 
 substance ; upon the bark of trees, upon naked rocks, 
 upon the roofs of houses, upon dead and living animal 
 substances, upon glass when not constantly kept clean, 
 and even on iron which had been subjected to a red heat 
 a short time before. Zoologists tell us, when speaking 
 of animalcules, that not a drop of stagnant water, not a 
 speck of vegetable or animal tissue, not a portion of 
 organic matter but has its own appropriate inhabitants. 
 A
 
 2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The same may be said of plants ; for we can hardly point 
 to a single portion of the earth's surface which is not 
 tenanted by some vegetable form whose structure is 
 wonderfully adapted to its situation and requirements. 
 Even in the hottest thermal springs, and on the eternal 
 snows of the arctic regions, peculiar forms of vegetation 
 have been found. From the deepest recesses of the 
 earth to which the air can penetrate, to the summits of 
 the loftiest mountains ; from the almost unfathomable 
 depths of the ocean to the highest clouds; from pole to 
 pole, the vast stratum of vegetable life extends ; while 
 it ranges from a temperature of 35 to 135 Fah., a 
 range embracing almost every variety of conditions and 
 circumstances. 
 
 The most cursory and superficial glance will recognise 
 in every scene a class of plants whose singular appear- 
 ances, habits, and modes of growth so prominently dis- 
 tinguish them from the trees and flowers around, that 
 they might seem hardly entitled to a place in the vege- 
 table kingdom at all. On walls by the wayside, on 
 rocks on the hills, and on trees in the woods, we see 
 tiny green tufts and grey stains, or parti-coloured rosettes 
 spreading themselves, easily dried by the heat of the sun, 
 and easily revived by the rain. In almost every stream, 
 lake, ditch, or any collection of standing or moving 
 water, we observe a green slimy matter forming a scum 
 on the surface, or floating in long filaments in the depths. 
 On almost every fallen leaf and decayed branch, fleshy 
 gelatinous bodies of different forms and sizes meet our 
 eye. Sometimes all these different objects appear grow- 
 ing on the same substance. If we examine a fallen,
 
 INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 partially decayed twig, half -buried in the earth in a 
 wood, we may find it completely covered with various 
 representatives of these different vegetable growths ; and 
 nothing surely can give us a more striking or convincing 
 proof of the universal diffusion of life. All these dif- 
 ferent plants belong to the second great division of the 
 vegetable kingdom, to which the name of cryptogamia 
 has been given, on account of the absence, in all the 
 members, of those prominent organs which are essential 
 to the production of perfect seed. They are propagated 
 by little embryo plants called spores or sporules, gene- 
 rally invisible to the naked eye, and differing from true 
 seeds in germinating from any part of their surface in- 
 stead of from two invariable points. Besides this grand 
 distinguishing mark, they possess several other peculiar 
 qualities in common. They consist of cells only, and 
 hence are often called cellular plants, in contradistinction 
 to those plants which are possessed of fibres and woody 
 tissue. Their development is also superficial, growth 
 taking place from the various terminal points ; and hence 
 they are called acrogens and thallogens, to distinguish 
 them from monocotyledonous and dicotyledonous plants. 
 Popularly, they are known as mosses, lichens, algae, and 
 fungi. They open up a vast field of physiological re- 
 search. They constitute a microcosm, an imperium in 
 imperio, a strange minute world underlying this great 
 world of sense and sight, which, though unseen and un- 
 heeded by man, is yet ever in full and active operation 
 around us. It is pleasant to turn aside for a while from 
 the busy human world, with its ceaseless anxieties, sor- 
 rows and labours, to avert our gaze from the splendours
 
 4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of forest and garden, from the visible display of green 
 foliage and rainbow-coloured blossoms around us, and 
 contemplate the silent and wonderful economy of that 
 other world of minute or invisible vegetation with which 
 we are so mysteriously related, though we know it not. 
 There is something exceedingly interesting in tracing 
 nature to her ultimate and simplest forms. The mind 
 of man has a natural craving for the infinite. It delights 
 to speculate either on the vast or the minute ; and we 
 are not surprised at the paradoxical remark of LinnEeus, 
 that nature appeared to him greatest in her least pro- 
 ductions. 
 
 These plants once occupied the foremost position in 
 the economy of nature. Like many decayed families 
 whose founders were kings and mighty heroes, but whose 
 descendants are beggars, they were once the aristocracy 
 of the vegetable kingdom, though now reduced to the 
 lowest ranks, and considered the canaille of vegetation. 
 Geology reveals to us the extraordinary fact, that one 
 whole volume of the earth's stony book is filled almost 
 exclusively with their history. Life may have been 
 ushered upon our globe through oceans of the lowest 
 types of confervas, long previous to the deposit of the 
 oldest palaeozoic rocks as known to us ; and for myriads 
 of ages these extremely simple and minute plants may 
 have represented the only idea of life on earth. But 
 passing from conjecture to the domain of established 
 truth, we know of a certainty that at least throughout 
 the vast periods of the carboniferous era, ferns, mosses, 
 and still humbler plants, occupied the throne of the vegeta- 
 ble kingdom, and, by their countless numbers, their huge
 
 INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 dimensions, and rank luxuriance, covered the whole earth 
 with a closely- woven mantle of dark green verdure from 
 Melville Island in the extreme north to the islands of 
 the Antarctic Ocean in the extreme south. The relics of 
 these immense primeval forests, reduced to a carbona- 
 ceous or bituminous condition by the secret resources 
 of nature's laboratory, amidst so many convulsions of 
 the globe, are now buried deep in the bowels of the 
 earth, packed into solid sandstone cases, and under huge 
 shady covers, and stored up in the smallest compass by 
 the mighty pressure of ponderous rock-presses, constitut- 
 ing the chief source of our domestic comfort, and of 
 nearly all our commercial greatness. A coal-bed is, in 
 fact, a Iwrtus siccus of extinct cryptogamic vegetation, 
 bringing before the imagination a vista of the ancient 
 world, with which no arrangement of landscape or com- 
 bination of scenery can now be compared ; and gazing upon 
 its dusky contents, our minds are baffled in aiming to 
 comprehend the bulk of original material, the seasons of 
 successive growth, and the immeasurable years or ages 
 which passed while decay, and maceration, and chemical 
 changes prepared the fallen vegetation for fuel. If the 
 specimens of plants thus strangely preserved, teach us 
 one truth more than another, it is this, that size and 
 development are terms of no meaning when applied to 
 a low or a high type of organization. The cryptogamia 
 of the old world, the earliest planting in the new-formed 
 soil, are in bulk, as well as in elegance and beauty of 
 form, unrivalled by the finest specimens of the modern 
 forest. The little and the great, the recent and the 
 extinct, were equally the objects of nature's care, and
 
 6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 were all modelled with a skill and finish that left nothing 
 to be added. 
 
 And as in early geological epochs they occupied so con- 
 spicuous a position, so now in the annals of physical geo- 
 graphy they are entitled to a prominent place. With the 
 exception of the grasses nature's special favourites they 
 are the most abundant of all plants, possessing inconceiv- 
 able myriads of individual representatives in every part 
 of the globe, from which unfavourable conditions exclude 
 all other vegetation ; and thus they contribute, far more 
 than we are apt from a superficial observation to ima- 
 gine, to the picturesque and romantic appearances ex- 
 hibited by scenery, and to the formation of that richly 
 woven and beautifully decorated robe of vegetation which 
 conceals the ghastly skeleton of the earth, and hides from 
 our view the rugged outlines and primitive features of 
 nature. They are the first objects that clothe the naked 
 rocks which rise above the surface of the ocean ; and 
 they are the last traces of vegetation which disappear 
 under degrees of heat and cold fatal to all life. Their 
 structure is so singularly varied and plastic, that they 
 are adapted to every possible situation. In every country 
 they form an important element in the number of plants, 
 the proportion to flowering plants decreasing from, and 
 increasing towards the poles. Taking them as a whole, 
 and in regard to their size, they occupy a larger area of 
 the earth's surface than any other kind of vegetation. 
 There are immense forests of trees here and there in 
 different countries, realizing Cowper's wish for "a bound- 
 less contiguity of shade;" there are vast colonies of 
 flowering plants ; but the range of the most ubiquitous
 
 INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 tree or flower is vastly inferior to that of some of the 
 humblest lichens and mosses. Although these plants 
 occupy but a very subsidiary and unimportant position 
 among the vegetation which surrounds us in our daily 
 walks, and are concealed in isolated patches in the woods 
 and fields by the luxuriance of higher and more conspicu- 
 ous plants, yet they constitute the sole vegetation of 
 very extensive regions of the earth's surface. Every part 
 of the globe, within a thousand feet of the line of per- 
 petual snow, is redeemed from utter desolation by these 
 plants alone. Above the valleys and the lower slopes 
 which form the step of transition from plain to mountain 
 inhabited by prosperous and civilized nations is the 
 domain of mist and mystery, the region of storm a 
 world which is not of this world, where God and nature 
 is all in all, and man is nothing ; and in this unknown 
 region there are immense tracts familiar to the eye of 
 wild bird, to the summer cloud, the stars and meteors of 
 the night strange to human faces and the sound of 
 human voices, where the lichen and the moss alone luxu- 
 riate and carpet the sterile ground. The grandest and 
 sublimest regions of the earth are adorned with garlands 
 of the minutest and humblest plants ; they are the tapes- 
 try, the highly-wrought carpeting laid down in the ves- 
 tibules of nature's palaces. If we look at a map of 
 the world, we see that Europe and Asia are held together 
 as it were by a huge ridge or back-bone of mountain ele- 
 vation, which, although suffering partial interruption, 
 may be roughly described as continuous from one ocean 
 to another. It begins with the mountains of Biscay in 
 Spain, passes on through the Pyrenees with a slight
 
 8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 interruption into the Alps, which throw off the import- 
 ant spur or rib of the Apennines ; thence it divides into 
 the Balkan and Carpathians. We trace the chain next 
 in the Caucasus and the mountains of Armenia with 
 the interruption of the Caspian Sea passing into the 
 Hindoo Coosh and the Himalaya mountains, from 
 whence the chain forks and takes a direction north and 
 south, enclosing like walls the whole delta of China, and 
 thence dips into the eastern ocean. In Africa also, at 
 its widest part, there is a similar back-bone, beginning 
 not far from Sierra Leone, and losing itself in the east 
 in the mountains of Abyssinia ; while in America the 
 mountain-spine trends north and south from the Hud- 
 son's Bay territories, through the Rocky Mountains, un- 
 interruptedly through the Isthmus of Panama, along the 
 Andes to the Straits of Magellan. These vast mountain- 
 systems, with their culminating regions in the Andes, 
 Alps, and Himalayas, and their subsidiary branches or 
 ribs in the Grampians, Doffrefels, Ural, and Atlantic 
 ranges, are clothed on their sides, summits, and elevated 
 plateaus, almost exclusively with cryptogamic vegetation, 
 and enable us to form some conception of the immense 
 altitudinal range of these plants. Then there are whole 
 islands in the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans whose vegeta- 
 tion also is almost entirely cellular. The northern por- 
 tion of Lapland, the continent of Greenland, the large 
 islands of Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, and Iceland, the 
 extensive territories of the Hudson's Bay Company, the 
 enormous tracts of level land which border the Polar 
 Ocean from the North Cape to Behring's Straits, across 
 the north of Europe and Asia, and from Behring's Straits
 
 INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 tq Greenland, across the north of America, a stretch of 
 many thousands of .miles; all these immense areas of 
 the earth's surface where not a tree, nor a shrub, nor 
 a flower is seen, except the creeping arctic willow and 
 birch, and the stunted moss-like saxifrage and scurvy 
 grass are covered with fields of lichens and mosses, far 
 exceeding anything that can be compared in that respect 
 amongst phanerogamous plants. Thus, to the rugged 
 magnificence of Alpine scenery, and the dreary isolation 
 and uniformity of the Arctic steppes, and the boundless 
 wastes of brown desert and misty moorland, to these 
 great outlets from civilisation and the tameness of ordi- 
 nary life, which allow the soul to expand and go out in 
 sublime imaginings towards the infinity of God, these 
 humble plants form the sole embellishments. 
 
 So much for the distribution of these plants on the 
 land ; their range in the waters is still more extensive. 
 Lichens and mosses cover the waste surfaces of the earth ; 
 diatoms and confervse are everywhere miraculously abun- 
 dant in the waters. In rivers and streams, in ditches 
 and ponds, alike under the sunny skies of the south, and 
 in the frozen regions of the north ; on the surface of the 
 sea in floating meadows, and in the dark and dismal 
 recesses of the ocean only to be explored by the long 
 line of the sounding-lead. The ocean swarms with in- 
 numerable varieties, without their presence being indi- 
 cated by any discoloration, of the fluid. The Arctic and 
 Antarctic Oceans, covering areas larger than the continents 
 of Europe and Asia, are peopled by myriads of diatoms ; 
 various inland seas and lakes are tinged of different hues 
 by their predominance in the waters ; while it has been
 
 10 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ascertained, from the soundings obtained during the in- 
 vestigations connected with laying the electric telegraph 
 cable between Ireland and Newfoundland, that the floor 
 of the Atlantic is paved many feet deep with their sili- 
 cious shields, preserving in all their integrity their won- 
 derful shapes, notwithstanding their extreme delicacy and 
 minuteness, and the enormous pressure of the vast body 
 of water which rests above them. Such is the wide 
 space which these organisms occupy in the fields of nature 
 a prominence which is surely sufficient to redeem them 
 from the charge of insignificance. They are inferior in 
 majesty of form to palms and oaks, but in their united 
 influence it is not too extravagant to say that they are 
 not less important than the great forests of the world. 
 
 This vast profusion of minute and humble vegetable 
 life serves the obvious purpose of preparing the way for 
 higher orders of vegetation. Nature is incessantly work- 
 ing out vast ends by humble and scarcely recognisable 
 means. The features of the earth are being continually 
 altered by the germination and dispersion of the algae, 
 mosses, and lichens. Bare and sterile mountains are 
 clothed with verdure ; rocks are mouldering into soil ; 
 seas are filling up ; rivers and streams are continually 
 shifting their outlines ; and lakes are converted into fer- 
 tile meadows and the sites of luxuriant forests, by 
 means of the vast armies of nature's pioneers. Hard 
 inorganic matters are reduced to impalpable atoms ; 
 waters and gases are decomposed and moulded into new 
 forms and substances having new properties, by vegeta- 
 ble growth. Minute as these plants are, they are inti- 
 mately related to the giant forms of the universe. It
 
 IN TROD UCTION. 1 1 
 
 has been observed that as the great whole is indissolubly 
 connected with its minutest parts, so the germination of 
 the minutest lichen, and the growth of the simplest moss, 
 is directly linked with the grandest astronomical pheno- 
 mena ; nor could the smallest fungus*" or conferva be 
 annihilated without destroying the equilibrium of the 
 universe. It is with organic nature as with the body 
 politic or the microcosm of the human frame, if " one 
 member suffer all the members suffer with it," and the 
 loss of one class or order would involve that of another, 
 till all would perish. Our comfort and health, nay our 
 very existence more or less immediately depend on the 
 useful functions which they perform. Before we can 
 have the wheat which forms our daily bread, or the grass 
 which yields us, through the instrumentality of our 
 herds, our daily supply of animal food, or the cotton and 
 lint which form our clothes, countless generations of 
 lichens and mosses must have been at work preparing 
 a soil for the growth of the plants which produce these 
 useful materials. And as on the dry land, so in the great 
 waters, this wonderful chain of connexion exists in all its 
 complexity. Before the reader can peruse these pages 
 by the light of the midnight lamp, or the gay party can 
 indulge their revels under the brilliant glare of sper- 
 maceti tapers, myriads of minute diatoms and confervse, 
 floating in the waters of the sea, must have formed a 
 basis of subsistence for the whales and seals whose oil 
 is employed for these purposes. Man's own structure is 
 nourished and built up by the particles which these 
 active plants have rescued from the mineral kingdom, 
 and which once circulated through their simple cells ;
 
 12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and thus the highest and most complex creature, by a 
 vital sympathy and a close physical relation, is connected 
 with the lowest and simplest organism, to teach him 
 humility, and inspire him with a deep interest in all the 
 works of his Maker ! 
 
 " Nothing in this world is single ; 
 
 All things, by a law divine, 
 In one another's being mingle." 
 
 It may be asked by a class of individuals, unfor- 
 tunately too numerous, What is the use of these minute 
 plants 1 In the business language of the world things 
 are called useful when they promote the profit, con- 
 venience, or comfort of everyday life ; and useless when 
 they do not promote, or when they hinder either of these 
 desired ends. But this definition is extremely partial 
 and one-sided. There are higher purposes to serve in 
 this world than mere subservience to the physical wants 
 of man. There is a much higher utility than the mere 
 temporary and worldly one. The useful things of ex- 
 ternal life, indeed, should not be undervalued ; they are 
 the first things required, but they are not the sole or 
 the highest things necessary. Man must have food and 
 clothing in order to live ; but it must also be remem- 
 bered that man does not live by bread and the con- 
 veniences of external life alone. "Vtlien any one does 
 live by these alone, he has forfeited his claim to the 
 higher form of life which is his glorious privilege, and 
 by which he is distinguished from the lower animals. 
 Nature throughout her whole wide domains gives no 
 countenance to such a materialistic exclusiveness. She 
 is at once utilitarian and transcendental. Uses and
 
 INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 beauties intermingle. All that is useful is around us ; 
 but how much more is there beside 1 There is a strange 
 superfluous glory in the summer air ; there is marvellous 
 beauty in the forms and hues of flowers ; there is an 
 enchanting sweetness in the song of birds and the mur- 
 mur of waters ; there is a divine grandeur and loveli- 
 ness in the landscapes of earth and the scenery of the 
 heavens, the changes of the seasons, the dissolving splen- 
 dours of morning, noon, sunset and night, utterly in- 
 comprehensible upon the theory of nature's exclusive 
 utilitarianism. " The tree which shades the wayfarer in 
 the noontide heat adorns the landscape ; and the flower 
 which gives honey to the bee sheds its perfume on the 
 air. A leaf no less than a flower fulfils the functions of 
 life, ministers to the necessities of man, yet clothes 
 itself, and adorns the earth in tapestries richer than the 
 robes of kings." All things proclaim that the Divine 
 Architect, while amply providing for the physical wants 
 of his creatures, has not forgotten their spiritual neces- 
 sities and enjoyments ; and having implanted in the 
 human soul a yearning for the beautiful, has surrounded 
 us with a thousand objects by whose charms that yearn- 
 ing may be gratified. And one of the most striking 
 examples of this Divine care is to be seen in the pro- 
 fusion of minute objects spread around us, which ap- 
 parently have no direct influence at all upon man's 
 physical nature, and have no connexion with his cor- 
 poreal necessities. These objects, subserving no gross 
 utilitarian purpose, are intended to educate man's spiri- 
 tual faculties by the beauties of form, the wonders of 
 structure, and the adaptations of economy which they
 
 14 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 display. Their beauty is sufficient reason for their 
 existence were there no other. When their varied and 
 exquisitely symmetrical forms are presented to the eye 
 under the microscope, a thrill of pleasure is experienced, 
 calm and pure, because free from all taint of passion, 
 and felt all the more intensely because nameless and in- 
 definite. We are brought face to face with perfection 
 in its most wonderful aspect the perfection of minute- 
 ness and detail ; with objects which bear most deeply 
 impressed upon them the signet-mark of their Maker ; 
 and we observe with speechless admiration that the 
 Divine attention is acuminated and His skill concen- 
 trated on these vital atoms; the last visible organism 
 vanishing from our view with the same Divine glory 
 upon it, as the last star that glimmers out of sight on 
 the remotest verge of space. 
 
 These organisms further justify their existence to the 
 utilitarian, inasmuch as their study is well calculated to 
 exercise an educational influence which should not be 
 overlooked or despised. While they try the patience, 
 they exercise the faculties by forcing attention upon 
 details. Their minuteness, their general resemblance to 
 each other, their want in many cases of very prominent 
 or marked characteristics, render it a somewhat difficult 
 task to identify them. Long hours may often be spent 
 in ascertaining the name of a single species, and assign- 
 ing it its proper place in the tribe to which it belongs. 
 One species may often be confounded with another 
 closely allied, and days and weeks may elapse before 
 the eye and the mind, familiarized with their respective 
 details, can observe the distinctions between them. This
 
 INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 difficulty of identification greatly sharpens one's know- 
 ledge, induces a habit of paying attention to minutiae, 
 and creates a power of distinguishing between things 
 that differ slightly, which is exceedingly valuable and 
 important. For the eye and mind thus educated to 
 detect resemblances and differences in objects, which to 
 ordinary observation appear widely dissimilar or precisely 
 the same, there will be abundant scope in the practical 
 details of common everyday life, as well as in the higher 
 walks of literature, science, and art. 
 
 The study of these plants has also a tendency to 
 elevate and enlarge our conceptions of nature ; its vast- 
 ness and complexity, its incommunicable grandeur, its 
 all but infinity, opening before us newer and more 
 striking vistas with every descending step we take. The 
 farther we advance, and the wider our sphere of ob- 
 servation extends, wonder follows on wonder, till our 
 faculties become bewildered, and our intellect falls back 
 on itself in utter hopelessness of arriving at the end. 
 Minute as the objects are in themselves, contact with 
 them cannot fail to excite the mind, to call it forth into 
 full and vigorous exercise, to enlist its sympathies, and 
 to expand its faculties. Many eloquent pages have been 
 written to show this elevating influence upon the mind, 
 of contact with, and contemplation of the phenomena of 
 nature ; but it is not the great and sublime objects of 
 nature alone that produce this effect the sublimity 
 of mountains, the majesty of rivers, and the repose of 
 forests, the very humblest and simplest objects are cal- 
 culated to awaken these emotions in a yet higher and 
 purer form. " The microscope," as Mr. Lewes has well
 
 16 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 observed, " is not the mere extension of a faculty ; it is 
 a new sense." 
 
 There are also peculiar pleasures connected with the 
 study of these objects. There is first the pleasure of 
 novelty and discovery of exploring a realm where every- 
 thing is comparatively new, and every step is delightful ; 
 where the forms are unfamiliar, and the modes of life 
 hitherto unimagined. There is next the more subtle 
 and refined pleasure of observing the strange truths 
 which they unfold, the beautiful laws which they reveal, 
 and the resemblances and relations which they display. 
 The false romanticism of vulgar fancy requires some- 
 thing pretentious and unnatural to gratify its taste ; but 
 to the true poetical mind, the humblest moss on the 
 wall, or the green slime that creams on the wayside 
 pool, will suggest trains of pleasing and profitable re- 
 flection. He who has an observing eye and an appre- 
 ciating mind for these minute wonders of nature, need 
 never be alone. Every nook and corner of the earth, 
 however barren and dreary to superficial minds, has com- 
 panions for him ; and on every path he will find what 
 the Indians call a rustawallah, a delightful road-fellow. 
 
 To the cryptogamic botanist nature reveals herself in 
 her wildest, and also in her fairest aspects. He enters 
 into her guarded retreats retiring spots of luxuriant, 
 refreshing, and enticing beauty, that are hidden from 
 every other eye ; where the great world of strife and 
 toil speaks not, and its cares and sorrows are forgotten, 
 and nature wakes up the dead divinity within, and rouses 
 the soul to purer and nobler purposes. The peculiar 
 haunts of the objects of his search are found on the sides
 
 INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 and summits of lofty mountains, amid the dark lonely 
 recesses of forests, in the bright bosom of rivers and 
 lakes and waterfalls, on far-off unvisitfcd moors, where 
 heaven's serene and passionless blue is the only thing of 
 beauty, and in the mossy retreats of dell and dingle, 
 where Titania and her fays might sport away the dreamy 
 noontide hours. There he finds the pictures which the 
 soul treasures most lovingly; and in these by-ways 
 does he gain the truest insight into the mysteries of life. 
 In thus penetrating into the very heart of nature, with 
 much toil and exertion it may be, he seems to win her 
 confidence, and to earn the right to look into her arena. 
 By minute contact and continued commune with her 
 alone in the wilderness, he feels in all - its fulness and 
 depth the beautiful relationship that exists between the 
 outer and the inner life of creation. To others the land- 
 scape may be the mere background of a picture, in the 
 foreground of which human figures are acting ; to him 
 its charms are agencies and influences acting on his 
 heart and mingling with his life. The sportsman in 
 search of game frequently wanders into regions that 
 seem primeval in their solitude, and where " human foot 
 had ne'er or rarely been ; " but so absorbing is the pur- 
 suit in which he is engaged, that he seldom pauses 
 to watch the features of the surrounding scenery, or to 
 notice combinations of objects and effects of light and 
 shade which nature never displays except in such un- 
 frequented spots. But to the cryptogamist, on the other 
 hand, these very scenes of nature lend a nameless charm 
 and interest to the lowly plants he gathers, and are ever 
 after indelibly associated with them in his memory, and 
 
 B
 
 18 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 are renewed every time he witnesses their faded remains. 
 Hardly a moment passes over the solitary collector amid 
 such secluded scenes, without some grand effect being 
 produced in the surrounding landscape, or in the ap- 
 pearance of the sky above him ; some wonderful trans- 
 formation of nature, as though the spot where he stands 
 were her tiring-room, and she were trying on robe after 
 robe to see which became her best ; some striking in- 
 cident, which might well inspire him with the wish to 
 catch the happy moment, and give it a permanent exist- 
 ence. Such are the simple, refining, and enduring 
 pleasures which the cryptogamic botanist enjoys in the 
 pursuit of his favourite study amid the scenes of nature. 
 Add to all these recommendations this last important 
 advantage, that these plants can be observed and col- 
 lected without interruption throughout the whole year, 
 and in situations where other vegetation is reduced to 
 zero. They can be studied alike under the cloudy skies 
 of December, as when illumined by the sunshine of June. 
 When the flowers and ferns have vanished, when the 
 lights are fled, and the garlands are dead, the deserted 
 banquet-hall of Flora is still relieved by the presence of 
 these humble retainers, whose fidelity is proof against 
 every change of circumstance, and whose better qualities 
 are displayed when the storm is wildest and the desola- 
 tion most complete. They are no summer friends. As 
 Ruskin has beautifully observed, " Unfading as motion- 
 less, the worm frets them not, and the autumn wastes 
 not. Strong in lowliness, they neither blanch in heat, 
 nor pine in frost. To them, slow-fingered, constant- 
 hearted, is intrusted the weaving of the dark eternal
 
 INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 tapestries of the hills ; to them, slow-pencilled, iris-dyed, 
 the tender framing of their endless imagery. Sharing 
 the stillness of the unimpassioned rock, they share also 
 its endurance; and while the winds of departing spring 
 scatter the white hawthorn blossoms like drifted snow, 
 and summer duns in the parched meadow the drooping 
 of its cowslip-gold, far above among the mountains, the 
 silver lichen-spots rest, starlike on the stone, and the 
 gathering orange-stain upon the edge of yonder western 
 peak reflects the sunsets of a thousand years."
 
 FOOTNOTES' 
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. MOSSES. 
 
 "And upon the top of the pillars was lily-work." 
 
 1 KINGS vn. 22. 
 
 THERE is nothing more calculated to strike the thoughtful 
 mind with astonishment than the boundless prodigality 
 with which the riches of nature are thrown broadcast 
 over the whole surface of the earth. The most lovely 
 objects are, as it were, carelessly scattered here and there 
 in waste spots and lonely unvisited haunts, where there 
 is no hand to gather, and no eye to admire them. The 
 great temple of Nature is like the magnificent and gor- 
 geous old temple of Solomon, upon the top of every 
 pillar is lily-work. The massive and rugged foundation 
 stones of the earth are almost completely concealed by 
 a profusion of graceful and beautiful things, the grass, 
 the flowers, the forests ; while the craggy pillars have 
 their capitals enwreathed with exqxiisite garlands of ferns 
 and mosses. ' Not a rock peeps above the surface of the 
 soil but has its steep sides clothed with rainbow-hued
 
 22 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 lichens, and its summit enveloped in verdure. In the 
 smallest and most insignificant of these objects, there is 
 as much of beauty and ingenuity of structure displayed 
 as though it were the only object in the universe. Nay, 
 God seems to bestow more abundant honour and glory 
 upon those objects whose smallness and insignificance 
 would otherwise cause them to be overlooked. 
 
 Of all the minute flowerless plants with which Nature, 
 as it were, points her flowery sentences, fills up her 
 vacant spaces, and balances and tones her landscapes, 
 mosses are by far the loveliest and the most interesting. 
 As regards form and structure they are the most beauti- 
 ful of all plants; nature having bestowed upon them this 
 compensation for want of the varied and gorgeous col- 
 ouring imparted to the higher tribes of vegetation. In 
 them the most exquisite symmetry and beauty are deve- 
 loped, a beauty not of a glaring or obvious character, but 
 refined and spiritual, consisting in delicacy of tint, in 
 the imperceptible gradation by which one hue is blended 
 with another, in the filmy transparency of the structure, 
 and in the endless diversity and perfection of the form ; 
 a beauty generally invisible to the careless or the casual 
 observer, but brightening like a star upon the view when 
 attentively and minutely examined, finding an uncon- 
 scious interpreter in every heart, and affording, when 
 fully perceived, to every thoughtful mind, a purer and 
 more subtle joy than is communicated even by the rose 
 or the lily. Eegarded en masse, what can be lovelier 
 than a closely- shaven mossy lawn, over which the golden 
 sunbeams, and the light-footed shadows of the fleecy 
 clouds overhead, chase each other throughout the whole
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 23 
 
 summer day in little rippling waves, like smiles and 
 thoughts over a human face ! What can be pleasanter 
 than the soft yielding carpets of greenest verdure and 
 weirdest patterns, woven by these tiny plants on the 
 floor of shadowy old forests, " stealing all noises from 
 the foot," and imbuing the mind with reverence and 
 awe in the pillared aisles of nature's cathedrals ! What 
 can be more picturesque than the varied hues which 
 mosses impart to the ivied ruin, the grey old wall, or 
 the decaying tree ; or what object can be more romantic 
 than a fantastic rock crowned with pines or birches, with 
 mosses hanging down in waving clusters from its edge, 
 and forming beautiful festoons like draperies of green 
 and brown silk over the pillars of some oriental palace ! 
 Truly these little plants originated in a high ideal of 
 creative wisdom and love. 
 
 Mosses belong to the foliaceous or highest division 
 of flowerless plants. Although consisting entirely of 
 cellular tissue, and increasing by simple additions of 
 matter to the growing point or the apex of parts already 
 formed, they point to far higher orders of vegetation; 
 they are prefigurations of the flowering plants, epitomes 
 of archetypes in trees and flowers. There is nothing 
 in the appearance or structure of the lichens, fungi, 
 or algse, to remind us of higher plants ; they form, as 
 it were, a strange microcosm of their own a per- 
 fectly distinct and peculiar order of vegetable exist- 
 ence ; but when we ascend a step higher and come 
 to the mosses, we find for the first time the rudimental 
 characters and distinctions of root, stem, branches, 
 and leaves we recognise an ideal exemplar of the
 
 flowering plants, all whose parts and organs are, as it 
 were, sketched out, in anticipation, in these simple and 
 tiny organisms. Through the small densely-cushioned, 
 moss-like alpine flowers, they approximate analogically 
 to the phanerogamous plants in their leaves and habit 
 of growth ; and through the cone-like spikes of the club- 
 mosses, they approximate to the pine tribe in their 
 fructification. From both these classes of highly organ- 
 ized plants, however, they are separated by wide and 
 numerous intervening links. But still it is curious 
 and interesting to find in them an exemplification of 
 the universal teleology of nature the humblest typical 
 forms pointing to the grand archetypes, the simplest 
 structures anticipating and prefiguring the most highly 
 organized and complicated ! 
 
 In no tribe of plants is there so great a similarity 
 between the different species as in the mosses. In them 
 is strikingly displayed the grand characteristic feature of 
 God's work in creation unity of type with variety of 
 development. A simplicity and uniformity of structure 
 runs throughout the entire family. The whole appear- 
 ance, the general air, the manner of growth, is the same 
 in all the species ; so much so, that it is perhaps easier 
 to distinguish a species of moss than a species of any 
 other plant. This remarkable similarity conjoined with 
 remarkable diversity, has led to the popular belief that 
 there is only one kind of moss; all the species, of which 
 no less than 500 exist in this country alone, being con- 
 founded in one general appearance. Minutely and atten- 
 tively examined, however, by an educated eye, their 
 exceeding variableness of form will at once appear, some
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 25 
 
 being slender hair-like plants ; some resembling minia- 
 ture fir-trees, others cedars, and others crested feathers 
 and ostrich plumes. In size they vary from a minute 
 film of green scarcely visible to the naked eye, to several 
 feet in length. Nor are their colours less variable, rang- 
 ing from white, through every shade of yellow, red, 
 green, and brown, to the deepest and most sombre black. 
 Though most of the peculiarities of mosses are visible 
 to the naked eye, it is on the stage of the microscope 
 that they appear to the greatest advantage. The modi- 
 fications of structure to suit the requirements of their 
 economy thus revealed, cannot fail to excite our admira- 
 tion and astonishment. The stems of mosses, though 
 serving the same purposes, are widely different from 
 those of flowering plants. We are ignorant of the 
 manner in which they are developed. Probably, like 
 endogenous plants, which is the least complicated of the 
 two natural processes of increase in the vegetable king- 
 dom, they grow by successive additions to the summit, 
 always proceeding from the interior, never increasing the 
 diameter after their outer layer has been formed. They 
 are solid, and composed entirely of cellular tissue, which 
 gradually becomes softer and more porous near the centre, 
 uniform in every part, having neither medullary rays, 
 nor true outward bark, nor central pith, nor even the 
 scalariform vessels observable in the stems of ferns. Of 
 the course taken by the ascending and descending sap, 
 we are equally ignorant, if indeed there really exist in 
 them currents similar to those of flowering plants, which 
 may be more than doubted. The roots are exceedingly 
 delicate organs, and yet they take as firm a hold of the
 
 26 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 earth, in proportion to their size, as the roots of many 
 trees. In some cases they consist of small thread-like 
 fibres, or long creeping underground stems ; while in 
 others they are aerial, like those of orchids, being deve- 
 loped in the form of a thick silky down of a pale brown 
 colour, imbedded among the leaves close to the stem. 
 This last variety of root is to be seen chiefly in species 
 that grow in moist or watery places, where they act as 
 sponges to attract and preserve the humidity of the plants, 
 when the moisture around them is dried up. In con- 
 nexion with their roots we observe a striking provision 
 of nature for the welfare of mosses in unfavourable cir- 
 cumstances. As the most delicate fibres hardly penetrate 
 beyond the surface of the soil, which in dry, sultry 
 weather speedily parts with its moisture, the mosses 
 would perish were they entirely dependent for their 
 nourishment upon their roots. But every part of them, 
 and especially the leaves, is endowed, to a remarkable de- 
 gree, with the power of imbibing the faintest moisture from 
 the air, and reviving, even when apparently withered 
 and dead, on the recurrence of a shower of rain. The 
 roots therefore, in most instances, serve only to attach 
 the plant to its growing-place, the functions of nutrition 
 being performed indiscriminately by its whole surface. 
 
 The leaves of mosses are their most prominent parts. 
 To the careless and superficial eye, accustomed to look 
 at a tuft of moss as merely a patch of velvety green- 
 ness, creeping over an old tree or dyke, the leaves of all 
 mosses may appear precisely similar; but the attentive 
 observer who examines them under a microscope, will 
 find that the leaves of different kinds of trees are not
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 27 
 
 more distinct from each other than are those of the 
 mosses. Indeed, so remarkable and so constant is this 
 dissimilarity, that it has formed one of ^ the principal 
 bases of their arrangement and classification; and the 
 botanist who has studied them thoroughly can identify 
 under the microscope, in some cases, the smallest frag- 
 ment of a leaf, although almost invisible to the naked 
 eye. The leaves of some mosses are quite plain and 
 pellucid, exhibiting no structural arrangement whatever ; 
 others are furnished with a nerve which runs through 
 the centre and terminates above or below the apex; 
 some are either ribbed and notched like a saw on the 
 edge, or quite plain and even; and others present the 
 most beautiful and varied net-work of cells. Some are 
 linear like miniature pine-needles, others ovate and round 
 like the leaves of our common deciduous trees. The 
 harmonies of colours are beautifully exhibited in their 
 appendicular parts. The stem, in almost all the species, 
 is of a pale wine-red colour, while the leaves are gene- 
 rally of a delicate pea-green hue. In some species the 
 leaves are of the deepest and most vivid green, while 
 their margins and nerves are of a deep blood-red colour. 
 The fruit-stalk and fruit-vessel are sometimes red or 
 orange-coloured, while the leaves are brown; and some- 
 times dark brown, when the leaves are of a golden yellow. 
 Unlike the leaves of ferns, which are mere foliaceous 
 expansions of the stem, and developed in one plane, the 
 leaves of mosses are quite distinct from the stem, and 
 are arranged around it on all sides, most frequently in 
 an alternate manner, so that a line joining their bases 
 would form a spiral more or less elongated.
 
 28 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 The organs of fructification, however, with which 
 mosses are furnished, are perhaps the most wonderful 
 parts of their economy. When the requisite conditions 
 are present, these are generally developed during the 
 winter and spring months, and may be easily recognised 
 by their peculiar appearance. At first a forest of hair- 
 like stalks, of a pale pink colour, rises above the general 
 level of the tuft of moss, to the height of between one 
 and three inches, giving to the moss the appearance of 
 a pin-cushion well provided with pins. These stalks, 
 through course of time, are crowned with little urn-like 
 vessels called capsules, which are covered at an early 
 stage with little caps, like those of the Normandy peas- 
 ants, with high peaks and long lappets, in one species 
 bearing a remarkable resemblance to the extinguisher of 
 a candle, a curious provision for protecting them alike 
 from the sunshine and the rain, until the delicate struc- 
 tures underneath are matured. When the fruit-stalk 
 lengthens and the capsules swell, this hood or cap is 
 torn from its support, and carried up on the top of the 
 seed-vessel, much in the same way as the calyx of the 
 common garden annual, the Eschscholtzia Californica, is 
 borne up on the summit of the cone-like petals before 
 they expand. When, the seed-vessel is riper it falls off 
 altogether, and discloses a little lid covering the mouth 
 of the capsule, which is also removed at a more advanced 
 stage of growth. The mouth of the seed-vessel is then 
 seen to be fringed all round with a single or double row 
 of teeth, which closely fit into each other, and completely 
 close up the aperture. Tt is a circumstance worthy of 
 being noticed, that the even numbers which prevail iii
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 
 
 29 
 
 the formation of microscopic cells, are also found in these 
 organs, the teeth being arranged in each row in the geo- 
 metrical progression of 4, 8, 16, 32, or 64~ there never 
 being by any chance an odd number ; thus illustrating 
 the general doctrine that a system of types runs through- 
 out the whole works of nature, furnishing evidences of 
 supreme intelligence, and wonderfully adapted not only 
 to the objects to which it is applied, but also to the same 
 or similar principles in the constitution of man's mind. 
 
 FIG. 1. BBYCM SERPENS. 
 (a) Veil. (6) Fringe, (c) Leaf, (d) Capsule with lid. (e) Stem. 
 
 These teeth are highly sensitive to the changes of the 
 weather, opening in sunshine, and closing during moist 
 or rainy weather, for the obvious purpose of ripening 
 the minute dust-like seeds with which the interior of 
 the capsule is filled; and it is a remarkable circum- 
 stance that, in one or two genera of mosses which are 
 not provided with hygrometric teeth, the lid that closes 
 the capsule is permanent, being thrown off only when 
 the seeds are ripe and ready to be dispersed. By plac-
 
 3!) FOOTNOTES FffOM 
 
 ing a capsule, the teeth of which are closed, near the fire 
 or in the warm sunshine, the teeth will be seen to open 
 with a graceful and gradual motion ; while the slightest 
 moisture of one's breath invariably causes the little teeth 
 instantly to close over the mouth. This beautiful and 
 extremely simple mechanism, of which a somewhat simi- 
 lar example occurs in the Rose of Jericho, is one of the 
 most wonderful contrivances of nature, one of the most 
 extraordinary adaptations of means to an end, to be 
 found in the whole economy of vegetation. Within the 
 capsule the seeds surround a slender pillar or columella, 
 and are enclosed in a membraneous bag. Elevated as 
 the seed-vessels are by their stalks, they are freely ex- 
 posed to the ripening effects of sun and wind ; and it is 
 a curious sight to- see these straight footstalks gradually 
 bending, reversing the seed-vessels, and emptying the 
 seeds they contain as from a pitcher, to be carried by 
 the wind to some congenial spot, where through course 
 of time they may spring up and form a new colony of 
 mosses, which in their turn will carry on the circle of 
 life, from the seed to the full-grown moss, and from the 
 full-grown moss to the seed, the beginning and the end- 
 ing, the ending and the beginning ! 
 
 Besides these curious capsules, there are other organs 
 of fructification which clearly demonstrate the sexuality 
 of mosses. Their real nature has only recently been 
 accurately ascertained. They are called antheridia and 
 pistilidia, from the strong resemblance which they bear 
 to the stamens and pistils of the flowering plants, and 
 from their being supposed to perform the same or ana- 
 logous functions. They are small spherical bodies, fixed
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 31 
 
 by short footstalks, concealed in cup-shaped receptacles 
 among the perichsetial or uppermost leaves, and often 
 occur in abundance along with the capsules on the same 
 plant. Examined under the microscope, they are found 
 to consist of a bag, whose membrane is formed of some- 
 what oblique cells, containing granular matter arranged 
 around a bright red nuclear body, which divides into a 
 number of small vesicular bodies of precisely the same 
 character. This granular matter, under a higher power 
 of the microscope, is resolved into a mass of apparently 
 living animalcules called phytozoa, somewhat similar to 
 the spermatozoa which occur in the reproductive matter 
 of animals. These tiny organisms have short slender 
 bodies, with long spirally-twisted tails, and display the 
 most active and lively movements, each whirling upon 
 its own axis, and quickly running about the field as if 
 from an intense feeling of sensuous enjoyment. These 
 movements generally cease in the course of two hours 
 after the discharge of the phytozoa from the antheridia ; 
 but sometimes they are observed to move actively even 
 after the lapse of two days. It is impossible to deter- 
 mine whether these tiny bodies are animals, as they 
 appear to be, or simply modifications of vegetable tissue. 
 They are furnished with cilia like animalcules ; and their 
 motion is such as would undoubtedly be attributed to 
 ciliary action if seen in an animal structure. But as 
 Dr. Lindley says, "It is so improbable that animals 
 should be generated in the cells of plants, unless acci- 
 dentally, that we cannot but entertain grave doubts 
 whether, notwithstanding their locomotive powers, these 
 bodies are really anything more than a form of vegetable
 
 32 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 matter. As to the motion, how are we to tell that it 
 is not a hygrometrical action, like that of the teeth which 
 fringe the mouth of the capsule ?" Be their nature, 
 however, what it may, they are extremely curious ob- 
 jects, and well worthy of the most careful examination. 
 In the same receptacle, among the upper leaves of the 
 moss, may be seen antheridia in every stage of develop- 
 ment, those in the centre appearing to ripen first, even 
 while some of those at the outer edge are of small size 
 and quite green. There is thus a constant succession of 
 phytozoa produced; a provision which tends to insure 
 their application to the pistilidia at the proper time. 
 Several species of mosses are furnished with gemmae or 
 pseudopodia, which consist of -powdery or granulated 
 heads terminating an elongated and almost leafless por- 
 tion of the stem. These organs are usually developed 
 only in unfavourable circumstances, being formed at the 
 expense of the fruit which is then abortive. They ap- 
 pear to be simply a mass of naked seed, without the 
 ordinary protection and mechanism of an enveloping 
 seed-vessel, and as such, afford a remarkable illustration 
 of the simplicity of the means by which nature, when 
 placed at a disadvantage, effects her vital purposes. It 
 is worthy of remark, that there are several mosses which 
 possess the power of maintaining and spreading them- 
 selves without the aid of any of these organs of fructifi- 
 cation. There is one remarkable species, the male plant 
 of which exists only in Europe, so far as can be ascer- 
 tained, and the female only in America, and yet they 
 propagate themselves with as much facility as though 
 they grew side by side in the same crevice of rock.
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 33 
 
 Almost all the mosses, which cover extensive areas of 
 mountain and lawn, and occupy large tracts of bogs and 
 watery wastes, are barren; it being a rare thing to find 
 on them capsules or any of the other compensating 
 organs. They are exceedingly proliferous, throwing out 
 young shoots from their sides or summits, and thus often 
 increasing many feet in depth, forming layer above layer, 
 the uppermost stratum alone being vital ; the rest de- 
 composed into peat, forming a rich organic soil for its 
 nourishment. 
 
 Mosses possess in a high degree the power of repro- 
 ducing such parts of their tissue as have been injured or 
 removed. They may be trodden under foot; they may 
 be torn up by the plough or the harrow; they may be 
 cropt down to the earth, when mixed with grass, by. 
 graminivorous animals ; they may be injured in a hun- 
 dred other ways ; but, in a marvellously short space of 
 time, they spring up as verdant in their appearance and 
 as perfect in their form as though they had never been 
 disturbed. The necessity of such a power of regenera- 
 tion as this is abundantly manifest, when we consider 
 the numberless casualties to which they are exposed in 
 the bare shelterless positions which they occupy. 
 
 Mosses also possess the power of resisting, perhaps to 
 a greater extent than all other plants of similar structure, 
 the injurious operation of physical agents ; and this like- 
 wise is a wise provision to qualify them for the uses 
 which they serve in the economy of nature. The in- 
 fluence of heat and cold upon them is extremely limited, 
 for the same species flourish indiscriminately on the 
 mountains of Greenland and the plains of Africa. They 
 C
 
 34 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 have been found growing near hot springs in Cochin- 
 China, and fringing the sides of the geysers of Iceland, 
 where they must have vegetated in a heat equal to 186 
 degrees ; while, on the other hand, they have been 
 gathered in Melville Island at 35 degrees, or only just 
 above the freezing-point. Though frozen hard under 
 the snow-wreaths of winter for several months, their 
 vitality is unimpaired; and though subjected to the 
 scorching rays of the summer's sun, they continue green 
 and unblighted. Even when thoroughly desiccated into 
 a brown unshapen mass that almost crumbles into dust 
 when touched by the hand, they revive under the in- 
 fluence of the genial shower, become green as an emerald ; 
 every pellucid leaf serving as a tiny mirror on which to 
 catch the stray sunbeams. Specimens dried and pressed 
 in the herbarium for half a century, have been resus- 
 citated on the application of moisture, and the seed pro- 
 cured from their capsules has readily germinated. They 
 grow freely in the Arctic regions, where there is a long 
 twilight of six months' duration ; and they luxuriate in 
 the dazzling uninterrupted light of the tropics. They 
 are found thriving amid moist steam-like vapours, with 
 orchids and tillandsias, in the deep American forests; 
 and they may be seen in tufts here and there on the dry 
 and arid sands of the Arabian deserts. It matters not 
 to the healthy exercise of their functions whether the 
 surrounding air be stagnant or in motion, for we find 
 them on the mountain top amid howling winds and 
 driving storms, and in the calm, silent, secluded wood, 
 where hardly a breeze penetrates to ruffle their leaves. 
 The range of flowering plants is circumscribed by con-
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 35 
 
 ditions of light, temperature, elevation above the sea, 
 geological character of the district, and various other 
 physical causes; but the wonderful vital energy with 
 which the mosses are endowed, enables them to resist 
 the most unfavourable influences, to grow freely and 
 luxuriantly even in the bleakest circumstances, and to 
 acclimatize themselves, without changing their character, 
 in any region of the earth, and every kind of situation 
 upon its surface; while, owing to the extreme minute- 
 ness and profusion of their germs of reproduction, they 
 are almost universally disseminated by the winds and 
 waves. There is no spot so barren and desolate where 
 some species or other may not be found. Although 
 often growing in great abundance within the tropics, 
 carpeting the ground, and covering the trunks of the 
 trees, and sometimes attaining very luxuriant propor- 
 tions, the temperate zones, however, are the proper re- 
 gions of the mosses. Unlike the ferns, the size and 
 number of which gradually diminish in passing from 
 tropical to temperate countries, the maximum of mosses 
 is found in cold climates, increasing in luxuriance, beauty, 
 and abundance as we approach the North Pole. Like the 
 ferns, moisture and shade are essential to their growth and 
 wellbeing, hence, as a class, they are principally confined 
 to islands and the vicinity of rivers and lakes ; the inte- 
 rior of continents, unless when well wooded and watered, 
 being in a great measure destitute of them. Their favourite 
 habitats appear to be rocky dells or ravines at the foot 
 of mountains, with streamlets murmuring through them, 
 and dense trees interweaving their foliage over their 
 sides, and creating a dim moist twilight in the recesses
 
 38 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 beneath. In such hermit seclusions the botanist may 
 expect to reap the richest harvest of species. Mosses 
 occasionally select very singular places of growth ; and 
 notwithstanding the minuteness and profusion of their 
 seeds, the facility with which they can be disseminated, 
 and their insensibility to ordinary physical conditions, 
 are, specifically considered, sometimes very much re- 
 stricted in their geographical range. Several kinds are 
 found in this country only on the summits" of the highest 
 Highland mountains, covering the barren soil with a 
 thin film of verdure, or creeping over the weather-beaten 
 rocks in tenacious dark-coloured clusters or tufts. These 
 species are identical with those found on the plains of 
 the Arctic regions and the hills of Lapland and Green- 
 land, where they occur not merely in isolated tufts, as 
 we find them in this country, but carpeting the ground 
 for many yards, and imparting a verdant hue to the 
 mountains and valleys. This circumstance would in- 
 dicate that their original centre of distribution exists in 
 these dreary regions, and that from thence they have 
 been disseminated over the British and European moun- 
 tains. The Alpine species are exceedingly restricted, sel- 
 dom being found lower than 3000 feet, and often ascend- 
 ing to a height of 4000 feet on the British hills, and 
 8000 feet on the Alps of Switzerland and the Pyrenees ; 
 the isothermal line of these altitudes corresponding with 
 the plains of Lapland and the level of the sea-shore 
 in the Arctic regions. Along with the small moss-like 
 Alpine flowers with which they grow, they must have 
 been wafted down to the Highland mountains, either as 
 germs or as full-sized plants, growing undisturbed in
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 37 
 
 their native soil, when these mountains existed as islands 
 in the midst of an immense glacial sea which swept over 
 what is now the continent of Europe. When this sea 
 retired, owing to the elevation of the land, and its 
 islands became mountain peaks and ranges, the tiny 
 plants which imparted to them their first faint tinge of 
 verdure still remained, finding the same conditions of 
 temperature, shade, and moisture among the clouds as 
 they formerly found on the shore of an icy sea. Thus 
 all the Alpine plants found on the summits of our 
 loftiest hills are Norwegian or Arctic species. They are 
 besides the oldest living plants in the world, each of 
 them, even the very humblest moss or saxifrage, having 
 a pedigree which extends into the misty past, thousands 
 of years before the creation of man. What an intense, 
 almost human interest, gathers around these tiny mosses 
 and fragile flowers, which bloom like lone stars in a 
 midnight sky, in the very hoof -marks of the storm, 
 when we reflect that they are the last of their race, the 
 scanty remains of what was once for many ages the 
 general Flora of the whole of Europe. True patriots, 
 they have clung to their native homes, although they 
 have changed their very nature; retiring before the in- 
 roads of the host of gaudy flowers which invaded our 
 valleys and woods from the east, to the storm-scalped 
 summits of the Highland mountains, and behind the icy 
 battlements of the Arctic regions ! Upwards of thirty- 
 four species are confined to the lofty ranges in the centre 
 of Scotland, especially the Braemar and Breadalbane 
 mountains, which form the most important part of the 
 great Grampian range, and contain the most extensively
 
 38 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 and uniformly elevated land in Great Britain. These 
 species are pre-eminently Arctic and Norwegian, and pre- 
 sent many striking peculiarities which distinguish them 
 at a glance from the mosses of the woods and the valleys. 
 Though confined to the shoulders and the summits of 
 our loftiest mountains, they are common hyperborean 
 mosses, growing most luxuriantly and spreading in wide 
 patches on the rocky plains of Spitzbergen, and in the 
 upland woods of northern Norway. A few of them are 
 found on the highest mountains of Wales and the south 
 of Ireland ; while the remaining representatives of these 
 Alpine and Arctic mosses cover the projecting rocks 
 which tower up through the glaciers of the Alps and 
 the avalanches of the Pyrenees. No less than nine are 
 exclusively restricted to the very highest summits of 
 the most elevated peaks in Britain, never, except when 
 brought down by streamlets in isolated tufts along their 
 course, descending to a lower altitude than 4000 feet; 
 while upwards of twenty of the rarest species are found 
 on Ben Lawers and the lofty hills in the neighbourhood, 
 of which no less than thirteen are to be found nowhere 
 else in this country. 
 
 Mosses, in many instances, are limited in their range 
 to rocks and soils of the same specific character; their 
 limits of distribution, and of the rocks and soils possessing 
 such character, being identical. For instance, some are 
 confined to limestone districts and chalk cliffs ; a cal- 
 careous soil being indispensable to their existence. 
 Others affect granite; numerous species luxuriate in soil 
 formed by the disintegration of micaceous schist ; while 
 not a few are found growing chiefly on sandstone and
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 39 
 
 clay. Some are found only on and near the sea-shore ; 
 others are confined to the beds of streams and cliffs 
 moistened by the spray of cascades, where, however 
 impetuous the torrent may be, they cling tenaciously to 
 the rocks, and form carpets of greenest verdure for the 
 white glistening feet of the descending waters. Some are 
 restricted exclusively to trees, whose trunks and boughs 
 they clasp like emerald bracelets; others lead a lonely, 
 hermit-like existence, in the dim moist caves and crevices 
 of rocks, where they are discovered only by the glisten- 
 ing of a stray adventurous sunbeam on the drops of dew 
 trembling upon their shining golden-green leaves. One 
 species has actually been found covering the half-decayed 
 hat of a traveller who had perished in a storm on Mount 
 St. Bernard. There is a very peculiar genus called 
 Splachnum, whose members are only found on organic 
 remains, on the blanched and polished skulls and bones 
 of hares and sheep which had furnished a meal to the 
 fox or the eagle, or on droppings of game and cattle 
 which browse upon the higher hills. This is the only 
 vegetable we find to be contemporary with or posterior 
 to the creation of animals, with the exception of minute 
 microscopic entophytes which grow within the bodies of 
 men and the lower animals. It is worthy of remark 
 though it may seem a digression that there was an 
 obvious necessity for the universal precedence of plants 
 in creation, for the hard inorganic elements of the rocks 
 had first to be converted by the vital energies of plants 
 into organic substances, before animals could be sustained. 
 It is true that the first created plant and the first created 
 animal derived their origin alike from the inorganic soil,
 
 40 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 and were endowed alike with the power of converting 
 heterogeneous matter into their own proper substance. 
 But here the resemblance between them began and ended. 
 The plant still possesses its original power of deriving 
 its nourishment from the soil, while the animal has no 
 such power, and is dependent for its support upon matter 
 previously organized to a certain degree by the plant. 
 Thus it is the peculiar function of the plant to effect 
 that important change by which inorganic matter is con- 
 verted into living substance ; it is in the organs of the 
 plant that matter becomes vital. This is by far the 
 most wonderful operation which is going on in the world ; 
 for in all that afterwards takes place there is no such 
 radical change, there is simply development into more 
 highly organized substance. Yet in what the operation 
 consists, or by what process it is accomplished, is involved 
 in the greatest mystery. 
 
 Mosses are sometimes found in an isolated state as 
 single individuals, but they are far oftener found in a 
 social condition. It is a peculiarity of the family to 
 grow in tufts or clusters, the appearance of which is 
 always distinct and well-marked in different species, and 
 often affords a specific character. This disposition to 
 grow together, which is exhibited in no other plants so 
 strongly, redeems them from the insignificance of their 
 individual state, and enables them to modify in many 
 places the appearance of the general landscape. As 
 social plants they often cover vast districts of land. 
 Along with lichens they give a verdant appearance to 
 the desert steppes of northern Europe, Asia, and America. 
 Mixed with grass they luxuriate in parks, lawns, and
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 41 
 
 meadows, particularly in moist, low-lying situations. 
 They spread in large patches over the ground in woods 
 and forests; and at a certain elevation on mountain 
 ranges, they take exclusive possession of the soil, forming 
 immense beds into which the foot sinks up to the ankle 
 at every step, bleached on the surface by the sunshine 
 and rain, blackened here and there by dissolving wreaths 
 of snow which lie upon them through all the summer 
 months, and gradually decomposing underneath into black 
 vegetable mould. The shoulders, ridges, and elevated 
 plateaus of all the Highland mountains are covered with 
 huge luxuriant masses of the woolly-fringe moss (Tri- 
 chostomwn lanuginosum), growing continuously over whole 
 acres of ground, and banishing every other plant from 
 its domains. Mountain peat, which is of a dry, friable 
 nature, is formed almost exclusively by the decay of this 
 moss. It seems intended by nature to serve as a cover- 
 ing to the soil in the absence of grass and heather 
 as it is found most luxuriantly and in the greatest pro- 
 fusion in spots considerably above the heather line, as 
 well as the point where grass ceases to be a social plant, 
 and occurs only in scattered tufts here and there. In 
 these bleak and desolate spots, it sometimes furnishes 
 materials for an extemporaneous couch to the belated 
 traveller compelled to sleep in the shade of a rock on 
 the hills ; although care must be taken in arranging the 
 couch to place the dry surface uniformly uppermost, 
 otherwise the wet decomposed portions will here and 
 there obtrude, and render the repose of the tenant ex- 
 ceedingly uncomfortable. The common hair moss 1 (Poly- 
 
 1 See Frontispiece.
 
 42 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 trichum commune), which is the strongest and wiriest 
 of the British mosses, often covers large tracts of moor- 
 land, in moist places, and frequently attains a height 
 of between two and three feet. In Lapland it forms 
 almost the only verdure of the plains, and is occa- 
 sionally used by the inhabitants when on long journeys 
 for a bed, a large portion of the mossy turf, cut from 
 a neighbouring spot, being employed as a covering. 
 V' The fountain apple-moss (Bartramia fontana) also grows 
 j in great profusion wherever it occurs. It completely 
 
 V 
 
 . fills up the sources of springs, for many yards around, 
 with a bright green deceptive verdure, through which 
 
 L the unwary foot sinks into the coldest water and the 
 blackest mud. The course of Alpine streamlets, near 
 their commencement, may be traced for a considerable 
 distance by the beds of this moss, through which the 
 waters languidly flow. But of all the members of this 
 family the Sphagna 1 or bog mosses are the most social. 
 They are everywhere most abundant on heaths and 
 mossy soils, where they spread in such immense masses 
 that they give a singularly light appearance to the whole 
 moorland landscape ; and by the accumulation of their 
 remains fill up the beds of ancient lakes, bogs, and 
 marshes, with dense, spongy, continuous cushions, of a 
 pale green, dirty white, or dark red colour. This is the 
 principal moss in the marshy plains of Lapland, and 
 within the whole of the Arctic Circle; and nothing can 
 be more dreary and desolate than the scenery where this 
 moss exclusively prevails. Melville Island, the most 
 western point ever navigated in the Polar Sea, though 
 
 1 See Frontispiece.
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 43 
 
 nearly as large as Scotland, is principally covered with 
 mosses, these plants forming more than a fourth part 
 of its whole flora; while the black lifeless soil of New 
 South Shetland, one of the most southern points in the 
 Antarctic regions, is covered with faint specks of mosses 
 struggling for existence. In the extreme north and the 
 extreme south, they thus form the principal vegetation 
 of large portions of the earth's surface. 
 
 Mosses are seldom associated with historical or per- 
 sonal incidents. There are two species, however, which 
 derive an additional interest from this connexion. It 
 has been ascertained that the hyssop^ which formed 
 the lowest limit in the descending scale of Solomon's 
 botanical knowledge, and which was frequently employed 
 in the temple service of the Jews for purposes of purifi- 
 cation by water or blood, is identical with the little 
 beardless moss (Gymnostomum truncatulum), which is 
 abundant on banks, walls, and fallow fields in this 
 country. It has been found in little scattered tufts on 
 the walls of Jerusalem, the kind of situation indicated 
 in Scripture as its natural growing place. It is little 
 more than half-an-inch in height, but it is very much 
 branched, and forms sometimes large continuous patches, 
 which could easily be employed as sponges. The speci- 
 mens found in the East are considerably larger than 
 those which occur in this country ; so that there is every 
 probability that the reference of Hasselquist, who called 
 it Hyssopus Solomonis, is correct. The moss which so 
 deeply interested the feelings of Mungo Park in the 
 African desert, as to revive his drooping spirits when 
 overcome with fatigue, has been found, by means of
 
 44 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 original specimens, to be the little fern-like fork-moss 
 (Dicranum bryoides), l a frequent denizen of moist banks 
 in woods in this country, although, from its very minute 
 size, often overlooked. There is one peculiar species, 
 the cord moss (Funaria hygrometrica), called la cliarbon- 
 niere in France, from its growing in the woods where 
 anything has been burned, and particularly abundant 
 on old walls, whose stem possesses the curious hygro- 
 metric action observable in the teeth of other species. 
 In dry weather it becomes corded, while it uncoils and 
 straightens in moist weather, and thus forms an excellent 
 natural hygrometer. As particular illustrations of the 
 beauty of mosses, which can be perfectly seen and ap- 
 preciated by the naked eye, may be instanced the Splach- 
 num rubrum of the North American bogs, with its large, 
 bright red, flagon-shaped fruit-vessel, and its broad, pel- 
 lucid, soft green leaves; the common long-leaved thyme 
 moss 2 of our own woods, with its exquisite, prominent 
 undulated foliage, like a palm-tree in miniature; and 
 the Neckera crispa, which is perhaps the loveliest of all 
 the species, investing rocks and trunks of trees with 
 its richly-coloured and glossy leaves. When spreading 
 over trees, it is of a dark, dull green colour ; but 
 when occurring on dry lichen-clad rocks, over which its 
 closely -adhering stems and leaves creep for many a 
 yard, it assumes a bright yellowish-green, glossy hue, 
 changing gradually and imperceptibly downwards, until 
 the old leaves become of a singularly rich dark brown 
 or red colour. When the sunbeams and shadows are 
 flickering over its crisped and silken leaves, it forms 
 
 1 See Frontispiece. s Ibid. ~^f
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 45 
 
 one of the most beautiful objects upon which the eye 
 can rest. 
 
 Mosses directly serve very few purposes in the economy 
 of man. They are often employed for packing articles, 
 for which they are admirably adapted ; and Linnaeus in- 
 forms us that the Swedish peasantry fill up the spaces 
 between the chimney and the walls in their houses with 
 a particular kind, which prevents the action of the fire 
 by the exclusion of air. Another species is sometimes 
 employed in the manufacture of mats and brooms. The 
 bog-moss supplies materials for mattresses. The Lap- 
 landers use it instead of clothes for their new-born babes, 
 packing their cradles firmly with it ; and in seasons of 
 scarcity it enters into the composition of their bread. 
 The dense fork moss, when twisted, is used by the 
 Esquimaux for lamp-wicks, a purpose which it very in- 
 adequately performs. But this is about all that can 
 be said of their value to man. In the economy of 
 nature, however, they are extremely useful. They con- 
 tribute to the diffusion and preservation of vegetable life, 
 both by the soil which their decay supplies, and by the 
 shelter which they afford to the roots of trees and plants 
 in very hot or very cold weather. Peat is almost en- 
 tirely composed of mosses. This substance is usually 
 found in great basin-shaped hollows, or valleys among 
 the hills, formerly covered with indigenous forests of 
 birch, alder, and hazel, or with the waters of a moun- 
 tain lake. In the 'former case, the rotting of the fallen 
 trees produced a rich black mould where mosses luxu- 
 riated; these mosses acted like sponges, and absorbed 
 the moisture from the atmosphere, and retained the rains
 
 46 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 when they fell, forming shallow marshes around the 
 fallen trees. More mosses were developed by this mois- 
 ture, and more moisture was accumulated by these 
 mosses; and thus the mutual process went on, one layer 
 of moss decaying in its lower parts, and increasing by 
 additions to its tops the dead giving birth to the living 
 until at last the fallen trees were completely en- 
 tombed, and a stratum of upwards of twenty feet of 
 solid peat, in some instances, deposited above them. 
 When, on the other hand, the basin-shaped hollows were 
 originally occupied by lakes, the Sphagnum or bog-moss 
 abounded in the waters, and spread so extensively, even 
 from great depths, as through course of time to trans- 
 form the lakes into quaking bogs, which, by the accu- 
 mulation of drift, dust, and rubbish, and the decay of 
 the original plants and the formation of new, became 
 ultimately compressed into solid peat, covered upon the 
 surface with heather, or a green vesture of grass or moss. 
 The Sphagnum or bog-moss by which this great change 
 was effected is of a singularly pale, almost snowy -white 
 colour, a peculiarity exceedingly rare among plants, and 
 sometimes attains a length of six or seven feet in deep 
 water, its large air-cells imparting the necessary buoy- 
 ancy to it. Its structure is in many respects different 
 from that of all other mosses. Its branches are fasci- 
 culate and disposed around the stem in spirals; it has 
 no roots whatever, but floats unattached in an upright 
 position in the water; its cell- walls are perforated, and 
 the leaf-cells contain a well-developed spiral ; while the 
 stem is composed of tissue, which, under the microscope r 
 bears a close resemblance to the glandular structure of
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 47 
 
 the stems of coniferous trees. The seed-vessel is sessile 
 among the leaves, and bursts in the centre, the lid flying 
 off when the seed is ripe with considerable force, so as 
 to give a distinctly audible report on a still summer day. 
 It is extensively distributed in temperate regions, being 
 almost unknown in the tropics, where the peat is formed 
 by the decomposition of shrubby plants like the common 
 heather. The peat of Tierra del Fuego, the Falkland 
 Islands, and the Galapagos Archipelago, is composed of 
 this bog-moss. We may be able to form some idea of 
 the vast importance of this moss, when we consider that 
 peat-bogs occupy a tenth part of the whole of Ireland, 
 and furnish in the Highlands of Scotland the largest 
 proportion of the fuel consumed by the inhabitants. It 
 is a singular fact that we owe our coals to the carbonized 
 remains of ferns and their allies; and our peats to the 
 decomposed tissues of mosses two of the most useful 
 and indispensable materials in our social economy to 
 two of the humblest families in the vegetable kingdom. 
 How true it is, that things which we are apt to despise 
 or overlook on account of their minuteness and apparent 
 insignificance, are not only full of lessons of beauty and 
 wisdom, but are also made the means, in the hands of a 
 kind Providence, of the greatest good to His creatures ! 
 The plants whose peculiarities have been described in 
 the preceding pages are called urn mosses, their fructifi- 
 cation being urn-shaped, furnished with teeth, and closed 
 with a lid. There is another large class, called scale 
 mosses or liverworts (Hepaticce or Jungermannice), so 
 closely allied to the true mosses that they are frequently 
 confounded even by an educated eye. Of these there
 
 48 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 are nearly a hundred species indigenous to Great Britain 
 and Ireland, some of which are so small as to be scarcely 
 visible, and others much larger than any of the true 
 mosses. With the exception of a few prominent species, 
 which are found in every moist wood and on every 
 shady rock, they are very local and limited in their dis- 
 tribution, many of them being remarkably rare, and 
 confined to remote and isolated localities. Perhaps the 
 greatest number of species occurs in the tropics; and no- 
 
 A 
 
 Fio. 2. JUNOERMANTJIJK COMPLANATA. 
 
 where do they luxuriate so much as in the dark woods 
 and mountain ravines of New Zealand. Some of them 
 grow in the bleakest spots in the world, and are to be 
 found even at a higher altitude than the urn mosses on 
 the great mountain ranges of the globe. They form the 
 faintest, dimmest tint of green on the edges of eternal 
 glaciers, and on the bare storm-seamed ridges of the Alps 
 and Andes, where not a tuft of moss or a trace of other 
 vegetation can be seen; and this almost imperceptible 
 film of verdure, when cleansed from the earth and mois-
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 49 
 
 tened with water, presents under the microscope the 
 most beautiful appearance. 
 
 The peculiarities of these plants are so remarkable and 
 interesting that they deserve more than a passing notice. 
 They do not grow upright in tufts like the mosses, but 
 have a flat, creeping, lichen-like habit, spreading over 
 rocks and trees in closely-applied circles which radiate 
 from a common centre. The whole typical plant is like 
 a series or necklace of roundish flat scales connected at 
 the edges; several of which branch from a common point 
 in the middle. The leaves, unlike those of the mosses, 
 are entirely destitute of a central nerve, for what is 
 called the nervure In the membraneous or leafy species, 
 is nothing more than the stalk itself, on the edges of 
 which the leaves are fastened together in such a manner 
 as to form apparently a continuous whole. They are 
 disposed either in a spiral which turns from left to right, 
 in which case they are called succubous, or in a spiral 
 which turns from right to left, when they receive the 
 name of incubous leaves. In their shape there is a 
 marvellous diversity; and the arrangement and form of 
 the cells is so exquisitely beautiful in almost all the 
 species, that no more pleasing objects can be mounted 
 for the microscope. In some species they are furnished 
 with radicles or rootlets along the whole length of their 
 under side. Their substance is very loosely cellular, 
 easily reviving, after being dried, by the application of 
 moisture. Their colour varies from a pale white to the 
 darkest green and the deepest and most brilliant red 
 and purple; sea-green, however, being the prevailing 
 hue. The fruit-vessel is as interesting and suggestive of
 
 50 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 marvellous reflection as that of the urn-mosses. It is 
 generally supported on a very delicate silvery stem ; and 
 is at first round, gradually splitting as it becomes ripe 
 into two or four valves, which bear a close resemblance 
 to the calyx or corolla of flowering plants. In the cen- 
 tre of this calyx-like organ may be seen a tuft of delicate 
 straw-coloured hairs, like floss silk, with the spores or 
 seeds in the form of minute yellow dust intermingled. 
 These hairs or filaments are spiral, highly elastic, and 
 hygrometrical, twisting and writhing even upon the field 
 of the microscope ; and like the spring-like ring round 
 the fruit-vessel of the fern, serve by their coiling and 
 uncoiling, in certain states of the surrounding atmosphere, 
 to scatter abroad, even to a considerable distance, the 
 powdery seeds imbedded among them. This is a very 
 curious and wonderful piece of mechanism, and highly 
 deserving of microscopical examination. 
 
 One genus of this interesting family called Riccia, 
 floats on the surface of stagnant waters, and bears a 
 superficial resemblance to the common duckweed. The 
 fronds are destitute of radicles when growing on the 
 surface of ponds and ditches ; but if the water be removed 
 by evaporation or draining, or the plant thrown on the 
 soil at the margin, they become smaller and fasten them- 
 selves firmly to the ground by numerous fibrous rootlets ; 
 a beautiful example of the ease with which these humble 
 plants accommodate themselves to altered circumstances. 
 They have many air-passages between the cells, which 
 enable them to float on the water. The under surface 
 is covered, to a greater or less extent, Avith thin scales, 
 which form most beautiful microscopic objects when
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 51 
 
 treated with different chemical tests, from their trans- 
 parency and variety of colouring. One ally of this genus, 
 called Biella, differs widely from the rest of the tribe in 
 its erect, moss-like habit. It grows on the margins of 
 ponds, streams, and lakes in Algiers and Sardinia, and 
 perfects its fruit when submerged. It is quite a botani- 
 cal curiosity, presenting a whorled appearance, not unlike 
 the common spiral shells of the sea-shore. Each indi- 
 vidual consists of a central stem, round which a distinct 
 leaf or wing is wound in the form of a screw or continu- 
 ous spiral. On the edge of this wing, towards the sum- 
 mit of the male plant, the antheridia are developed ; 
 while in the female the fruit clusters on the stem between 
 the whorls. 
 
 The most interesting of all the scale-mosses is the com- 
 mon marchantia or liverwort (Marcliantia polymorpha, 
 Fig. 3). It is very common, creeping in large, dull, 
 
 FIG. 3. MARCHANTIA POLYMORPHA. 
 
 dark- green patches over rocks in very moist and shady 
 situations, such as the banks of a densely-wooded stream 
 in a deep narrow glen, or the sides of rivers and foun- 
 tains. It may often be seen also on the moist walls of
 
 52 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 hot-houses, and in the pots and tubs. It adheres closely 
 to rocks, which it sometimes completely covers with its 
 imbricated fronds, by the numerous white downy radicles 
 with which the under-surface is covered. Its fronds are 
 flat, about three inches long, and from half-an-inch to 
 an inch wide, and are variously divided into obtuse lobes. 
 Their texture is membranaceous and strikingly cellular. 
 Their upper surface is most beautifully reticulated and 
 covered with numerous minute lozenge- like scales, with 
 a little dot-like pore or puncture in the centre, analogous 
 to the stomates or breathing-pores of flowering plants. 
 The fructification is very singular, resembling a forest 
 of little mushrooms rising from the leaves ; each dividing 
 at the top into eight or ten green rays, and having as 
 many little brown purses placed alternately between 
 them. Each of these purses has a valve which opens 
 generally in July, and contains within it four or five 
 florets, from the centre of which rises a single funnel- 
 shaped filament, covered with a yellow powder affixed to 
 the elaters or elastic spiral hairs previously alluded to. 
 Besides this ordinary male and female stalked receptacle, 
 sterile as well as fertile individuals are provided at all 
 seasons of the year with cup-like bodies, growing on 
 various parts of the upper surface of the frond, always 
 on the mid-rib, and of the same texture as the frond 
 itself. These bodies seem to indicate an approach to 
 the calyx and corolla of the flowering plants. They con- 
 tain in their interior several lentil-shaped membranaceous 
 bodies of a reticulated structure, equivalent to buds, which 
 frequently throw out rootlets before leaving their recep- 
 tacles, and striking root on the spots where they happen
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 53 
 
 to fall, in time become perfect fronds. There is no more 
 pleasing and profitable study to the young botanist than 
 the examination of the highly curious structure and com- 
 plex system of fructification peculiar to this plant. It 
 is interesting also on account of its associations. Under 
 the name of Hepatica officinarum, it was employed by 
 the ancient herbalists, from its resemblance to the re- 
 ticulated structure of the liver, as a cure for all diseases 
 affecting that organ. It is still used as a popular re- 
 medy for jaundice and other maladies in some parts of 
 England; but its virtues are, in all likelihood, entirely 
 imaginary. Hoffmann and Willemet, in their elaborate 
 treatise upon the uses of lichens, state regarding it, 
 " Cette plante est amere, aromatique, abstersive, vul- 
 ndraire, sudorifique, aperitive. On prescrit 1'Hdpatique 
 en apozeme, a la dose d'une poignde pour 1'homme, et 
 de deux ou trois pour les animaux." The bruised fronds 
 of some species are singularly fragrant, resembling ber- 
 gamot. 
 
 There is a class of plants whose external appearance 
 and mode of growth would indicate that they belong to 
 the tribe under review, but whose structure and func- 
 tions are so different, that they are commonly supposed 
 to bear a closer analogy to the ferns. They occupy an 
 intermediate position, and form a connecting link be- 
 tween ferns and mosses; I allude to the Lycopods or 
 club-mosses. They are usually found in bleak, bare, 
 exposed situations in all parts of the world, and some- 
 times attain a large size ; forsaking the creeping habit 
 peculiar to the family, and becoming arborescent in tro- 
 pical countries, particularly New Zealand, rivalling in
 
 54 
 
 rank luxuriance the surrounding trees and shrubs of the 
 forest. The British representatives of the class are com- 
 paratively small plants, with the exception, perhaps, of 
 the commonest species (Lycopodium clavatum, Fig. 4), 
 which creeps along the ground among the heather on the 
 moorlands, and sends out runners or creeping stems in 
 all directions to the length of several yards, which take a 
 firm hold of the soil by means of long, tough, wiry roots 
 
 Fia. 4. 
 LYCOPODICM 
 CLAVATUM. 
 
 FIG. ti. 
 LYCOPODIUM 
 
 ALPINUM. 
 
 on their under -surface. The smallest species is the 
 marsh club-moss (Lycopodium inundatum), which grows 
 upright in little tufts at the edge of streamlets, or in 
 marshy hollows among the hills, where it is almost 
 wholly concealed by the surrounding bog-mosses. In this 
 country, the lycopods are all alpine or sub-alpine; one 
 species (Fig. 5) ascending to the highest summits of the 
 British mountains, where it grows in large rigid tufts amid 
 the debris of rocks, and another (Fig. 6) trailing in long 
 wreaths over the bare mossy shoulders of the Highland
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 55 
 
 hills, sending up at short intervals from the bare, whitish, 
 procumbent stems, palm-shaped tufts of very hard foliage, 
 very like that of the savine. In other parts of the 
 world, however, they grow on the low grounds in the 
 woods and other warm, humid situations, adding to 
 the picturesqueness and beauty of the sylvan scenery. 
 One species, the Tmesipteris, remarkable for its pendu- 
 lous habit and very broad leaves, hangs down in long 
 trailing wreaths from the trunks of tree-ferns, in South 
 America and New Zealand. In the little island of St. 
 Paul, isolated from the rest of the world in the Indian 
 Ocean, thousands of miles from any friendly shore, there 
 occurs a beautiful species (L. cernitm), the presence of 
 which in that remote locality is a puzzle to the student 
 of geographical botany. This island is situated in the 
 temperate zone, while the normal range of this plant is 
 exclusively within the tropics. As, however, the island 
 is volcanic, and contains numerous hot springs, which 
 diffuse / considerable warmth around, this circumstance 
 may account for the presence of the lycopod, especially 
 as it also occurs, far out of its proper range, about the 
 warm springs of the Azores. Luxuriating in beautiful 
 tufts amid the barren tufa of this lonely island, it is a 
 welcome and refreshing sight to the voyager on the way 
 to Australia, tired of the monotony of the sea, and yearn- 
 ing for mother earth. Like himself, a stranger in a 
 strange land, it often reminds the emigrant of the brown 
 moorlands of his native country, where he used to gather 
 the trailing wreaths of the fox-fetters to bind around his 
 cap in the sunny days of youth. One very extraordinary 
 species (Selaginella convoluta}, which grows in the arid
 
 56 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 deserts of central South America, among aloes and cac- 
 tuses, is possessed of remarkable hygrometric properties. 
 In the dry season, when every particle of moisture is ex- 
 tracted from the soil, it detaches itself from its growing 
 place, rolls itself up into a ball, like the young frond of 
 a fern before it is unfolded, and is carried away by the 
 violent equinoctial winds which prevail at the time in 
 these regions, often to very great distances. It remains 
 coiled up in this form for a considerable time ; but if 
 carried to a marsh or the margin of a stream, or any 
 other moist place, it begins slowly to unfold, and spreads 
 itself out flatly on the soil like a branch of arbor-vitse, 
 assumes its former vigour and freshness, takes root, de- 
 velops its fructification, and casts abroad its seed upon 
 the air. When this new situation is dried up, it resumes 
 its old nomadic habits, and like an adventurous pilgrim 
 takes advantage of the wind to emigrate to a more favour- 
 able locality. A singular phenomenon has been observed 
 in a species of selaginella cultivated in Kew gardens, 
 called specifically from this circumstance mirabilis. " In 
 the morning the fronds are green, but as the day ad- 
 vances they become pale, recovering gradually their colour 
 by the following day. Dr. Hooker has observed that in 
 their pale condition the endochrome of the cells of the 
 leaves is contracted into a little pellet." 
 
 The club-mosses bear in the axils of their leaves 
 minute round or kidney-shaped cases of a bright yellow 
 colour, which form the receptacles of their dust-like seed. 
 Some species have little cone-like spikes at the tips of 
 their branches, under the scales of which, as in the pine 
 tribe, lurk the reproductive embryos. In the common
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 57 
 
 club-moss these spikes are two-pronged, and of a whitish 
 colour, while the seed is highly inflammable, and was 
 formerly employed to produce artificial lightning on the 
 stage, by being blown through a tube and ignited. These 
 seeds originate independently of any reproductive organs 
 or fertilizing influence. Indeed it is these seeds in ger- 
 mination which develop the structure upon which the 
 fertilizing organ, and the organ to be fertilized, are situ- 
 ated. The stems are perennial, and consist of a mass 
 of thick walled, often dotted cells, enclosing one or 
 more bundles of scalariform tissue, which send off 
 branches to every leaf and bud. Among these bundles 
 may be seen elongated cells, distinctly reticulated. This 
 kind of tissue indicates a close relation to the ferns, and 
 justifies the position in which they are usually placed 
 by systematists. New fruii^axils are formed year after 
 year, bearing their new cluster of seeds independent al- 
 together of any fertilizing organs, such as antheridia or 
 archegonia. The club-mosses are all very graceful and 
 beautiful plants. The Spanish moss (Lycopodiwn denti- 
 culatum) is a great ornament to conservatories and hot- 
 houses, where it conceals with its luxuriant drapery the 
 mould in the pots, and keeps the roots of the plants 
 moist. Nothing can be lovelier or more elegant than a 
 basket of orchids in full flower, with clusters of this moss 
 drooping in careless grace from its sides. The common 
 club-moss of our moors is often gathered by the peasan- 
 try to festoon the ornaments of their mantelpieces ; 
 while wreaths of it are collected from the woods of Bal- 
 moral, where it grows in abundance, to grace the royal 
 table. All the species of lycopods are possessed of
 
 58 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 poisonous, or at least questionable properties. The Z. 
 catharticum has been administered as a strong cathartic. 
 In the Highlands they are employed with alum to fix 
 the native dyes in the manufacture of tartan, while they 
 are said themselves to produce a blue tint. 
 
 Lycopods may be said to present the highest type of 
 cryptogamic vegetation, the highest limit capable jof being 
 reached by flowerless plants. Indeed, they are said by 
 botanists of the highest reputation to bear a close affinity 
 to coniferous trees, to be, in fact, pine-trees in miniature. 
 This affinity though indicated by very curious resem- 
 blances is, however, strictly analogical. The gap between 
 the two great orders of plants is too wide to be over- 
 leaped by a sudden transition. There is a resemblance 
 in external form, habit, and fructification ; the leaves are 
 in both cases linear ; the seeds are in both cases pro- 
 duced from cones or spikes ; the formation of the arche- 
 gonia and embryonic pods of the one, is similar to that 
 of the corpuscles and embryo in the other, but in these 
 points the likeness begins and ends. There is no true 
 homology, but a mere analogy which is often seen to 
 harmonize the most dissimilar works of nature, as if 
 to show that they proceeded from the same creating hand. 
 There may be gradual transition from one class of plants 
 to another, and certain characters may be common 
 to two families ; but still there are definite groups 
 in nature, and typical characters belonging to plants, 
 which will for ever keep them distinct and isolated, 
 as illustrations of the infinite variety of the Divine 
 works. 
 
 The first pages of the earth's history reveal to us very
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 59 
 
 extraordinary facts with relation to members and allies 
 of the inoss tribe. The club-mosses, in particular, at a 
 former period seem to have played a more important part, 
 or to have found conditions more suitable to their luxu- 
 riant development than is the case at the present day. 
 Some of them are stated to have formed lofty trees eighty 
 feet high, with a proportionate diameter of trunk. They 
 are the most ancient of all plants. The oldest land- 
 plant yet known is supposed to be a species of lycopodium 
 closely resembling the common species of our moors. In 
 the upper beds of the Upper Silurian rocks, they are the 
 only terrestrial plants yet found. In the lower Old Red 
 Sandstone they also abounded ; while they occupied a 
 considerable space in the Oolitic vegetation. But it is 
 in the Coal-measures that they seem to have attained 
 their utmost size and luxuriance, sigillaria, stigmaria, 
 lepidodendron, etc., being now considered by competent 
 botanists to be highly -developed lycopodia. Along 
 with ferns, they covered the whole earth from Melville 
 Island in the Arctic regions to the Ultima Thule of the 
 Southern Ocean, with rank majestic forests of a uniform 
 dull green hue. The numerous coal-seams and inflam- 
 mable shale found in almost every part of the world, form 
 but a small portion of their remains. " Between the 
 time of the ancient lycopodite found in the flagstone 
 of Orkney," says Hugh Miller, " and those of the exist- 
 ing club-moss that now scatters its light spores by mil- 
 lions over the dead and blackened remains of its remote 
 predecessor, many creations must have intervened, and 
 many a prodigy of the vegetable world appeared, espe- 
 cially in the earlier and middle periods, Sigillaria,
 
 60 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 Favularia, Knorria, and Ulodendron, that have had no 
 representatives in the floras of later times ; and yet 
 here, flanking the immense scale at both its ends, do 
 we find plants of so nearly the same form and type that 
 it demands a careful survey to distinguish their points 
 of difference."
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 61 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 LICHENS. 
 
 "Search out the wisdom of nature: there is depth in all her 
 doings. She hath, on a mighty scale, a general use for all things ; 
 yet hath she specially for each its microscopic purpose." MARTIN 
 F. TOPPER. 
 
 To most minds the title of this chapter may suggest 
 no idea of importance. Flowers they love, for they are 
 linked with childhood's recollections of sunshine and 
 mirth, and mingle with the hallowed memories of the 
 dead, and of the scenes amid which they are laid. Ferns 
 they admire as they cluster in the forest shade, grace- 
 fully bend down to see their own forms in the mossy 
 spring, or wave from some wild inaccessible crag their 
 delicate fronds in the breeze of summer; and mosses 
 they consider beautiful, as they repose their languid 
 limbs, in the sultry noonday, on the woodland banks 
 wreathed in dreamy-looking shadows, to which these 
 tiny plants lend their all of softness and beauty. But 
 the lowly lichens they pass by with indifference, regard- 
 ing them only as inorganic discolorations and weather- 
 stains on the trees and rocks where they repose. And 
 yet they too are interesting, both as regards their history 
 and their uses; as interesting as many plants which
 
 62 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 occupy a far higher position in the ranks of vegetation. 
 Uninviting and apparently lifeless although their ex- 
 ternal aspect may appear, they are found, when subjected 
 to the microscope, to have their own peculiar beauties 
 and wonders. Simple as is their construction, being 
 entirely composed of an aggregate of minute cells united 
 together in various ways by intercellular matter, and 
 completely destitute of stems, leaves, and all those parts 
 which enter into our ideas of perfect plants, yet by a 
 wonderful compensation they are so extensively diver- 
 sified in their form and appearance, as to present to the 
 student of nature, a field for his inquiry, as wide and 
 wondrous, as the display of green foliage and blossoms 
 of every hue which glow in the summer sun. To the 
 Pre-Raphaelite landscape painter, intent upon seeking 
 materials for the foregrounds of his sketches, they possess 
 an indescribable interest. Through their instrumentality 
 the miserable hovel, with its rough unmortared walls, 
 becomes a charming and romantic object. The old dyke 
 by the wayside, commonplace and disagreeable although 
 it may look when newly constructed, becomes a pleasing 
 feature in the landscape when garnished with the grey 
 rosettes, eccentric patches, and nebulae of the lichens; 
 and the rude, rugged rock acquires an additional wild- 
 ness and picturesqueness through the affluent display of 
 these plants. Along with the wallflower and the ivy, 
 they decorate the mouldering ruin, and harmonize its 
 otherwise haggard and discordant features, by. their sub- 
 dued and varied colouring, with the gentler forms and 
 the softer tone of the scenery around. Thus nature 
 takes back into her bosom the falling works of human
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 63 
 
 skill and power, and luxuriantly adorns them with her 
 living garniture of beauty; and these softening stains 
 with which she touches the rude, stern masses she dis- 
 joins, have their value in the composition not simply on 
 account of the pleasure they afford to the eye by the 
 mere tints of a painter's palette, but also and chiefly on 
 account of the meaning they suggest through the eye to 
 the mind as the genuine and expressive colouring of 
 time. To the trees of the forest, lichens impart a sin- 
 gularly aged and venerable appearance which irresistibly 
 commands our homage, and leads our thoughts far back 
 over the dim path of years to the memories of primitive 
 times. So abundant are they in the Highland woods, 
 that every tree is covered with their long white stream- 
 ing tufts, which look on the green tassel-laden branches, 
 and among the fringy, waving hollows of the pyramid- 
 like foliage, like the snowy blossoms of some unknown 
 fruit-tree. It is impossible to enter a pine forest adorned 
 with a profusion of these curious plants, without admir- 
 ing the wild and picturesque appearance which it pre- 
 sents. The hoary trees seem like an assembly of aged 
 bearded Druids, metamorphosed by some awful spell 
 while in the act of worshipping their mysterious deity ; 
 while the feelings of solemn awe and reverence with 
 which we regard them are deepened and rendered more 
 intense and overpowering by the dread silence, the utter 
 solitude that reigns around a silence broken only by 
 the low, deep, sybilline sigh of the wind among the tree- 
 tops ; the faint crackling sound of the falling pine-cones ; 
 or perchance, at rare intervals, the wild, melancholy 
 cries of some little wandering bird afraid to find itself
 
 64 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 alone in such a dreary place, multiplied with startling 
 distinctness through the forest as they pass along from 
 echo to echo. Perhaps a red-deer stands gazing at you, 
 with large inquiring eyes, at the end of a long vista be- 
 tween the red trunks of the trees ; but as you gaze, it 
 glides away into a deeper solitude as noiselessly and as 
 mysteriously as it came ; and the very sunbeams, that 
 elsewhere dance and sport with the wavering shadows, 
 and chase each other in long links of golden light over 
 the mossy sward, creep through the dense canopy over- 
 head, and down the lichened trunks slowly and hesitat- 
 ingly, as though, like children who stand at the mouth 
 of some grim yawning cavern, they longed yet dreaded 
 to enter. How applicable to this weird scene is the 
 graphic description of an American forest, with which 
 Longfellow opens his beautiful poem of "Evangeline" 
 
 " This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the 
 
 hemlocks, 
 Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the 
 
 twilight, 
 
 Stand like Druids of old, with voices sad and prophetic ; 
 Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms." 
 
 We are more indebted to the humble lichens for the 
 charming romance of our sylvan scenery than we ima- 
 gine ; for we are apt to overlook the minute plants by 
 which much of the effect is produced. All who have 
 any taste or poetical feeling whatever, admire the con- 
 spicuous beauties of a wood the clouds of green foliage 
 overhead, the endless ramifications of the branches, the 
 massiveness and elegance of the trunks, and the softness 
 and richness of the grassy carpet underneath ; but there 
 are few, comparatively, who pay any attention to those
 
 THE PAGE OF NATUJtE. 65 
 
 minute varieties of tint and form contributed by the 
 lower orders of vegetation the starry flower, the plumy 
 fern, or the umbrella-like fungus upon the ground, and 
 the clustered moss and trailing lichen upon the tree ; 
 and yet it is with these small and apparently insignifi- 
 cant objects that nature shades the picture, balances 
 and contrasts the colouring, clothes the nakedness, and 
 softens down the irregularities and deformities of the 
 whole scene, which would otherwise be stiff and hard 
 as a forest-piece painted by a Chinese artist. 
 
 Lichens are exceedingly diversified in their form, ap- 
 pearance, and texture. Upwards of four hundred and 
 fifty different kinds have been found in Great Britain 
 alone, while altogether between two and three thousand 
 species have been discovered in different parts of the 
 world by the zealous researches of naturalists. In their 
 very simplest rudimentary forms, they consist apparently 
 of nothing more than a collection of powdery granules, 
 so minute that the figure of each is scarcely distinguish- 
 able, and so dry and utterly destitute of organization 
 that it is difficult to believe that any vitality exists in 
 them. Some of these form ink-like stains on the smooth 
 tops of posts and felled trees ; others are sprinkled like 
 flower of brimstone or whiting over shady rocks and 
 withered tufts of moss; while a third species is familiar 
 to every one, as covering with a bright green incrustation 
 the trunks and boughs of trees in the squares and sub- 
 urbs of smoky towns, where the air is so impure as to 
 forbid the growth of all other vegetation. It also creeps 
 over the grotesque figures and elaborate carving on the 
 roofs and pillars of Roslin Chapel, near Edinburgh, and 
 E
 
 66 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 gives to^he whole an exquisitely beautiful and romantic 
 appearance. One species, the Lepraria Jolithus, is asso- 
 ciated with many a superstitious legend. Linnseus, in 
 his journal of a tour through (Eland and East Gothland, 
 thus alludes to it : " Everywhere near the road I saw 
 stones covered with a blood-red pigment, which on being 
 rubbed turned into a light yellow, and diffused a smell 
 of violets, whence they have obtained the name of violet 
 stones ; though, indeed, the stone itself has no smell at 
 all, but only the moss with which it is dyed." At 
 Holywell, in North Wales, the stones are covered with 
 this curious lichen, which gives them the appearance of 
 being stained with blood ; and of course the peasantry 
 in the neighbourhood allege, that it is the ineffaceable 
 blood which dropped from St. Winnifred's head, when 
 she suffered martyrdom on that sacred spot. A higher 
 order of lichens (Bceomyces) is furnished, besides this 
 powdery crust, with solid, fleshy, club-shaped fructifica- 
 tion ; while a singularly beautiful genus (Calicium), usu- 
 ally of a very vivid yellow colour, spreading in indefinite 
 patches over oaks and firs, is provided with capsules 
 somewhat like those of the mosses. These capsules, 
 though thickly scattered over the crust, are so minute 
 as to be scarcely distinguishable by the naked eye, but 
 under the microscope they present a truly lovely appear- 
 ance. They are cup or urn-shaped, of a coal-black colour, 
 and supported by a slender stalk about the thickness of 
 a horse-hair. At an early stage they are covered with 
 a very delicate veil, which stretches completely over their 
 mouth; but this soon vanishes, and exposes to view a 
 mass of black or brown seeds, like the ovule in an acorn,
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 67 
 
 which the slightest touch of the tiniest insect's wing 
 can dislodge, and send away on the breeze in search of 
 a habitat for another colony. 
 
 Most of the crustaceous lichens are merely grey filmy 
 patches inseparable from their growing places, indefinitely 
 spreading, or bounded by a narrow line-like border, which 
 always intervenes to separate them when two species 
 closely approximate, and studded all over with black, 
 brown, or red tubercles. The foliaceous species, again, 
 are usually round rosettes of various colours, attached by 
 dense black fibres all over their under-surface, or by a 
 single knot-like root in the centre. Some are dry and 
 membranaceous ; while others are gelatinous and pulpy, 
 like aerial sea- weeds left exposed on inland rocks by the 
 retiring waves of an extinct ocean. Some are lobed with 
 woolly veins underneath ; and others reticulated above, 
 and furnished with little cavities or holes on the under- 
 surface. The higher orders of lichens, though destitute 
 of anything resembling vascular tissue, exhibit consider- 
 able complexity of structure. Some are shrubby, and 
 tufted, with stem and branches, like miniature trees; 
 others bear a strong resemblance to the corallines of our 
 sea-shores ; while a third class, " the green-fringed cup- 
 moss with the scarlet tip," as Crabbe calls it, is exceed- 
 ingly graceful, growing in clusters beside the black peat- 
 moss or under the heather tuft, 
 
 "And, Hebe-like, upholding 
 Its cups with dewy offerings to the sun." 
 
 As an illustration of the extraordinary appearances 
 which lichens occasionally present, I may describe the 
 Opegrapha or written lichen (Fig. 7), perhaps the most
 
 68 
 
 curious and remarkable member of this strange tribe. 
 In her cactuses 1 and orchids sportive nature often displays 
 a ludicrous resemblance to insects, birds, animals, and 
 even the " human face and form divine ; " but this is 
 one of the few instances in which she has condescended 
 to imitate in her vegetable productions the written lan- 
 guage of man. The crust of this curious autograph of 
 nature is a mere white tartareous film of indefinite extent, 
 
 
 FIG. 7. OPEGRAPHA SCRIPTA. 
 
 sometimes bounded by a faint line of black like a mourn- 
 ing letter. It spreads over the smooth bark of trees, 
 particularly the beech, the hazel, and the oak. On the 
 birch-tree whose smooth, snow-white, vellum-like bark 
 seems designed by nature for the inscription of lovers' 
 names and magic incantations it may often be seen 
 covering the whole trunk. The fructification consists of 
 long wavy black lines, sometimes parallel like Euuic 
 inscriptions ; sometimes arrow-headed, like the cuneiform 
 characters engraved upon the monumental stones of Per- 
 sepolis and Assyria; and sometimes gathered together 
 
 1 As, for instance, Cactus tenllit.
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 69 
 
 in groups and clusters, bearing a strong resemblance to 
 Arabic and Chinese letters. 
 
 In that well-known and interesting work, " Travels 
 in Tartary, Thibet, and China," by the French Lazarists 
 Hue and Gabet, there is a long description of a very 
 remarkable phenomenon called the " Tree of Ten Thou- 
 sand Images," found by them near the town of Koum- 
 boum in Thibet. For the sake of those who may not 
 have access to the original work, I shall quote the de- 
 scription entire. " At the foot of the mountain on which 
 the Lamasery stands, and not far from the principal 
 Buddhist temple, is a great square enclosure, formed 
 by brick walls. Upon entering this, we were able to 
 examine at leisure this marvellous tree, some of the 
 branches of which had already manifested themselves 
 above the wall. Our eyes were first directed with ear- 
 nest curiosity to the leaves, and we were filled with an 
 absolute consternation of astonishment at finding that 
 in point of fact, there were upon each of the leaves well 
 formed Thibetian characters, all of a green colour, some 
 darker, some lighter than the tree itself. Our first im- 
 pression was a suspicion of fraud on the part of the 
 Lamas ; but after a minute examination of every detail, 
 we could not discover the least deception. The charac- 
 ters all appeared to us portions of the leaf itself, equally 
 with its veins and nerves ; the position was not the same 
 in all; in one leaf they would be at the top, in another 
 in the middle, in a third at the base or at the side ; the 
 younger leaves represented the characters only in a par- 
 tial state of formation. The bark of the tree, and its 
 branches which resemble that of the plane-tree are
 
 70 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 also covered with these characters. When you remove 
 a piece of old bark, the young bark under it exhibits the 
 indistinct outlines of characters in a germinating state, 
 and what is very singular, these new characters are not 
 unfrequently different from those which they replace. 
 We examined everything with the closest attention, in 
 order to detect some trace of trickery, but we could 
 discern nothing of the sort ; and the perspiration actually 
 trickled down our faces under the influence of the sensa- 
 tions which this most amazing spectacle created. More 
 profound intellects than ours may, perhaps, be able to 
 supply a satisfactory explanation of the mysteries of this 
 singular tree; but as to us, we altogether give it up." 
 Botanists whose severe love of truth overcomes in most 
 cases their poetical inclinations, have thrown considerable 
 doubt upon this story, even though related by mission- 
 aries of a respectable character. It appears to be in 
 some particulars considerably indebted to an ardent ima- 
 gination, but it might, nevertheless, be true enough in 
 its main facts. Divested of its apparent embellishments 
 and exaggerations, the tree might be found after all to 
 be only an exotic species of plane or sycamore, covered 
 with immense patches of the written lichen, which it 
 is well known to botanists occurs in greater profusion 
 and attains a larger size in tropical than in temperate 
 countries. Many exotic, -and one or two European 
 lichens, occur on living leaves. These are principally 
 developed on the upper surface, sometimes only super- 
 ficially connected with the leaves, which afford them a 
 basis 01 attachment and growth; and at other times 
 originating like the' fungi beneath the true cuticle, form-
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 71 
 
 ing a carbonaceous, beautifully-sculptured crust, and ele- 
 gant fructification. The foliage of the Thibetian wonder 
 may, therefore, be indebted for its singular markings to 
 a species of Limboria; and the characters on the bark 
 and branches may have been caused by an unknown 
 opegrapha. In fact, the counterpart of these inscrip- 
 tions has been discovered by Hooker and Thomson in 
 Khasya, on the leaves of a species of Symplocos. 
 
 Let us glance at some of the peculiarities of the 
 lichens, and see if nature has not assigned them a higher 
 and more important commission in her great household, 
 than merely ornamenting old walls and ruins, and 
 covering trees with a shaggy mantle. 
 
 Lichens, it has been said, are exceedingly simple in 
 their construction. They are composed of two parts, the 
 nutritive and the reproductive system. The nutritive 
 portion is called the thallus, which, in the typical plant, 
 spreads equally on all sides from the original point of 
 development, in the form of an increasing circle ; the 
 circumference of which is often healthy and vigorous 
 while the central parts are decayed or completely want- 
 ing. It is composed of two distinct tissues. The lower 
 or medullary portion is composed of spherical cells, rilled 
 with a green matter, which seem to be the active, vege- 
 tating part of the lichen. These cells frequently accu- 
 mulate in masses, burst through the layer above them, 
 and appear in the form of a green, tenacious powder on 
 the surface of the plant ; while they are capable, if de- 
 tached from the parent, of continuing the powers of cell- 
 development, and forming the nucleus of new lichens. 
 The external or cortical layer, on the other hand, is
 
 72 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 supposed by some botanists to serve the same purpose in 
 the economy of the lichen as the bafk does in that of 
 the tree, viz., as a protection to the lower, living layer, 
 of the dead cellules of which it actually consists. In 
 some species this outer covering is smooth, and in others 
 covered with small hollows or pits, or with hair or 
 fibres, which serve to fix the plant. 
 
 Nature has bestowed upon the lichens a peculiar mode 
 of reproduction, in which there is nothing analogous to 
 that of the higher orders of the vegetable kingdom ; and 
 yet they are propagated with as unerring certainty and 
 as great rapidity as the most prolific family of flowers. 
 Every one who has an attentive eye must have often 
 noticed the curious round disks or shields, of a different 
 colour from the rest of the plant, with which their sur- 
 face is often studded. These are called apothecia, and 
 correspond with the flowers of the higher plants ; for 
 in them are lodged the seeds or germs by which the 
 lichens are perpetuated. When examined under the 
 microscope they are found to consist of a number of deli- 
 cate flask-shaped cells, called thecse, containing 4, 8, 
 12, or 16 sporidia, that is, cells of an oval form, with 
 spores or seeds in their interior. The mode in which 
 these spores are ejected affords as wonderful a proof of 
 design as was seen in the case of the ferns and mosses. 
 It is principally in moist or rainy weather that this 
 curious process is performed. When the entire apothe- 
 cium or shield is wetted, the layer bearing the thecse or 
 seed-vessels becomes bulged out above, whence arises a 
 pressure on them, which ultimately bursts them at the 
 summit, and causes the expulsion of their contents. Few
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 73 
 
 things can exceed in beauty, as microscopical objects, 
 the sporidia of many of the lichens. Some are bright 
 scarlet, others deep blue, and others green, olive, golden 
 yellow, or brown. 
 
 Besides these true organs of fructification, the lichens 
 are furnished with other parts which possess the power 
 of reproduction. A great many species, placed in un- 
 favourable circumstances, seldom or never produce proper 
 receptacles of seed ; but this is no obstacle to their pro- 
 pagation, as their whole surface is covered with collec- 
 tions of free powdery grains, which germinate into new 
 plants wherever they are carried by the winds. There 
 are also present on some lichens spongy excrescences 
 which resemble minute trees ; and one peculiar genus is 
 possessed of tubercles which occur on the back part of 
 the frond, and are lodged in little cups which appear 
 empty as soon as they have fallen out. The recent 
 researches of the French lichenists, Tulasne and It- 
 zigsohn, have discovered another kind of fructification 
 which is very common and exceedingly interesting. 
 This consists of minute, blackish, elevated, somewhat 
 gelatinous points called spermagonia, occurring on 
 various parts of the upper surface of the thallus. 
 These resemble, in external appearance, the tubercular 
 apothecia of the Lecideas ; but their internal structure, 
 as shown in Fig. 8, is quite different. They consist of 
 little cavities or utricles opening on the summit by a 
 tiny orifice, and filled with a thin transparent mucilage, 
 in which is contained a number of linear filaments of 
 extreme tenuity, and somewhat curved, which vibrate 
 slowly in every direction. These curious bodies are
 
 74 
 
 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 supposed to be analogous to the spermatozoids produced 
 in the antheridia of the algae and mosses, and which 
 seem to perform an essential part in the reproduction of 
 almost all cryptogarnic plants. All these kinds of fruc- 
 tification are sometimes found on one plant at the same 
 time, and each of them is capable, under certain condi- 
 tions, of producing perfect individuals similar to the 
 parent plant. It must not be supposed, however, that 
 they all exercise their functions at one and the same 
 
 FIG. 8. UMBILICARIA POLYMORPHA. 
 
 Section of a Sper- 
 magone. 
 
 Section of apotheeium and of thal- 
 lus, showing the rhizinse. 
 
 Section of thallus, show- 
 ing spermagone. 
 
 time for nature is never prodigally wasteful of her 
 resources ; but where situation, temperature, or other 
 conditions interrupt propagation by one mode, another is 
 developed more exuberantly than usual to supply its 
 place. If there be not conditions to produce perfect 
 apothecia, there will be soridia, pulvinuli, or cyphellse 
 instead ; and just as the chances of failure are great, so 
 are the modes of reproduction increased : and what an
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 75 
 
 admirable provision is this for the preservation of plants, 
 which would otherwise be speedily exterminated, exposed 
 as they are to the contingencies of being successively 
 scorched, drenched, and frozen on the same naked and 
 barren rocks. And how greatly does it exalt these 
 humble plants in our estimation ! Gifted with such 
 powers of reproduction as these we can view the smallest 
 lichen, " not as a single phyton, not as a single frond, 
 but as the aggregate of, it may be, thousands of these,' 
 view it occupying as much space, and exercising as great 
 an influence in the economy of nature as the largest forest 
 tree, and rivalling it even in longevity. 
 
 Lichens are very slow-growing plants. They spring 
 up somewhat rapidly during the first year or two, as is 
 evinced by the luxurious growth which they form over 
 young fruit-trees and espaliers in gardens j but after a 
 circular frond is formed, they subside into a dormant 
 state, in which they remain unaltered for many years. 
 Mr. Berkeley says that he watched individuals for 
 twenty-five years, which are now much in the same con- 
 dition as they were when they first attracted his notice. 
 Some of the grey rosettes of Parmelia which occur on 
 walls and rocks, not unfrequently attaining a circumfer- 
 ence of many feet, must be very aged, judging by this 
 standard. The foliaceous and shrubby species are the 
 most fugacious, though even these have great powers of 
 longevity. We have no data from which to ascertain 
 the age of tartareous species, which adhere almost in- 
 separably to stones. Some of them are probably as old 
 as any living organisms that exist on earth. The geo- 
 graphical lichen, which often spreads over the whole
 
 76 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 rocky summit of a mountain in one continuous patch, 
 many separate individuals being absorbed in one, must 
 date from fabulous periods. I have gathered it in this 
 form on the summit of Schiehallion, on smooth quartz 
 rocks, which exhibit here and there the glassy polish and 
 deep striae or flutings peculiar to glaciated surfaces, as 
 distinct and unchanged by atmospheric disintegration as 
 though the glacier, which had left these unmistakable 
 -traces behind it, had only yesterday passed over them. 
 And if these ice-marks can be accepted as an indication of 
 the age of the lichen the first and sole organic cover- 
 ing of the rock, be it remembered then in all proba- 
 bility it was in existence during the last great changes 
 of the globe which preceded the creation of the human 
 race. I do not press this point, however, for such a 
 method of computation may be objected to on the score 
 of being inapplicable ; but I think that it is at least as 
 reasonable to believe, that some lichens date their origin 
 as far back as the glacial epoch, as to believe, that there 
 are trees now in existence that were contemporaries of 
 the first generations of men. There are numerous de- 
 structive and obstructive causes, fatal to the longevity of 
 trees, which either do not operate at all, or only to a 
 very limited extent in the economy of lichens ; and, in- 
 deed, these dry, sapless, dormant plants appear to me to 
 possess the power of living for ever, without exhibiting 
 any symptoms of decay, unless from accidental or ex- 
 traneous causes. 
 
 In their geographical distribution, lichens to a certain 
 extent obey the same laws to which the higher orders of 
 vegetation are subject, being influenced by temperature,
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 77 
 
 altitude, and the geological character of the rocks upon 
 which they are produced ; and thus several species and 
 even genera are necessarily rare and confined to particu- 
 lar localities. It may, however, be said of them in 
 general that they are cosmopolitan, universally distri- 
 buted over the surface of the globe, and capable of ex- 
 isting in almost every situation, from the calcined plains 
 of burning Africa to the snow-mantled pinnacles of icy 
 Spitzbergen. Placed almost at the lowest scale of 
 organization, they often require nothing more for their 
 conservation, than the moisture of the atmosphere pre- 
 cipitated on naked masses of rock ; and their simple 
 form and structure enable them to resist an amount alike 
 of heat and cold, sufficient to destroy all vitality in more 
 perfectly organized plants. In the Arctic regions 
 those outer boundaries of the earth, where eternal winter 
 presides these humble plants constitute by far the 
 largest proportion of the flora, and by their prodigious 
 development, and their wide social distribution, give as 
 marked and peculiar a character to the scenery, as the 
 palms and tree-ferns impart to the landscapes of the 
 tropics. In the southern hemisphere also, lichens almost 
 extend to the pole. They mark the extreme limit at 
 which land vegetation has been found, one shrubby 
 species, with large, deep, chestnut-coloured fructification, 
 called Umeafasciata, having been observed by Lieutenant 
 Kendal on Deception Island, the Ultima Thule of the 
 Antarctic regions. " There was nothing," he says, in his 
 interesting account of his visit to that island, " in the 
 shape of vegetation except a small kind of lichen, whose 
 efforts seemed almost ineffectual to maintain its exist-
 
 78 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 ence among the scanty soil afforded by the penguin's 
 dung." Dr. Hooker also mentions that on this island, he 
 found a few species of the beautiful pale green Usnea me- 
 laxantha, looking like a miniature shrubbery on the barren 
 rocks ; on another island, a few filmy specks of Lecanora 
 and Lecidea, and five peculiar mosses ; but that on 
 Franklin Island, and the islands nearer the Southern 
 Pole, he could not perceive the smallest trace of vegeta- 
 tion, not even a solitary lichen or piece of sea-weed 
 clinging to the rocks. Surrounded by huge precipices of 
 black lava, which seemed to fringe them with mourning, 
 and consisting entirely of jagged rocks, upon which the 
 traces of volcanic fire yet existed, covered only with a 
 little red soil, scorched and sterile, or glittering snow- 
 white patches of fragile shells and coral, ground to dust 
 by the fury of the waves, these remote islands exhibited 
 an aspect so savage and repulsive, so utterly lonely and 
 lifeless, as to impress with horror the stoutest heart. 
 
 " But here, above, around, below, 
 
 On mountain or in glen, 
 Nor tree, nor shrub, nor plant, nor flower, 
 Nor aught of vegetative power, ' 
 
 The weary eye may ken. 
 For all is rocks at random thrown, 
 Black waves, bare crags, and banks of stoiie ; 
 As if were here denied 
 
 The summer's sun, the spring's sweet dew, 
 
 That clothe with many a varied hue, 
 The bleakest mountain side." 
 
 Strange it seems that, while such extreme destitution, such 
 sublime barrenness, prevails in these southern lands, in 
 the Arctic regions, on the contrary, no spot has yet been 
 discovered wholly destitute of vegetable life. The dif-
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 79 
 
 ference, Mrs. Somerville observes, appears to arise " more 
 from the want of warmth in summer, than from the 
 greater degree of cold in winter." The portion of heat 
 imbibed by the soil, during the short summer of the 
 Arctic regions, is prevented from escaping by the cover- 
 ing of snow which falls in the beginning of winter ; and 
 thus the temperature necessary for the scanty vegetation 
 is preserved, till the return of the sun at once converts 
 the Arctic winter into tropical summer, without the in- 
 tervention of spring. Whereas in the Antarctic regions, 
 the soil, owing to the much smaller quantity of snow 
 that lies on it, is exposed to great alternations of tempera- 
 ture, which no vegetation, however simple and tenacious 
 of life, can long successfully resist. 
 
 In the deserts of Asia and Africa, and on the coast of 
 Peru, botanists have wandered for many leagues, without 
 finding any other trace of vegetation, than a species of 
 grey or yellow lichen, growing on the blanched and 
 mouldering bones of animals that had perished by the 
 way. In tropical countries, where there is not too much 
 moisture and shade, the trees are shaggy with lichens ; 
 and some of the most magnificent species, both as re- 
 gards size and colour, have been gathered in the Cin- 
 chona forests which clothe the lower slopes of the Andes, 
 and in the warmer and more densely-wooded parts of 
 Australia and New Zealand. The thick impervious 
 forests of Brazil, however, are said to be almost destitute 
 of them ; their places on the trunks and boughs of the 
 trees being occupied by endless varieties of ferns, til- 
 landsias, orchids, and other epiphytic plants, which seem 
 to hold a floral revel ; the amazing luxuriance of higher
 
 80 
 
 vegetable life effectually keeping down and banishing 
 plants of a simpler structure, and of a more sluggish and 
 feeble nature. On the loftiest mountains of the globe 
 they constitute the last remnants of vegetation, the last 
 efforts of expiring nature which fringe around the limits 
 of eternal snow ; and long after the botanist has left 
 behind him the last stunted Alpine flower, blooming like 
 a lone star on a midnight sky, amid the loose crumbling 
 stones of the moraine ; long after the last moss has ceased 
 to deck the brown and lifeless ground with a scarce per- 
 ceptible film of green, his eye, wearied by the universal 
 desolation, rests with peculiar interest and pleasure on 
 the hardy lichens, which clothe every rugged rock that 
 lifts up its head through the avalanche, and which luxu- 
 riate amid " the rack of the higher clouds and the howl- 
 ing of glacier winds." On the Alps of Switzerland the 
 last lichens are to be found on the highest summits, at- 
 tached to projecting rocks, exposed to the scorching heats 
 of summer and the fierce blasts of winter ; and from 
 forty to forty-five kinds have been found in spots, sur- 
 rounded by extensive masses of snow, between 10,000 
 and 14,780 feet above the level of the sea. It is in- 
 teresting to know, that the only plant found by Agassiz 
 near the top of Mont Blanc, was the Lecidea geographica 
 (Fig. 9), a very beautiful lichen, which covers the ex- 
 posed rocks on the sides and summits of all our British 
 hills, with its bright-green map-like patches. This 
 species was also gathered by Dr. Hooker at an elevation 
 of 19,000 feet on the Himalayas, and occupied the last 
 outpost of vegetation which gladdened the eyes of the 
 illustrious Humboldt, when standing within a few him-
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 81 
 
 dred feet of the summit of Chimborazo, the highest peak 
 of the Ancles. Strange it must have seemed to this 
 enterprising traveller to stand on that elevated spot, and 
 to see around and beneath him an epitome, as it were, 
 of what takes place on a grander scale over the whole 
 globe a condensed picture of all the climates of the 
 earth from the tropics to the poles, with all their differ- 
 ent zones or belts of vegetation. Above towered the 
 inaccessible summit in its everlasting shroud of stainless 
 snow, boldly relieved against the deep cloudless blue of 
 the tropical sky ; around him the bare and rugged 
 
 Fio. 9. LECIDEA GEOGRAPHICA. 
 
 trachytic rocks, adorned with the green crust of this 
 beautiful lichen, a few pale tufts of moss, or a solitary 
 flower drooping here and there its frail head from a 
 crevice ; immediately beneath Mm the green grass- clad 
 slopes, variegated with rainbow-coloured flowers and 
 stunted willow-like shrubs ; and far down in the valleys 
 at the base, a glowing gorgeous world of tropical luxuri- 
 ance palms and bananas and bamboos, dimly revealed 
 through the seething, sweltering vapours which perpetu- 
 ally surrounded them.
 
 82 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 The Lecidea geographica affords, I may mention, the 
 most remarkable example of the almost universal diffu- 
 sion of lichens, being the most Arctic, Antarctic, and 
 Alpine lichen in the world facing the savage cliffs of 
 Melville Island in the extreme north, clinging to the 
 volcanic rocks of Deception Island in the extreme south, 
 and scaling the towering peak of Kinchin-junga, the 
 most elevated spot on the surface of the earth. A 
 catholic beauty, it is to be found in every zone of 
 altitude and latitude " a pilgrim bold in Nature's 
 care." 
 
 On the British mountains we find lichens in great 
 abundance and luxuriance, in spots which favour their 
 growth 'by the humidity continually precipitated from 
 the atmosphere. Most of the species found sparingly 
 scattered at the highest elevations, are identical with 
 those found in the greatest profusion covering immense 
 areas on the plains of Lapland, and on the level of the 
 sea-shore in the Arctic regions ; the isotherms or lines of 
 equal temperature passing through these points. Similar 
 species are also found all over the world below the level 
 of perpetual snow, which on the Alps is 7000 feet, and 
 on the Andes and Himalayas about 15,000 feet. It is 
 somewhat remarkable that Alpine lichens generally are 
 more or less of a brown or black colour. This peculiarity 
 seems to be owing to the presence of usnine or usnic 
 acid, which in a pure state is of a green colour, as in the 
 lichens which grow in shady forests, but which becomes 
 oxidized, and changes to every shade of brown and black, 
 when exposed to the powerful agencies of light and heat, 
 on the bleak barren rocks on the mountain side and
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 83 
 
 summits. These gloomy lichens, associated as they 
 almost always are with the dusky tufts of that sin- 
 gular genus of mosses the Andreas, give a very marked 
 aud peculiar character to many of the Highland moun- 
 tains, especially to the summit of Ben Nevis, where they 
 creep, in the utmost profusion, over the fragments of 
 abraded rocks which strew the ground on every side, 
 otherwise bare and leafless, as was the world on the first 
 morning of creation, and reminding one of the ruins of 
 some stupendous castle, or the battle-field of the Titans. 
 Some of the Alpine lichens, however, are remarkable 
 for the vividness and brilliancy of their colours. The 
 mountain cup-moss, with its light-green stalk clothed 
 and fillagreed with scales, and emerald cup studded round 
 with rich scarlet knobs, presents no unapt resemblance to 
 a double red daisy. It grows in large clusters on the 
 bare storm-scalped ridges, and forms a kind of miniature 
 flower-garden in the Alpine wilderness. The loveliest, 
 however, of all the mountain lichens is the Solorina 
 crocea, which spreads over the loose mould in the clefts 
 of rocks, and on the fragments of comminuted schist on 
 the summits of the highest Highland mountains, forming 
 patches of the most beautiful and vivid green, varied, 
 when the under-side of the lobes is curled up, by reticula- 
 tions of a very rich orange-saffron colour. This species 
 u not found at a lower elevation than 4000 feet ; hence 
 it is unknown in England, Ireland, and Wales, whose 
 highest mountains fall considerably short of this altitude. 
 I have gathered it on Cairngorm, Ben Macdhui and Ben 
 Lawers. In this last locality, which is well known to 
 botanists as exhibiting a perfect garden of rare and
 
 84 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 beautiful Alpine plants, it grows in greater abundance, 
 I believe, than in any other spot in the Highlands. It 
 occupies the whole ridge of rugged and splintered rocks, 
 marked by the tear and wear of elemental wars during 
 countless ages, which runs along the summit of the hill. 
 The surface of these rocks is covered with masses of 
 sharp abraded stones, interspersed with meagre tufts of 
 grass and moss ; and among these the saffron Solorina 
 luxuriates in large patches. With what delight have I 
 seen this beautiful lichen, beaming out on me from its 
 dreary and desolate home, in the blustering days of early 
 April, when the snow was falling thick around, and the 
 howling wind sweeping by with unobstructed keenness ! 
 With fingers almost benumbed with the cold, I have 
 picked it up to admire its beauty a beauty, such is the 
 arrogant idea which man entertains of his own importance 
 in the world which seems utterly thrown away in a 
 spot where human foot and human eye rarely if ever 
 rest. How often among those wildly desolate and 
 pathless solitudes, where one may wander for whole days 
 without catching a glimpse of a single living thing, save 
 perhaps some raven on its way to its nest, leaving 
 behind it the blue sky without speck or cloud, or a 
 ptarmigan scarcely distinguishable from the grey rocks 
 around, winging its slow wheeling flight to the neigh- 
 bouring hills, and uttering its soft clucking cry ; or 
 when standing on some lofty storm-riven summit, cut off 
 from the rest of creation, by the howling mists that come 
 writhing up from the dark abysses on every side, and as 
 lone as a shipwrecked mariner on some desolate island 
 in the sea, thousands of miles from any shore ; how
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 85 
 
 often amid such dreary scenes does a little wild-flower, 
 or even lowlier fern or lichen, arrest the weary eye by its 
 simple and mute appeal, and awaken thoughts and sym- 
 pathies which are never felt, or at least allowed their 
 full sway, amid the busy haunts of men. Like the little 
 moss which revived the spirits of the lonely and despairing 
 Park in the African desert, it carries us back to the 
 populous world we had well nigh forgotten, reminds us 
 of the enjoyments and affections of home, and more 
 than all, raises our thoughts to the Maker of the great 
 and the small, who placed it there to cheer by its 
 presence the lonely wilderness, and whose wondrous 
 skill and goodness its every petal, leaf, or frond declares 
 in language, silent and unuttered, yet more eloquent than 
 a thousand words. 
 
 The great object which nature intended to subserve 
 by the universal diffusion of the lichens, is obviously 
 that of preparing, by the disintegration of hard and 
 barren rocks, an organic soil in which higher orders of 
 vegetation may exist. Humble and apparently insig- 
 nificant as they are, it is to them we owe the bright 
 array of vegetable forms, which contribute so largely to 
 the beauty and magnificence of the world we inhabit ; 
 they form the first link in the chain of nature by which 
 the whole earth is covered with a robe of vegetation. 
 Their powdery crusts and little coloured cups, drawing 
 their nourishment in most part from the surrounding 
 atmosphere, extend themselves over the naked and de- 
 solate rock, and form, by the particles of sand into which 
 they crumble its surface, and their own decaying tissues, 
 a thin layer of mould fit for the reception of the simplest
 
 86 FOOTNOTES FROM , 
 
 mosses. These, in their turn, add their contribution of 
 withered leaves, and increase the film of soil; others 
 of a larger growth supplying their places, and running 
 themselves the same round of growth and decay. Plants 
 of a higher and yet higher order gradually succeed each 
 other, each series binding together, and preparing for the 
 growth of its own species or of others, the loose and in- 
 coherent mass of decaying tissues, sand, and disintegrated 
 soil which the previous occupants had left behind them. 
 At length the rock, once as bleak and desolate as though 
 it had been vomited from the depths of some vast vol- 
 cano, and on whose surface the smallest wild-flower could 
 not find a resting-place for its tiny root, becomes a ver- 
 dant meadow fit to support a host of animals; a rich 
 garden of beautiful flowers smiling in the sunshine ; or 
 a wide expanse of noble forest waving its billowy foliage 
 in the passing breeze. 
 
 " Seeds to our eye invisible can find 
 On the rude rock the bed that fits their kind ; 
 There in the rugged soil they safely dwell, 
 Till showers and snows the subtle atoms swell, 
 And spread th' enduring foliage ; then we trace 
 The freckled flower upon the flinty base ; 
 These all increase, till in unnoticed years 
 The sterile rock as grey with age appears, 
 With coats of vegetation thinly spread, 
 Coat above coat, the living on the dead ; 
 These then dissolve to dust, and make a way 
 For bolder foliage nursed by their decay." 
 
 Precisely the same effects are produced on the newly- 
 formed coral islands of the Pacific. The winds or the 
 waves waft thither the invisible spore of some lichen 
 that may have had its birthplace on the rocks of the 
 far-off Andes ; it finds a resting-place, and the few simple
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 87 
 
 circumstances necessary for its development, in some 
 sheltered nook where the dashing waves have ground 
 the coral into glittering sand; and through course of 
 time it assumes a crust-like appearance, puts forth its 
 organs of fructification, and sows around it a colony of 
 similar individuals. These harbour the wind- wafted soil 
 beneath their tiny leaves, and form, by their decom- 
 position, a layer of mould to which new species are day 
 after day adding their decaying tissues, until at last a 
 sufficient soil has been deposited for t<he growth of the 
 ferns, hibiscus, bread-fruit, and cocoa-nut trees that have 
 been wafted from the neighbouring islands. And thus, 
 through the agency of an all but invisible seed, developed 
 into the lowliest form in which it is possible to conceive 
 that life can be maintained, what was once a barren, 
 solitary islet, where no sounds were heard but the cease- 
 less dashing of the waves against the snow-white reefs, 
 or the shrill cries of some chance flock of sea-birds, that 
 made it their temporary resting-place during their flight 
 to some happier shore, has become a paradise of bloom 
 and beauty where man takes up his abode, and finds 
 every comfort and luxury that can minister to his simple 
 tastes. 
 
 Even on the desolate rocks that jut out from the sides 
 of lofty mountains, where the eagle or the condor builds 
 its eyrie, these humble sappers and miners of the vege- 
 table kingdom are busy, fulfilling the task appointed 
 them in the great household of nature, and forming a 
 layer of soil, which ever and anon, as soon as it is de- 
 posited, is carried down by the storm or the stream to 
 fertilize the valleys at the base. Egypt is the gift of
 
 88 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 the Nile; its rich alluvial soil has been brought down 
 by the swollen waters of the sacred river from the moun- 
 tains of Abyssinia, where it was formed, perhaps, by the 
 agency of lichens and other Alpine plants, and precipi- 
 tated in its present form over the barren sands of the 
 Lybian desert. And who knows how much of the tro- 
 pical fertility and luxuriance of the vast plains, which 
 stretch onwards from the bases of the Andes and the 
 Himalayas, may be owing to countless generations of 
 lichens, working ceaselessly far up on the inaccessible 
 summits, amid the icy rigour and sterility of an Arctic 
 climate. This is not an extravagant supposition; we 
 see every day the wonderful power of little things; and 
 we find that the most gigantic results are often depen- 
 dent upon agencies minute and insignificant in their in- 
 dividual state, but irresistible in an aggregate of count- 
 less myriads. It is a sublime truth, and one worthy of 
 universal acceptation, that even in the smallest and most 
 apparently useless productions, the intelligent eye will 
 often behold some of the most splendid manifestations 
 of God's inscrutable wisdom and gracious goodness. The 
 bleak sterility of these lofty regions, where the lichens 
 perform their untiring operations under circumstances 
 where we should naturally suppose life and organization 
 alike impossible, is yet the means of preserving the fer- 
 tility of mighty territories which would otherwise become 
 deserts ! 
 
 The student of nature who has examined these humble 
 plants with sufficient attention, must have been often 
 struck with wonder and admiration at the peculiar fit- 
 ness which they display for the work to which they have
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 89 
 
 been appointed, as the pioneers or precursors of all other 
 land vegetation. What could be better adapted to with- 
 stand the fury of the storms that beat upon their exposed 
 places of growth than the crustaceous, powdery, or leaf- 
 like expansions which they often assume, hard and inse- 
 parable almost as a portion of the rock itself] Then their 
 capacity of extracting their nourishment principally from 
 the surrounding atmosphere ; the curious property which 
 they possess of continuing for years without undergoing 
 any perceptible change ; their strong persistent vitality by 
 which they are, able when scorched by the summer sun- 
 shine, deprived of all their juices, and reduced to shape- 
 less, hueless masses, which crumble into powder under 
 the slightest touch of the hand or the foot to revive 
 again when exposed to the genial influences of the rain, 
 assume their fairest forms and hues, and develop their 
 organs of fructification for the dispersion of their kind ; 
 and lastly, the facility with which they can replace por- 
 tions of their substance that have been torn away by 
 storms, broken by the tread of man, or eaten by animals ; 
 all these qualities illustrate the wonderful adaptation, in 
 their structure and habits, to the unfavourable circum- 
 stances in which they are often placed. Furnished by 
 such powers as these, wherever they fasten their tiny 
 fangs the process of disintegration commences ; and 
 though carried on slowly and imperceptibly, though ages 
 may elapse before any apparent effects have been produced, 
 except the increase of individuals and the more shaggy 
 and picturesque appearance of the rocks, yet the object 
 of that steady, ceaseless labour will one day be accom- 
 plished ; and it is humiliating to the pride of man to
 
 90 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 find, that the noble piles of architecture built by him as 
 if for eternity, though apparently as solid as the rock out 
 of which each individual stone had been hewn, and as 
 hard as the famous Roman cement which had resisted 
 the utmost efforts of Goth and Vandal, must yield in the 
 end to the slow but persevering assaults of the most 
 diminutive and contemptible vegetables, and be brought 
 back again by these apparently feeble agents to the 
 bosom of nature, out of which he had reared them with 
 such labour and skill. Here, indeed, we have an illus- 
 tration of that comprehensive saying of Melanchthon, 
 "The humble ones are the giants of the battle;" here 
 we have sermons in stones, lessons taught us by the life- 
 less lichens of the permanence of nature, and the never- 
 ceasing change and decadence attendant upon all the 
 works and possessions of man. 
 
 The objects which lichens subserve when they are pro- 
 duced on rocks and ruins are thus sufficiently obvious : 
 but it is not so easy to determine their precise use when 
 growing on trees. It has been asserted by some writers 
 that so far from being beneficial, they are absolutely 
 prejudicial to the welfare of the forests in which they 
 abound. Such individuals, however, it is evident, totally 
 misapprehend the nature of these plants, for they extract 
 their nourishment principally from the medium with 
 which they are surrounded, and not from the matrix on 
 which they are developed, or to which they are attached. 
 The fungi are the only plants that are produced from 
 decay and corruption, and maintain their existence by 
 exhausting the vital juices of other plants. That lichens 
 are not injurious to the plants on which they grow, is
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 91 
 
 clearly proved in the case of Peruvian bark; for the 
 specimens which are covered with healthy lichens abound 
 more in the peculiar medicinal principle, and realize a 
 larger price, than those which are bare and destitute of 
 lichens; while, on the other hand, the bark that is 
 covered with the beautiful Hypochnus rubrocinctus and 
 other fungi is utterly worthless, as these deadly parasites 
 decompose all the substances upon which they fasten by 
 the absorption of their nutritive matter. There is hardly 
 a tree in the whole world which, at some stage or other 
 of its existence, has not been covered with lichens. I 
 have frequently observed the trees of a whole Highland 
 forest, covered from head to foot with a dense shaggy 
 garment of these plants, and yet maintaining, during the 
 natural term of their existence, a green and healthy ap- 
 pearance. The species that grow upon trees, it must be 
 observed, are generally very different from those which 
 grow upon stones. There is a considerable preponder- 
 ance of foliaceous and filamentous over crustaceous forms, 
 and these, owing to the looseness of their hold upon the 
 bark, being generally attached only by small roots in 
 their centre, or by a single knot at one of their extremi- 
 ties, do not close up the breathing pores of the tree, or 
 prevent that free circulation of air which is necessary 
 for the healthy performance of all its functions. Indeed, 
 I am disposed to think that lichens are not only harm- 
 less, but greatly beneficial to trees; for those who have 
 paid particular attention to pines which grow in open 
 and elevated situations, must have often noticed that, 
 not only is their bark thicker and more rugged on the 
 side most exposed to the prevailing winds and rains, but
 
 92 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 also that it is more densely covered with shaggy lichens, 
 so as to afford considerable warmth and protection. The 
 colder the climate, and the farther north we proceed, 
 the more densely clothed with this picturesque garment 
 of nature's providing do we find the trees and shrubs, 
 on the same principle, one would imagine, as the hyper- 
 borean animals are covered with thick furs. Indeed, so 
 universally are lichens and mosses produced on the north 
 side of trees, that the American backwoods-man, and the 
 Norwegian woodcutter, whose faculties of observation 
 have been keenly educated by nature herself, often em- 
 ploy them as a rude but safe compass to guide them 
 through the intricacies and tangled labyrinths of the 
 primeval forests. 
 
 Such are some of the most obvious purposes which 
 these humble plants serve in the economy of nature ; 
 let us now direct our attention to a few of the uses to 
 which man has applied them. This is the only point of 
 importance connected with them in the estimation of 
 many especially of those who gauge the works of the 
 Almighty by a dry utilitarian law and see no beauty or 
 interest in any object, except in so far as they can find 
 some real or manifest utility in its existence. Judged by 
 this standard, and weighed in the balance with pounds, 
 shillings, and pence, the lichens will not be found want- 
 ing. On account of the large quantity of starchy matter 
 which they contain, they often considerably contribute 
 to, and sometimes even entirely form, the diet of man 
 and animals, in those dreary inhospitable regions where 
 the wintry rigour, or the scorching heat of the climate, 
 forbid all other kinds of vegetation to grow. Every one
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 93 
 
 is familiar with the fact that the reindeer moss (Cladonia 
 rangiferina, Fig. 10), forms altogether the food of that 
 animal during the prolonged northern winters. This 
 lichen grows sparingly in little tufts among the heather 
 in this country, and sometimes whitens the sides and 
 plateaus of the Highland hills, covering bare and verdure- 
 less places where the snow first falls in winter, and 
 lingers longest in summer ; but it is in the vast sandy 
 plains called by the Laplanders tundra, which border 
 the Arctic ocean, that it flourishes in the greatest pro- 
 
 Fio. 10. CLADONIA EAXOIFERINA. 
 
 fusion and luxuriance. There it completely covers the 
 ground with its snowy tufts, and occupies as conspicuous 
 a place in the economy of nature as the grass in warmer 
 regions. Linnaeus says, that no plant flourishes so 
 luxuriantly as this in the pine-forests of Lapland, the 
 surface of the soil being completely carpeted with it for 
 many miles in extent ; and that if by an accident the 
 forests are burnt to the ground, in a very short time the 
 lichens re-appear, and resume all their original vigour. 
 These plains, he adds, which strangers would call an
 
 91 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 accursed land, are fertile pastures to the Laplander, who, 
 in possession of a tract of such country, deems himself a 
 prosperous man. There vast herds of reindeer roam at 
 will, enjoying themselves where the horse, the camel, 
 and the elephant would perish. The reindeer is the life, 
 hope, and wealth of the inhabitants of those dreary and 
 inclement regions. It draws their burdens with all the 
 patience of the ass, yields its milk with all the docility 
 of the cow, and transports its owner from place to place 
 over the snowy and frozen plains, with all the fleetness 
 of an Arabian horse. Its flesh serves for food ; its 
 tendons for strings to their bows, and its thick-furred 
 skin for comfortable garments and bed-clothes to protect 
 them from the rigours of an Arctic climate. And this 
 useful animal is exclusively dependent upon an humble 
 lichen for its support. What a deep interest therefore 
 invests this otherwise insignificant plant ! That vast 
 numbers of families, living in pastoral simplicity in the 
 cheerless and inhospitable Polar regions, should depend 
 for their subsistence, upon the uncultured and abundant 
 supply of a plant so low in the scale of organization as 
 this, is surely a striking proof of the great importance of 
 even the smallest and meanest objects in nature. 
 
 When the ground is covered with hard and frozen 
 snow, so that the reindeer cannot obtain its usual food, 
 it finds a substitute in a very curious lichen called rock- 
 hair (Alectoria jubata, Fig. 11), which covers with its 
 beard-like tufts the trunks of almost every tree. In 
 more severe winters, the Laplanders cut down whole 
 forests of the largest trees, that their herds may be en- 
 abled to browse at liberty upon the tufts which cover
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 95 
 
 the higher branches. The vast dreary pine-forests of 
 Lapland possess a character which is peculiarly their 
 own, and are perhaps more singular in the eyes of the 
 traveller than any other feature in the landscapes of that 
 remote and desolate region. This character they owe to 
 the immense number of lichens with which they abound. 
 The ground, instead of grass, is carpeted with dense 
 tufts of the reindeer moss, white as a shower of new- 
 fallen snow ; while the trunks and branches of the trees 
 
 Fio. 11. ALECTOHIA JDBATA. 
 (a) Enlarged portion. 
 
 are swollen far beyond their natural dimensions with 
 huge, dusky, funereal bunches of the rock-hair, hanging 
 down in masses, exhaling a damp earthy smell, like an 
 old cellar, or stretching from tree to tree, in long 
 festoons, waving with every breath of wind, and creating 
 a perpetual melancholy twilight around. 
 
 Another beard-like lichen ( Usnea florida, Fig. 1 2), 
 often growing along with the rock-hair, is gathered in 
 great quantities in North America, from the pine-forests, 
 and stored up as winter fodder for cattle in inclement
 
 96 
 
 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 seasons. Goats, and especially deer, are fond of it ; 
 and in winter, when other food is scarce, they hardly 
 leave a vestige of it on the trees within their reach. 
 
 FlG. 12. USSEA FLORIDA. 
 
 The tortoises of the small rocky islands of the Galapagos 
 Archipelago subsist almost entirely upon it. 
 
 But it is not to animals alone that lichens furnish a 
 supply of food. Man himself is 
 frequently directly indebted to 
 them for a subsistence. There 
 are few, I presume, who are not 
 acquainted with some particulars 
 regarding the history and uses of 
 that remarkable lichen, sold in 
 chemists' shops under the name 
 of Cetraria fslandica, or Iceland 
 moss (Fig. 13). Although in 
 this country it is only used medi- 
 s. CETRABIA ISLANDICA. cinally, as a restorative diet in 
 exhausting diseases, and during convalescence, for which 
 it possesses an immemorial reputation ; it forms the
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 97 
 
 most important article of food which the natives of Ice- 
 land possess. In fact, without it they would as certainly 
 perish, as the favoured inhabitants of Britain without 
 the more highly organized cereal plants, which, year 
 after year, wave in all their golden beauty over the 
 whole land, and are so strikingly suggestive of nature's 
 bounty and munificence. What barley, rye, and oats are 
 to the Indo-Caucasian races of Asia and Western Europe ; 
 the olive, the grape, and the fig, to the inhabitants of the 
 Mediterranean districts ; the date-palm to the Egyptian 
 and Arabian ; rice to the Hindoo ; and the tea-plant to 
 the Chinese, the Iceland moss is to the Laplanders, 
 Icelanders, and Esquimaux. 
 
 In Scotland, the Iceland moss grows sparingly on the 
 bare wind-swept sides and summits of the loftiest moun- 
 tains, but in Iceland it is exceedingly abundant over the 
 whole surface of the country. It attains a large size on 
 the lava of the western coast, and in the extensive desert 
 tracts of Skaptar-fel-Syssel ; and numerous parties 
 migrate to these places with all their household effects, 
 during the summer months, in order to collect it, either 
 for exportation to the Danish merchants, or for their 
 own use as an article of common food. These excursions 
 generally take place once every three years, for the lichen 
 requires that time to arrive at maturity, after the spots 
 where it nourishes have been cleared. Olafsen and 
 Povelsen, in their interesting Travels in Iceland, observe, 
 that a person can collect four tons in a week, with which, 
 they say, he is better off than with one ton of wheat. 
 We are also informed, in a report on this lichen, pub- 
 lished several years ago by the Saxon Government, that 
 G
 
 98 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 the meal obtained from it, when mixed with wheat-flour, 
 produces a greater quantity of bread, though perhaps of 
 a less nutritious quality, than could be manufactured 
 from the latter alone. The extremely bitter taste, how- 
 ever, by which it is characterized, owing to a peculiar 
 astringent principle in it called cetrarin, which has been 
 procured in a state of purity, in the form of a white 
 powder like magnesia, by Herberger, has always proved 
 a great drawback to its adoption as an independent 
 article of food, especially in this country. In Iceland 
 and Lapland, however, the inhabitants remove this dis- 
 agreeable quality by a very simple process. They first 
 chop it to pieces, and macerate it for several days in 
 water mixed with salt of tartar or quick-lime, which it 
 absorbs very freely ; it is then dried and reduced to 
 powder, and mixed with the flour of the common knot- 
 grass, made into a cake or boiled, and eaten with rein- 
 deer's milk, and eaten with relish, too, by these poor 
 people, who confess, with a most simple and affecting 
 gratitude, that " a bountiful Providence sends them 
 bread out of the very stones." The powder is not unlike 
 starch in appearance, and possesses some of its proper- 
 ties, for it swells in boiling water, and becomes, on cool- 
 ing, a fine jelly, which soon hardens into a tough, trans- 
 parent substance, very pleasant to the taste, especially 
 when flavoured with sugar, milk, a little white wine, or 
 aromatics. It is frequently used for making blanc-mange 
 in this country, for which purpose it is said to be equal, 
 if not superior, to Irish moss or the finest isinglass. The 
 bitter principle is often used for brewing, and in the com- 
 position of ship-biscuit, to prevent the attack of worms.
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 99 
 
 Those who have read the affecting account which 
 Franklin and Richardson give of their expedition to 
 Arctic America, must be familiar with the name of the 
 Tripe de Roche, which occurs on almost every page, and 
 is intimately associated with the fearful sufferings which 
 these brave men endured, a part of which only would 
 have sufficed to unseat the reason of most individuals. 
 During their long and terrible journey from the Copper- 
 mine River to Fort Enterprise, one of the stations of the 
 Hudson's Bay Company a journey to which, I venture 
 
 FIG. 14. GYROPHORA CYLINDRICA. 
 (a) Enlarged portion. 
 
 to say, there are few parallels in the annals of human 
 hardship in the almost total absence of every other 
 kind of salutary food, their lives were supported by a 
 bitter and nauseous lichen, to which the name of Tripe 
 de Roche (Gyrophora, Fig. 14) has been given, as if in 
 mockery. I cannot resist the inclination to transcribe 
 from this melancholy narrative a single fragmentary 
 passage, which will give some idea of the fearful condi- 
 tion to which these heroic adventurers in the cause of 
 science were often reduced. I need not preface it by 
 any comment of mine ; it speaks for itself. " Mr. Hood,
 
 100 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 who was now nearly exhausted, was obliged to walk at 
 a gentle pace in the rear, Dr. Richardson kindly keeping 
 beside him, whilst Franklin led the foremost men, that 
 he might make them halt occasionally till the stragglers 
 came up. Credit, however, one of their most active 
 hunters, became lamentably weak, from the effects of 
 tripe de roche upon his constitution, and Vaillant, from 
 the same cause, was getting daily more emaciated. They 
 only advanced six miles during the day, and at night satis- 
 fied the cravings of hunger by a small quantity of tripe 
 de roche, mixed up with some scraps of roasted leather. 
 Having boiled and eaten the remains of their old shoes, 
 and every shred of leather which could be picked up, 
 they set forward at nine, like living skeletons, advancing 
 by inches, as it were, over bleak hills, separated by 
 equally barren valleys, which contained not the slightest 
 trace of vegetation except this eternal tripe de roche." 
 The dreadful uncertainty, that for so many long years, 
 hung over the fate of Franklin and his heroic comrades, 
 has at last been dispelled by the discovery, during 
 M'Clintock's recent search, of a large cairn at Cape Vic- 
 toria, in King William Land, containing, among other 
 mournfully interesting relics, a journal of one of the 
 officers of the lost expedition, announcing the intelligence 
 of the certain death of its leader on the llth of June 
 1847. A short distance beyond this fatal point, two 
 human skeletons were found in the bottom of an aban- 
 doned boat, with no food beside them except some tea, 
 chocolate and tripe de roche, on which miserable and 
 unnutritious diet they lingered out their existence in 
 these frightful solitudes, till death mercifully put an end
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 101 
 
 to their sufferings. Let us hope that no more valuable 
 lives will be sacrificed to the love of science and adven- 
 ture in these terrible regions ; the numerous expeditions 
 undertaken in recent times having taught us the limit of 
 human endurance, if they have done nothing else. 
 
 The tripe de roche consists of various species of Gyro- 
 phora black, leather-like lichens, studded with small 
 black points like coiled wire buttons, and attached by an 
 umbilical root, or by short strong fibres to rocks on the 
 mountains. Some of them bear no unapt resemblance to 
 a piece of shagreen ; while others appear corroded, like 
 a fragment of burnt skin, as if the rock on which they 
 grew had been subjected to the action of fire. They are 
 found in cold exposed situations on Alpine rocks of granite 
 or micaceous schist, in almost all parts of the world on 
 the Himalayas and Andes as well as the British moun- 
 tains ; but it is in the Arctic regions alone that they 
 luxuriate, covering the surface of every rock, to the 
 level of the sea-shore, with a gloomy Plutonian vegetation, 
 that seems like the charred cinders and shrivelled re- 
 mains of former verdure and beauty. Though they con- 
 tain a considerable quantity of starch, they are exceedingly 
 bitter and astringent, and produce intolerable griping 
 pains when eaten. No one would have recourse to them 
 for food except in a case of dire necessity. The Canadian 
 hunters who are often reduced to the last extremity, 
 during their long and toilsome excursions in search of 
 furs, through the desolate regions of Arctic America, 
 often allay the pangs of hunger with this nauseous diet. 
 And sometimes in my own wanderings among the almost 
 unknown and unvisited solitudes of the Scottish moun-
 
 102 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 tains, when my stock of provisions was exhausted, and a 
 renewal was not to be expected, the nearest shepherd's 
 sheiling being perhaps many miles distant, I have been 
 compelled to satisfy my cravings by eating small por- 
 tions of the tripe de roche, which I found blackening the 
 dreary rocks around. In such situations, I have felt deeply 
 how weak and helpless is man, when thrown forth from 
 the social scenes and comforts of civilized life, left to 
 his own unaided resources, and exposed to the merciless 
 energies of physical nature, and how, without some 
 ultimate trust in the Almighty source of his being, that 
 being is but as a straw upon a whirlpool. 
 
 There are several other species of lichens, which have 
 now and then, on rare occasions, been employed as articles 
 of food. There is a greyish shaggy lichen abundant on 
 pine-trees in the British woods, called Evernia, which is 
 said in ancient times to have rivalled even the Iceland 
 moss for its nutritious qualities. Forskoel says in refer- 
 ence to it in his Flora Arabica, " I have heard a great 
 deal about a Schoebean plant unknown to me, without a 
 portion of which, mixed with its contents, no kind of 
 bread is manufactured. Shiploads of it are regularly 
 conveyed to Alexandria from the Grecian Archipelago. 
 A handful of the lichen is inserted in water for two 
 hours, which, when added to the dough, imparts to the 
 bread a peculiar flavour, esteemed delicious by the Turks." 
 It is possessed of a mawkish insipid taste, especially if 
 produced on oaks, somewhat astringent, but not destitute 
 of nutritious qualities. 
 
 There is a curious lichen found in some eastern coun- 
 tries called Lecanora esculenta, regarding which several
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 103 
 
 strange facts have been related by travellers. Some 
 authors are strongly of opinion, that the manna with 
 which the Israelites were fed in the wilderness may be 
 referred to this lichen. A pamphlet has been published 
 upon the subject by Dr. Arthaud. Such a reference may 
 be supposed by some to militate against the professedly 
 miraculous character of the event. But this objection 
 may be overruled by the consideration, that though the 
 manna was miraculous, in so far as the manner of its 
 conveyance to the Israelites, and the circumstances con- 
 nected with its gathering, were concerned, it was not 
 miraculous in its origin. The quails were conveyed to 
 their camp by supernatural means, but they were not 
 supernatural in themselves; and, in like manner, the manna 
 was showered down by the direct agency of God, in the 
 very place where, and at the very time that it was 
 required ; but it was not a miraculous substance ', it was 
 not specially created for that purpose. God is sparing, 
 as it were, of His miracles ; and in all His direct inter- 
 positions on behalf of His people, we find that He makes 
 use of objects and agencies already existing, causing 
 these to fall in with His intentions, without originating 
 new ones. If this be true ; if the manna was a vege- 
 table product already existing, and not a special creation, 
 there is more likelihood of its being a species of lichen, 
 than any other vegetable matter which commentators 
 have conjectured. The descriptions of Moses apply with 
 greater accuracy to the Lecanora esculenta, than to any 
 other substance with which I am acquainted ; while the 
 singular circumstances connected with the history of this 
 lichen, as related from time to time by trustworthy
 
 104 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 witnesses, renders the supposition of its identity with 
 the manna of the Israelites still more plausible. Showers 
 of this lichen have sometimes fallen several inches thick, 
 having been torn from the spots where it grew, and 
 transported by violent gusts of wind. In 1829, during 
 the war between Persia and Russia, there was a great 
 famine in Oroomiah, south-west of the Caspian Sea. One 
 day, during a violent wind, the surface of the^country was 
 covered with a lichen, which fell from the sky in showers. 
 The sheep immediately attacked it, and devoured it 
 eagerly, which suggested to the inhabitants the idea of 
 reducing it to flour, and making bread of it, which was 
 found to be palatable and nourishing. The people 
 affirmed that they had never seen this lichen before or 
 after that time. During the siege of Herat, more re- 
 cently, the papers mentioned a hail of manna which fell 
 upon the city, and served as food for the inhabitants. 
 A rain of manna occurred so late as April 1846, in the 
 government of Wilna, and formed a layer upon the 
 ground three or four inches in thickness. It was of a 
 greyish-white colour, rather hard, irregular in form, 
 inodorous and insipid. Pallas, the Russian naturalist, 
 observed it on the arid mountains, and the calcareous 
 portions of the Great Desert of Tartary. Mr. Eversham 
 collected it in the steppes of the Kirghiz to the north of 
 the Caspian Sea. It has been seen on the Altai range, 
 in Anatolia, in South America, and recently in Algeria 
 by Dr. Guyon. It occurs in irregular-shaped fragments, 
 varying in size from a pin's-head to a pea or small nut ; 
 and when seen in its native sites, is apparently attached to 
 no matrix whatever, and has no fecula in its composition.
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 105 
 
 In medicine, lichens were at one time very highly 
 esteemed. In the days of Aldrovandus and Paracelsus, 
 Avho added the study of alchemy and the occult sciences 
 to that of plants, they were extensively employed in the 
 preparation of sympathetic ointments, and in the various 
 distillations connected with the search for the elixir vitse 
 and the universal solvent and nostrum. Wonderful cures 
 were ascribed to a particular application of them; and 
 in the works of the botanists of the middle ages, we find 
 long and elaborate observations upon the peculiar virtues 
 of species developed upon the oak, the pine, and the 
 beech. The common dog-lichen (Peltidea canind) a 
 species everywhere abundant on moist banks and turfy 
 walls, and easily distinguished by its livid brown wrinkled 
 leaves, and red, nail-like fructification was formerly 
 employed, at the suggestion of the celebrated Dr. Mead, 
 as a cure for hydrophobia (hence its specific name), and 
 in many instances with success; but whether the cures 
 were effected by an inherent power in the plant itself, 
 or merely by the aid of a strong imagination, may be left 
 an open question. Another species of the same family 
 (Peltidea apthosci), with a remarkably vivid green thallus, 
 growing by the side of mountain streams, was in high 
 repute at one time as a powerful anthelmintic, and is 
 still used by the Swedish peasants, when boiled with milk, 
 as a cure for the apthae or thrush in children. When 
 the primitive principle that " like cures like" formed the 
 basis of all medical treatment, several lichens were em- 
 ployed for the cure of diseases, on account of their fancied 
 resemblance to the organs or parts of the body affected. 
 Among such lichens the species in greatest favour
 
 106 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 was probably the lung-wort (Sticta pulmonaria), which 
 grows in immense shaggy masses on trees and rocks in 
 sub-alpine woods. From the resemblance of its reticu- 
 lated and lobed upper-surface, usually of a greyish-brown 
 colour, to the human lungs, it was highly recommended 
 as an infallible cure for all diseases of these delicate 
 organs. The beautiful cup-lichen, so abundant on dry 
 moorlands under the shade of the heather, was long a 
 favourite rustic remedy in this country for coughs. 
 Gerarde, the old English herbalist, says : " The powder 
 of this moss given unto small children, in any liquor for 
 certaine daies together, is a most certaine remidy against 
 that perilous maladie called the chin-cough. Albeit the 
 remidy doth require care, and is not to be adventured 
 upon save under the guidance of an experienced gude- 
 wife." On account of the intensely bitter principle con- 
 tained in greater or less degree in all lichens, many 
 species used to be employed in intermittent fevers and 
 agues, as substitutes for Peruvian bark, which was then 
 sold at a price so extravagant, as to be utterly beyond 
 the reach of the poorer classes. For the same reason, 
 they were often administered in the form of powders 
 and decoctions, as tonics to purify the blood and 
 strengthen the system. Their astringent qualities 
 depending, I may remark, in a great measure upon 
 the kind of tree on which they were produced were 
 also turned to advantage in the cure of haemorrhages, 
 fluxes, and ruptures; and Linnaeus informs us that the 
 Laplanders fill up their snow-shoes with one species, and 
 apply it to the feet to relieve the excoriations occasioned 
 by long and fatiguing journeys. During one period of
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 107 
 
 medical history, lichens formed the principal drugs in 
 the pharmacopoeia, and were prescribed for almost all 
 the ills that flesh is heir to. Superstition had much to 
 do with their popularity in this respect. Their strange 
 shapes, their anomalous character, occupying, as it were, 
 an intermediate position between plants and minerals, 
 between life and death ; leading a perpetual mesmerized 
 or suspended existence ; the curious situations in which 
 they were found, growing on decaying wood or moist 
 earth, or on the bare rock in weird, lonely spots, where 
 fairies might sport and enchanters weave their unhal- 
 lowed spells; they were naturally enough supposed by 
 a credulous and ignorant people to be invested with 
 magic qualities. As the knowledge of plants became 
 more generally diffused, they lost much of their mystery, 
 and consequently of their power over disease; and now 
 they have almost entirely disappeared from medical prac- 
 tice. It must not be supposed, however, that they were thus 
 summarily expelled from the schools of medicine, because 
 they were entirely destitute of healing qualities. Some 
 of them have been found, by chemical analysis, to contain 
 principles of great efficacy in certain complaints ; but as 
 these principles varied in their strength, according to the 
 circumstances in which the plants were produced, no de- 
 pendence could be placed upon the action of the doses 
 administered. It is obvious that the chemical qualities of 
 cellular plants, whose construction is so extremely simple, 
 must vary considerably in different individuals and in 
 different situations. The nature of the matrix on which 
 lichens grow, and of the medium which surrounds them, 
 must, to a great extent, determine the presence in them
 
 108 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 of certain constituents which are extremely volatile, and 
 dependent upon such conditions. The lichen that de- 
 velops certain qualities when growing on the bark of a 
 tree, will not develop them to the same extent when 
 growing on a rock ; and there will be a similar, if not a 
 greater difference between the qualities of an individual 
 produced in the shade of a dark moist wood, and those 
 of the same plant, scorched by the sunshine and swept 
 by the wind on a bare exposed rock on the hill- side. It 
 was this variable chemical character, and the uncertain 
 medical results connected with it, that banished the 
 lichens from the druggists' shops. The discovery of 
 new and more powerful drugs, obtained from tropical 
 plants stimulated by intense sunshine and highly organ- 
 ized soils, hastened their exile, and effectually closed the 
 door against their return to favour ; while at the same 
 time it greatly diminished the list of native remedies, 
 the products of a cold, moist climate, and of poor and 
 feeble soils. The Iceland moss is the only species of 
 lichen which has retained its place in modern pharmacy, 
 as a tonic and febrifuge in ague ; but it is now princi- 
 pally employed, when added to soups and chocolate, as 
 a palliative to consumption, and as an article of diet in 
 the sick-room, and is being gradually superseded by the 
 more nourishing productions of foreign countries. 
 
 It may seem strange that lichens should be employed 
 in perfumery, considering that in themselves they are 
 entirely destitute of odour, but such nevertheless is the 
 case. The ancients appear to have been in the habit of 
 using extensively a species of white filamentous lichen 
 called Usnech, which grew upon trees in the islands
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 109 
 
 of the East Indian Archipelago, St. Helena, and Mada- 
 gascar, and exhaled, when moistened, an exceedingly 
 agreeable fragrance, somewhat resembling musk or 
 ambergris. This odour it may have derived from the 
 spice trees on which it was produced. Among the 
 Arabian physicians it was once in high repute when 
 macerated in wine, as a cordial and soporific. So late as 
 the seventeenth century, some of the filamentous lichens 
 were sold in the shops of barbers and perfumers under the 
 name of Usnea, and they formed the basis of a celebrated 
 fragrant powder for the toilet, called Corps de Cypre gris 
 or Cyprio, which is still manufactured on a large scale in 
 Rome, and in some other cities of Italy. Their employ- 
 ment for this purpose, however, did not depend upon 
 any peculiar inherent scent, for the species used are per- 
 fectly odourless, but upon their aptitude for absorbing 
 and retaining, for almost any length of time, the fragrance 
 communicated to them. Indeed, several of our tree-lichens 
 possess in so remarkable a degree this curious property, 
 that they are still employed in the manufacture of the 
 most valuable and esteemed powder perfumes ; and they 
 might be turned to useful account, by the sanative com- 
 mission, in imbibing and retaining the noxious vapours 
 from cesspools and over-crowded streets, which are so 
 injurious to the health of the inhabitants of our large 
 cities their small bulk and light weight allowing of 
 their being easily removed, when thoroughly saturated 
 with the offensive effluvia. 
 
 Various other substances useful in the arts and manu- 
 factures are yielded by the lichens. The late Lord Dun- 
 donald discovered a method of extracting from a species-
 
 110 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 of white filamentous lichen (Evemia prunastri), very 
 frequent upon pines and oaks, a kind of gum which was 
 extensively used in Glasgow during the French war, as an 
 efficient substitute for the expensive Gum Senegal, in 
 calico-printing. When it was the absurd fashion to wear 
 the hair whitened with powder, this same lichen was 
 sometimes pulverized and employed, on account of its 
 cheapness, instead of flour or starch. A species of yellow 
 shrubby lichen, like brass wire (Borrera flavicans), found 
 on apple-trees in the south of England, used to be em- 
 ployed in Norway in poisoning wolves, which were at 
 one time a dreadful scourge in the country, ranging the 
 gloomy pine forests in immense herds, committing fear- 
 ful havoc among the sheep-folds and cattle-sheds, and 
 when rendered desperate by hunger, even attacking tra- 
 velling parties and the houses of the inhabitants. Dead 
 carcases of sheep, stuffed with a mixture composed of 
 the powder of this lichen and pounded glass, were left 
 exposed in their favourite resorts to be devoured by these 
 ravenous animals, when it never failed to prove fatal. 
 This is the only lichen known to possess poisonous pro- 
 perties; but the deleterious action of the mixture em- 
 ployed, may have depended more upon the attrition of 
 the sharp surfaces of pounded glass, than upon the vege- 
 table powder. Chemists have detected oxalic acid in 
 several species of crustaceous lichens growing on the bark 
 of trees, and distinguished by an intensely bitter taste ; 
 and in one or two species in such abundance, that 100 
 parts yielded 18 of lime, combined with 29-4 of oxalic 
 acid. The oxalate of lime bears the same relation to 
 lichens as carbonate of lime to the corals, and phosphate
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. Ill 
 
 of lime to the bony structure of the more highly organized 
 animals. On account of this circumstance, some of the 
 crustaceous lichens are extensively employed in France 
 in the manufacture of oxalic acid ; and a considerable 
 proportion of what is now used in this country is derived 
 from this source. In London, various species of tree- 
 lichens are sold for the use of bird-stuffers, who line the 
 inside of their cases, and decorate the miniature trees 
 upon which the birds perch, with their shaggy leaves, so 
 as to give them a more picturesque and natural appear- 
 ance. The inhabitants of Smoland in Sweden are said 
 to scrape a peculiar species of yellow crustaceous lichen 
 from old pales, walls, and rocks, and mix it with their 
 tallow, to make the beautiful golden candles which they 
 burn on festival days. A wonderful race are these same 
 Smolanders. They are so remarkably industrious and 
 inventive, that they have given rise to a popular proverb 
 in Sweden, " Put a Smolander upon a roof, and he will 
 get a livelihood." " This character," says Frederika 
 Bremer, in her charming work, The Midnight Sun, " is 
 strangely imprinted on the remote forest-regions of the 
 country. The forest, which is the countryman's work- 
 shop, is his storehouse too. With the various lichens 
 that grow upon the trees and rocks, he cures the virulent 
 diseases with which he is sometimes afflicted, dyes the 
 articles of clothing which he wears, and poisons the 
 noxious and dangerous animals which annoy him. The 
 juniper and cranberry give him their berries, which he 
 brews into drink ; he makes a conserve of them, and 
 mixes their juices with his dry salt-meat, and is health- 
 ful and cheerful with these and with his labour, of which 
 he makes a pleasure."
 
 112 
 
 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 If we wish to obtain a true idea of the value and im- 
 portance of lichens in human economy, we must consider 
 them in perhaps the most singular of their aspects, viz., 
 as dye-stuffs and sources of colouring matter. Many of 
 the tree-lichens, in a moist state, are very showy, yield- 
 ing in water a coloured infusion corresponding to the 
 hue of their own leaves; but strange to say, these are 
 the least valuable species to the dyer. The lichens which 
 are richest in colorific principles, are crustaceous species 
 
 FlG. 15. ROCCELLA TINCTORIA. 
 
 growing on rocks, and utterly destitute of colour in their 
 natural state ; and it is one of the most striking triumphs 
 of chemistry as applied to the arts and manufactures, 
 that by its means some of the finest shades of red, purple, 
 and yellow are extracted from such unlikely substances. 
 The lichen popularly known as orchil (Fig. 15) affords 
 a remarkable illustration of the extent to which colorific 
 principles are developed in these outwardly hueless plants. 
 It derives its generic name Roccella from a Florentine 
 family called Eucellai, whose founder, for a long time a
 
 THE PA GE OF NA T URE. 1 1 3 
 
 trader in the Levant, discovered in tho sixteenth century 
 the art of preparing a most valuable dye from it, by the 
 sale of which he realized in a short time a very large 
 fortune. If, however, we are to believe Tournefort, the 
 preparation of orchil was known to the ancient Greeks; 
 the purple of Amorgos, one of the Cyclades Islands, with 
 which the celebrated tunics of the same name were dyed, 
 being obtained from this lichen. Some authors are of 
 opinion that it was the orchil, and not the little murex, 
 a species of shell-fish found on the coast of Syria and 
 Phoenicia, which supplied the famous Tyrian purple, the 
 exclusive badge of imperial rank referred to in Ezekiel : 
 " Fine linen, with broidered work from Egypt, was that 
 which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail ; blue and 
 purple from the isles of Elishah was that which covered 
 thee." The frequent representation of the little shell- 
 fish on the coins dug up among the ruins of Tyre must, 
 however, be regarded as a sufficient refutation of this 
 idea. The secret of the Rucellai was soon divulged, and 
 the manufacture transferred to Holland, where a con- 
 siderable trade in this lichen is still carried on. The 
 orchil is found in small quantities on rocks by the sea-side 
 in the extreme south of England, and in the Guernsey 
 and Portland Isles. In warm climates, however, it occurs 
 in profusion, especially on the volcanic rocks, and tho 
 sea-shores of the Canary and Cape de Verde Islands, in 
 the numerous isles of the Grecian Archipelago, and on 
 the coasts of China and Peru. In the Indian collection 
 of raw vegetable products exhibited in the Crystal Palace 
 of 1851, several specimens of orchil from India, Ceylon, 
 aud Socotra were shown; and an explanatory note ap- 
 II
 
 114 FOO TNO TES FKOM 
 
 pended to some from the bare, desolate Gibraltar of the 
 Eed Sea, the rock of Aden in Arabia, stated most sug- 
 gestively "Abundant, but unknown as an article of 
 commerce." It is probable that it occurs on the mari- 
 time rocks of all tropical countries in equal profusion. 
 In appearance this valuable lichen resembles a diminutive 
 leafless shrub, forked, and subdivided into numerous 
 roundish, irregular branches. It is tough and leathery in 
 texture, of a whitish or blue grey colour, and covered 
 with a mealy powder, or scattered warty excrescences. 
 It is imported in the same state in which it was gathered 
 from the volcanic rocks ; and those who prepare it for 
 the use of the dyer grind it between stones, so as 
 thoroughly to bruise but not to reduce it to powder, 
 moistening it occasionally with ammonia mixed with 
 quick-lime. By this process it acquires in a few days a 
 purplish-red tinge, and is found to form a confused mass 
 of violet-coloured threads. In this state it is employed 
 to give the English broadcloths that peculiar lustre and 
 purple tint, when viewed in a certain light, which are 
 so much admired. When beaten to a pulp, and dried in 
 little cubes about the size of dice, which .have an azure 
 colour with white spots, and an unpleasant odour, the 
 orchil is called litmus. This substance contains, accord- 
 ing to Gelis, three colouring principles : one soluble in 
 ether, which is orange-red ; one soluble in alcohol, and 
 one in water, both of which have a most beautiful pur- 
 ple tint, which they lose when excluded from the air, 
 and regain when again exposed. On account of its ex- 
 ceeding delicacy, and the ease with which it may be 
 applied, litmus is chemically used as a test of akaliuity
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 115 
 
 and acidity in the form of paper saturated with it, pre- 
 served in well-closed vessels, and secluded from the in- 
 fluence of light. This paper is turned red by an acid, 
 and is restored to its original blue colour by an alkali. 
 The orchil contains certain other substances, called orcine 
 and erythrine, which are perfectly colourless, and contain 
 no nitrogen ; but when exposed to the action of ammo- 
 nia and common atmospheric air, they yield exquisitely 
 beautiful colouring matters, which crystallize in regular 
 flat quadrangular prisms, have a very sweet flavour, and 
 of which nitrogen is an essential element. In the 
 Canary and Cape de Verde Islands, the orchil was at 
 one time the most important article of commerce ; the 
 annual exportation being valued at from 60,000 to 
 80,000 ; but so great has been its consumption of 
 late years, that the best quality, which generally sells 
 for 200 a ton, and has in times of scarcity been ac- 
 tually sold for the enormous sum of 1000, or about 
 9s. a pound, has become exceedingly rare, and what is 
 now commonly imported from other countries is worth 
 little more than 30 the ton. 
 
 In this country there are many species of lichens, 
 growing in greater or less abundance, on the mountain 
 rocks, which might be advantageously substituted for 
 the rare and expensive foreign orchils. Many of them 
 have been known to the rural inhabitants from time 
 immemorial. The parti-coloured and often exceedingly 
 beautiful tartans of the Highland clans, used to be dyed 
 with the colouring matter derived from the common 
 grey foliaceous lichens which so plentifully clothe almost 
 every tree and wall-; and many an old woman in the
 
 116 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 remote parts of Scotland, skilled in the medicinal and 
 dyeing properties of the various plants that grow around 
 her humble home, still prefers the dyes she herself pre- 
 pares, by simply boiling in water heather twigs, birch 
 leaves, roots of the ruadh or yellow bed-straw, or the 
 various species of crotal or lichens, to logwood, madder, 
 indigo, copperas, or any other of the imported dyes of 
 the shops; and the results she produces, by a skilful com- 
 bination of these simple substances, are really astonish- 
 ing ; many of the stuffs which have undergone her primi- 
 tive dyeing process, being as brilliant and lasting in 
 colour as those which have been subjected to the various 
 baths of the professed dyer. 
 
 * FIG. 16. LECANORA TARTAREA. 
 
 The most useful and best known of our native dye- 
 lichens is the rock-moss or cudbear, Fig. 16 (Lecanora 
 tartarea), so called after a Mr. Cuthbert who first brought 
 it into use. It grows in the form of a tartareous granu- 
 lar crust, of a dirty-grey colour, spreading in indefinite 
 patches over the surfaces of mountain rocks, and often 
 enveloping the stems and leaves of mosses and other 
 small plants. It varies in thickness from a scarce per- 
 ceptible film to a solid mass an inch in diameter, is 
 covered with large irregular shields of a pale flesh colour,
 
 THE PA OE OF NA TUBE. 1 1 7 
 
 and may be easily identified, even without the aid of its 
 characteristic fructification, by a peculiar pungent alka- 
 line smell, which is very disagreeable, especially when 
 the plant is moistened. In the Highland districts, many 
 an industrious peasant used to earn a comfortable living, 
 by collecting this lichen with an iron hoop from the 
 moorland rocks, and sending it to the Glasgow market. 
 The value of this lichen in Scotland is said at one time 
 to have averaged 10 per ton. Hooker states that at 
 Fort-Augustus, in 1807, a person could gain 14s. per 
 week by gathering it, estimating its market price at 
 3s. 4d. per stone of 22 Ibs. It appears also to have 
 been an article of commerce in Derbyshire ; the price 
 there given to the collector, who could gather from 20 
 to 30 pounds per day, being Id. per pound. This 
 source of remunerative employment in Britain has now 
 ceased, as the lichen is chiefly imported from Norway 
 and Sicily, where it occurs in greater profusion than 
 with us, and is said to contain a larger proportion of 
 colouring matter. The dye produced by the cudbear is 
 quite equal to orchil, and is capable of being so modified 
 as to give any tinge of purple or crimson. It is never 
 employed by itself to give fast colours to cloth, but merely 
 for the purpose of improving the hues already imparted. 
 It is sold to the dyers in the form of a purple powder. 
 Schunk, in his analysis of this plant, discovered a colour- 
 less crystalline acid, called erythric acid, which is soluble 
 in alkaline solutions, and converted by them into orcine 
 and carbonic acid, and which, under exposure to the air, 
 acquires first a red and at length a fine deep violet tint. 
 A species closely connected with the cudbear, and
 
 118 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 often growing together with it on the same rock, is very 
 extensively employed in the south of France. This is 
 the famous Perelle d'Auvergne (Lecanora parella), which 
 imparts those beautiful and brilliant hues to French 
 ribbons, which are so much admired. The common 
 yellow wall-lichen (Parmelia parietina), so abundant 
 everywhere, yields a beautiful golden yellow crystalliz- 
 able colouring matter called crysophanic acid, which is 
 identical with the yellow colouring matter of rhubarb ; 
 and like orchil litmus, it may be used as a test for 
 alkalies, as they invariably change its yellow colour 
 into a vivid red tint. A beautiful and valuable crimson 
 pigment, occasionally employed by artists, is the product 
 of a dark-brown shrubby lichen (Cornicularia aculeata), 
 very common on the hills ; while the common stone 
 lichen (Parmelia saxatilis), which forms grey rosettes on 
 almost every wall, rock, and tree, is still collected abund- 
 antly by the Scottish peasantry, under the name of stane- 
 raw, to dye woollen stuff of 'a dirty purple or reddish- 
 brown colour. On the low rocks, on the summits of all 
 the loftiest Highland hills, there is a curious leafy lichen 
 (Parmelia fahlunensis), found abundantly, scorched ap- 
 parently by the sun into a black cinder. Of all lichens, 
 this species, judging from its outward colour and appear- 
 ance, would seem to be the least capable of yielding 
 colouring matter ; and yet when treated in the ordinary 
 way, it yields a brilliant pink, cherry, or claret colour, 
 which in France has been applied to so many useful pur- 
 poses, that the lichen in consequence has obtained the 
 common name of " Herpette des Tenturiers." But it is 
 needless to enumerate all the different species of lichens,
 
 THE PAGE OF NA TURE. ] 19 
 
 which have been, or are still employed in different parts 
 of the world, in the production of colouring matter. 
 This is the characteristic quality, more or less, of the 
 whole tribe. The whole world may be said to be an 
 open field ; in every clime, in every soil, at almost every 
 elevation, and in all seasons tinctorial species grow, and 
 even luxuriate. It is*a matter of surprise in this age 
 of scientific enterprise, considering the tendency every- 
 where exhibited to multiply the resources of our country, 
 and to find substitutes, in useless and neglected rubbish, 
 for expensive articles employed in the arts and manufac- 
 tures, that the attention of the commercial and manu- 
 facturing public has not been directed to the field of 
 inquiry and research, so promising in rich results, which 
 the dye-lichens present. "The fact that importers or 
 manufacturers," says an esteemed friend, " might find it 
 economical or remunerative to be supplied with substi- 
 tutes for the Roccellas, which are fast becoming scarce, 
 and consequently expensive, is the most limited view we 
 can take of the advantages of such an investigation. 
 Indirectly a multiplied trade in dye-lichens might scatter 
 the seeds of civilisation, and place the means of a com- 
 fortable subsistence at the command of the miserable 
 inhabitants of many a barren island or coast, at present 
 far removed from the great centres of social advance- 
 ment ; for the dye-lichens will probably be found luxu- 
 riantly where no other vegetation can thrive, frequently 
 attaining their highest degree of perfection on the most 
 bleak rocky coasts, or on elevated mountain ranges. It 
 is probable that many rocky isles in the broad Pacific 
 and Atlantic, many hundred miles of desolate sea-coast,
 
 120 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 and vast extents of mountain districts in Africa, Ame- 
 rica, Asia, and Australia, which at present yield no 
 products to commerce, and are too barren to support 
 higher vegetation, might furnish an unlimited supply of 
 lichens useful in dyeing. The vast continents of India 
 and neighbouring countries and islands, for instance, 
 already promise valuable results *in this respect." The 
 re-introduction of the former trade in cudbear, I may 
 add, would furnish remunerative employment to many of 
 the inhabitants of the Highlands, who have within the 
 last few years been deprived of another source of com- 
 fortable subsistence, by the discovery of barilla as a more 
 efficient substitute for the kelp, which they used to 
 gather in immense quantities on the western coasts and 
 islands, and sell to the soap-manufacturers, and who are 
 now compelled by poverty and want of work to leave 
 their native land, and seek their living on foreign 
 shores. 
 
 I cannot conclude this chapter more appropriately, 
 than by quoting the following eloquent remarks made 
 by Ruskin, in his last volume of Modern Painters, which 
 also apply conjunctly to the subjects of the preceding 
 chapter : " Meek creatures ! the first mercy of the earth, 
 veiling with hushed softness its dentless rocks ; creatures 
 full of pity covering with strange and tender honour the 
 scarred disgrace of ruin, laying quiet finger on the trem- 
 bling stones to teach them rest. No words that I know 
 of will say what these mosses are ; none are delicate 
 enough, none perfect enough, none rich enough. How 
 is one to tell of the rounded bosses of furred and beam- 
 ing green, the starred divisions of rubied bloom, fine-
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 121 
 
 filmed as if the rock spirits could spin porphyry as we 
 do glass ; the traceries of intricate silver and fringes of 
 amber, lustrous arborescent, burnished through every 
 fibre into fitful brightness, and glossy traverses of silken 
 change, yet all subdued and pensive, and framed for 
 simplest, sweetest offices of grace. They will not be 
 gathered like the flowers, for chaplet or love-token ; but 
 of these the wild-bird will make its nest, and the wearied 
 child its pillow. And as the earth's first mercy, so they 
 are its last gift to us. When all other service is vain 
 from plant and tree, the soft mosses and grey lichens 
 take up their watch by the headstone. The woods, the 
 blossoms, the gift-bearing grasses have done their parts 
 for a time ; but these do service for ever. Trees for the 
 builder's yard, flowers for the bride's chamber, corn for 
 the granary, moss for the grave."
 
 122 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 FRESH- WATER ALGLE. 
 
 " Books in the running brooks." 
 
 " And plants of fibres fine as silkworm's thread, 
 Yea, beautiful as mermaid's golden hair 
 Upon the waves dispread." 
 
 SOUTHEY. 
 
 " IF the Author of Nature be great in great things, he 
 is exceedingly great in small things," was the paradox- 
 ical remark of Rousseau, the deep meaning and truthful 
 application of which, the world at the present day is just 
 beginning to perceive. Everywhere, we find that micro- 
 scopic life performs a work of inconceivable magnitude and 
 importance ; that the humblest and meanest organisms, 
 though all unseen and unmarked by the ordinary senses 
 of man, modify, by the mere force of untold numbers, the 
 appearance of the earth, and contribute more to the for- 
 mation of its grandest features than the great visible 
 agencies around us. It was not, for instance, by Titanic 
 forces that the island world of the Pacific was raised from 
 the immense depths of the ocean, but by zoophytes so 
 minute that the foot-tread of a child could crush thou- 
 sands of them into atoms. The chalk cliffs of southern 
 England, which form a stupendous barrier to the wild
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 123 
 
 fury of the German and Atlantic oceans ; the limestone 
 rocks, of which immense tracts of country are almost 
 entirely composed, were not formed by the gigantic re- 
 mains of megatheriums, mastodons, and other extinct 
 monsters, which lived and died amidst the wildest con- 
 vulsions of a nascent world, but by the shields and shells 
 of inconceivable myriads of organisms, to each individual 
 of which, the stage-plate of the microscope would be as 
 large a field for its gambols, as a whole country would be 
 to one man. It is not by the hurricane or the furious 
 storm that our fairest orchards and most luxuriant fields 
 are laid waste, and converted into wildernesses of skele- 
 ton leaves, and blackened and withered stalks, but by 
 the ravages of the tiniest insects, and the minutest and 
 most contemptible fungi. 
 
 In these days of popular science, when the most abs- 
 truse subjects come to us in forms as light and easy as 
 the whisperings of confidential friends, or the chit-chat 
 of the family circle, no department of natural history is 
 more extensively and successfully studied, than that which 
 relates to the algse or sea-weeds. And this need not 
 excite surprise, for there is no class of plants more in- 
 teresting, whether we regard the beauty and splendour of 
 their colours, the elegance and variety of their forms, or 
 the romantic situations in which they occur. The in- 
 vention of that elegant ornament of the parlour and 
 drawing-room, the aquarium, now so popular, has afforded 
 great facilities for the study of these plants, under con- 
 ditions and circumstances closely analogous to those of 
 their native haunts ; and much insight has in conse- 
 quence been obtained into their functions and habits,
 
 124 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 which would otherwise either remain in obscurity, or be 
 revealed only by the " chance fortune of the hour." It 
 would be interesting to state some of the novel facts 
 thus elicited ; but I must forbear, as our attention in 
 this chapter, is to be occupied with the history of an 
 important and remarkable division of the algae called 
 hydrophites, or fresh-water algse, whose economy is 
 altogether peculiar, and whose forms are widely different 
 from the lovely Plocamiums and Delesserias, which we 
 frequently observe with admiration in our wanderings 
 along the sea-shore. 
 
 There is a peculiar charm about the fresh -water algse, 
 derived from the nature of the element in which they live. 
 Aquatic plants of all kinds are more interesting than land 
 plants. Water is so bright, so pure, so transparent, so fit 
 an emblem of that spiritual element in which our souls 
 should bathe and be strengthened, from which they should 
 drink and be satisfied. It is a perpetual baptism of 
 refreshment to the mind and senses. It idealizes every 
 object in it and around it ; the commonest and most 
 vulgar scenes, reflected in its clear mirror, are pictorial 
 and romantic. It is ever varying in its unity, so that 
 the eye never wearies in gazing upon it. All these asso- 
 ciations invest the confervse which flourish in it with 
 a peculiar nameless interest, independent of their own 
 mysteries of structure and function. They mingle, like 
 vegetable lotos-eaters, with the snow-white chalices and 
 broad velvet leaves of the lilies, in the tranquil shallows 
 of the moorland lake ; and, with the golden hues of the 
 sunset, and the rosy blush of the heather-hills around, 
 create a scene of enchantment in the clear pellucid depths.
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 125 
 
 Their dishevelled tresses toss wildly in the foamy rapids 
 of the waterfall, whose misty spray rises to freshen all 
 the scenery around, and whose " sound of many waters " 
 fills the mind with a feeling of animated delight and 
 bounding vivacity. They float in long, graceful wreaths 
 in the streamlet, wherever it clothes a jutting mass of 
 rock with gemmed and sparkling folds of liquid drapery. 
 They lie like motionless clouds in the blue depths of the 
 tranquil linn, that just ripples for pleasure, as it murmurs 
 to itself a sinless secret hidden for ever in its heart. 
 They fringe the pebbly sides of the river, whose deep 
 bulging fulness flows on unceasingly, ever diffusing fresh- 
 ness through the green pastures which it gladdens, and 
 beneath the drooping willows and alders that gratefully 
 murmur over it. They luxuriate in the cold clear springs 
 which form a feature of the most exquisite beauty in the 
 bleak Alpine scenery, gushing up in exposed and rocky 
 spots, and gurgling down the sides of the hills through 
 beds of the softest and most beautiful moss ; not the 
 verdant velvet which covers with a short curling nap the 
 ancient rock and the grey old tree, but long slender 
 plumes waving under the water, and assuming through 
 its mirror a tinge of the brightest golden green. In 
 gathering or admiring these humble plants in such 
 romantic situations, a sense of the beauty of the Greek 
 mythology is awakened in the heart, more vivid and real 
 than is experienced in other circumstances. It seems 
 easy to believe, in quiet far-off scenes where a solitary 
 coot sailing on the water is a considerable interruption 
 to the solitude, and where the link that binds us to the 
 common busy earth is broken and dropped, that the
 
 126 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 dryads are still hiding among the trees around, and the 
 nymphs gazing upon their own reflected beauty in the lim- 
 pid waves. The filaments of the confervas, lying deeper in 
 the fountain than one's own image, look like the green 
 hair of the naiads ; and it requires but little exercise 
 of the imagination, to fill up the exquisite forms with 
 their zones of rainbow drops and robes of filmy water- 
 moss, and the beautiful, pure, passionless faces of the 
 invisible bathers to whom the flowing, luxuriant tresses 
 belong. 
 
 By the fresh-water confervse we are brought to the 
 very boundaries of the inscrutable ; into those arcana of 
 nature where life, " reduced to its simplest expression, 
 seems invested with a deeper and more thrilling mystery." 
 They are the very lowest in the scale of vegetation, and 
 approximate so closely to certain animals both in form 
 and in vital functions, that the best naturalists are un- 
 able to draw the line of distinction between their simplest 
 species and the humblest animal organisms, or, indeed, 
 to determine whether they possess vitality or not. They 
 eonfound and neutralize the old arbitrary definitions of 
 the three kingdoms of nature. Neither the power of 
 voluntary motion, nor the faculty of sensation can be 
 called the characteristic by which they are separated 
 from animals ; nor can mere appearance or ostensible 
 mode of production be regarded as sufficient to distin- 
 guish them from minerals. All we can say regarding 
 them, and regarding the animals with which they form 
 connecting links, and into which some even say they 
 are transmuted, being animals at one period of their 
 lives and vegetables at another, is merely that the two
 
 THE PA GE OF NA TUBE. 127 
 
 lines or systems of life seem to start as it were from a 
 common point at the base ; the inferior forms bearing a 
 certain similarity to each other in structure and func- 
 tions, which gradually disappears as we ascend the scale 
 of development, until at the summit we behold those 
 vast differences which distinguish an elephant from a 
 palm-tree. 
 
 In this class of plants, minute and obscure although 
 they are, the infinite resources of creative power are 
 perhaps more clearly and overwhelmingly revealed to 
 our perceptions, than in even the highest orders of the 
 vegetable kingdom. The most unwearied research, con- 
 tinued for centuries, has not yet assigned limits to that 
 amazing variety which is their most remarkable feature, 
 numbering as they do species that baffle classification, 
 and within which a still more astounding variety of in- 
 dividual types are to be found. 
 
 Every one is familiar with that green slimy matter, 
 which during the spring and summer months creams 
 over the surface of the stagnant pool, the half dried-up 
 streamlet, or the wayside ditch ; but there are few who 
 regard it otherwise than as a disagreeable scum or im- 
 purity, to which in Scotland the expressive name of 
 slaak has been applied. It is in reality, however, an 
 aggregation of plants, perfect in all their parts, and 
 furnished with peculiar organs of nutrition and repro- 
 duction. Let us place a small portion of it on a concave 
 glass, containing a drop or two of water sufficient to float 
 it freely, and then place it under the microscope for ex- 
 amination, and what a beautiful spectacle is unfolded to 
 us ! That which to the naked eye. appears a mere
 
 128 
 
 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 gelatinous mass of shapeless filth, is found to be com- 
 posed of a thousand delicate and exquisitely formed 
 threads or filaments, which branch, radiate, and inter- 
 lace like the most beautiful net- work (Fig. 17). Each 
 of these threads is a transparent tube filled with endo- 
 chrome, or little green cells, forming different figures, 
 placed at regular intervals, and containing minute germs 
 floating in mucilaginous matter. This internal matter 
 is the fructification. When two filaments approximate, 
 each throws out from one side a small process, which 
 
 Fio. 17, CONFERVA 
 
 unites with a corresponding process from the side of the 
 other ; the two ends of the processes become absorbed, 
 and the interval between the two plants is thus bridged 
 
 over by a transverse tube. The endochrome of the one 
 
 
 
 cell then passes through the communication thus formed 
 into the other, and the contents of both cells become 
 intimately mixed and form a round mass, which ulti- 
 mately becomes the seeds or spores by which new 
 plants of the same kind are destined to be produced.
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 129 
 
 But how is it, it may be asked, that process meets 
 process in two contiguous filaments, and form between 
 them a germinating spore 1 By what power is a plant 
 given to understand, that a similar plant lies in its im- 
 mediate neighbourhood, ready to carry on the necessary 
 fructifying process 1 Certainly we can consider it no- 
 thing l^&"than a species of the same indefinable opera- 
 tion, which prompts the bee to construct a cell of an 
 hexagonal form, or a bird to build a nest in the manner 
 peculiar to its species. 
 
 We thus find that these obscure plants form no 
 exception to the very general, if not universal law, 
 that each species of living being requires two distinct 
 elements for its perpetuation. Sexual elements have 
 been detected in most of the cryptogamic plants, and 
 in a short time will probably be discovered in all. 
 The power of reproduction by segmentation, or the pro- 
 duction of numerous successions of asexual fertile gene- 
 rations, which, in common with many others of the 
 humblest organisms, vegetable and animal, the confervse 
 possess, is in all cases limited, the species necessarily re- 
 verting to sexual admixture for its perpetuation. The 
 germs produced by the conjugation of approximated in- 
 dividuals, when fully ripe, burst the cells in which they 
 are confined, and are consigned to the surrounding water, 
 where they float about, until they meet with some sub- 
 stance to which their mucilage enables them to adhere ; 
 and once established in a congenial situation, they spring 
 up into new plants, and extend themselves with amazing 
 rapidity, in a week or two producing thousands and tens 
 of thousands of individuals. Their lives rarely exceed a
 
 130 . FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 year in duration, many of them dying in the course of a 
 few months or weeks. They complete the process of 
 reproduction early in spring, and last during the 
 summer, perishing in the autumn, and disappearing 
 altogether in winter. No sooner does the ice, which had 
 bound up the streamlet in its silent fetters, melt under 
 the warm rays of the sun, allowing its water to flow 
 merrily on, and flash and sparkle in the sunbeams, than 
 every stone in its bed, though brown and naked before, 
 is suddenly, as if by magic, invested with a green velvet 
 coating, whose long graceful filaments float freely with 
 the water. Every ditch and marsh, every rivulet of 
 water, every hoof-mark and rut on the road where water 
 has accumulated, is filled with green clouds of these 
 mysterious plants. The purposes which they serve in 
 these situations are sufficiently obvious. Though asso- 
 ciated in our minds with stagnation, putrefaction, and 
 malaria, they are the scavengers, the water-filters of 
 nature. Like the flowers and the trees, which on dry 
 land remove the impurities with which the animal world 
 is continually tainting the atmosphere, they purify the 
 waters in which they occur, by assimilating the decaying 
 matter which they contain ; while their own tissues form 
 food and shelter to myriads of animalcules, which wander 
 over these to them trackless fields and endless mazes, 
 and convert the waste pools and ditches of the wayside 
 into scenes of busy life and enjoyment. This perfect 
 adjustment in the economy of the animal and vegetable 
 kingdoms, whereby the vital functions of each are main- 
 tained in the utmost efficiency, is one of the most beauti- 
 ful and striking phenomena of organic nature.
 
 THE PA GE OF NA TUBE. 1 3 1 
 
 The largest of the fresh-water algse is the River 
 Leinania (Lemania fluviatilis). It is never found 
 growing in stagnant waters ; indeed, it is said to languish 
 and die, when the streams in which it is produced have, 
 by some cause or other, been converted into motionless 
 pools. It loves to grow in clear swift rivers, flowing with 
 a strong current over a rough and rocky bed, and in 
 Alpine streamlets, on the very verge of the numerous 
 cascades which they form during their descent from the 
 hills. It is a matter of surprise how it can sustain the 
 immense force and weight of the impetuous waters, with- 
 out being uprooted and carried away. Examination willj 
 however, discover that it has been wonderfully provided 
 with means to enable it to brave the dangers to which 
 in such situations it is exposed. Its filaments are elastic, 
 rigid, and bristly, from three to six inches in length, 
 v about the size of a hog's bristle, and knotted throughout 
 at equal distances with prominent swelling joints, like 
 those of the bamboo cane. They spring from a tough 
 cartilaginous disk, so firmly applied to the rock as to 
 require a very considerable force to detach it. It is 
 impossible to convey in words, the same strong impres- 
 sion of fitness and perfection of contrivance, which a 
 glance at the plant in its native haunts would produce. 
 It appears one' of the most striking examples of that 
 compensatory adaptation of structure to requirements, 
 which we observe more or less in all the lowest plants ; 
 in the moss, which, considering its size, adheres with 
 more tenacity to its growing place than the oak of 
 centuries, that strikes out its roots over half an acre of 
 ground ; and in the minute crustaceous lichen, apparently
 
 132 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 as hard as the rock upon which it is produced, over 
 which the devastating storms of the Alpine summit sweep 
 for years without inflicting upon it the slightest injury. 
 
 The colour of the Lemania, when fresh, is of a fine 
 deep olive-green ; but it changes to black when dried 
 and placed in the herbarium. The dilatations or gouty 
 joints, are owing to the development of the sporules 
 within the fronds ; and these may be squeezed out by 
 being compressed between the fingers. The force with 
 which they naturally break through the tough and car- 
 tilaginous skin of the frond, in order to form independent 
 individuals, is not the least curious circumstance in the 
 economy of this strange plant. Bory, to whom we are 
 indebted for the name, informs us that the recent fila- 
 ments of the Lemania, owing to some unascertained gas 
 shut up in the knots, when applied to the flame of a candle 
 explode and extinguish it, while a remarkable movement 
 of retraction is felt by the fingers which hold them. 
 
 The confervas generally grow in single branchless 
 filaments, forming a loose fleecy stratum ; but sometimes 
 they are aggregated together into singular forms. There 
 is one species known as the water-net or water flannel, 
 (Hydrodiciyon utriculatum), which looks more like a piece 
 of green baize manufactured by man, than a production 
 of nature. It forms a beautiful tubular purse or net, 
 with regular polygonal meshes, varying from half a line 
 to half an inch in diameter, grey on the one side, and 
 green on the other. The filaments which compose these 
 meshes are sometimes slender as a horse hair, and some- 
 times as coarse as a hog's bristle, feeling harsh to the 
 touch when handled. There is no granular fructification
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE, 133 
 
 within the filaments, consequently the plant is propagated 
 viviparously, each of the articulations giving birth to 
 new filaments, which add new meshes to the net, and, in 
 this singular manner, a single individual often weaves 
 a green net-work covering over the whole surface of a 
 pond. It is not attached to any aquatic plants, but 
 floats freely in the water. It is rare in Scotland and 
 Ireland, but is of common occurrence in ponds and 
 ditches in the middle and south of England. 
 
 Another curious conferva, which departs widely from 
 the normal form, is the Moor Ball or Globe Conferva. 
 It is found occasionally in lakes in North Wales, in 
 Cumberland, and in the Highlands of Scotland. The 
 filaments radiating from a central point form dense round 
 pale-green balls, as if composed of faded silk thread, 
 sometimes four inches in diameter, and having a strong 
 resemblance to the hair balls that are found in the 
 stomachs of goats. They are sometimes employed as 
 pen-wipers in the places where they are found. These 
 balls float freely at a small depth in the water, and are 
 often washed ashore by the waves, where they accumulate 
 in dense masses, and are again covered over with a 
 parasitic confervoid growth. 
 
 In ditches by the waysides, may often be seen large 
 dark-green intensely slimy masses of rigid filaments as 
 thick as horse hair. This is the Zygnema (Fig. 18), 
 one of the largest and most curious of the confervse. 
 Under the microscope, the filaments are found joined 
 parallel to each other by transverse tubes, and marked 
 by articulations longer than broad. They are interesting 
 especially as exhibiting the spiral arrangement in their
 
 134 
 
 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 internal granular matter, in some cases like a continued 
 multiplication of the Roman numeral x, and in other 
 cases resembling a series of the letter v ; the spiral rings 
 after conjugating producing a dark coloured globule in 
 one of the filaments. The spiral, it may be remarked 
 is the first regular form which falls under the notice of 
 the unassisted vision, and unites in itself the two prin- 
 ciples of unity and variety. In the inner surface of the 
 cell it may be seen first of all ; and all the parts of the 
 plant subsequently added, whether microscopic or visible, 
 assume this form. So universal is the spiral tendency 
 
 FIG. 18. ZTGNEMA DECIJIINUM. 
 
 throughout the vegetable kingdom, that some botanists 
 have asserted it to be a general fact, that, beginning with 
 the cotyledons or seed-lobes, the whole of the appendages 
 of the axes of plants, leaves, calyx, corolla, stamens, 
 and carpels, form in their normal state an uninterrupted 
 spiral, governed by laws which are nearly constant. It 
 is very interesting to trace in the obscure and humble 
 organisms under consideration, the order and harmony 
 which are so characteristic of the highest works of 
 creation, which are in striking accordance with the 
 native principles of beauty implanted in the human mind,
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 
 
 135 
 
 and which proceed, we must believe, from infinite wis- 
 dom. The Zygnemas form the principal fresh-water 
 alga? of India, occurring in pools and streams in the 
 central districts, as well as among the Himalayas. They 
 ascend as high as 15,000 feet on these mountains, 
 forming cloudy masses in the ice-cold springs which 
 trickle from the edges of glaciers. 
 
 There is a very remarkable class of confervse called 
 OscillatoriaB, on account of the singular oscillating motion 
 observed in the filaments by various naturalists, thus 
 connecting them apparently with the animal kingdom; 
 
 .j/ S's-a-t 
 
 FlO. 19. OSCILLATORIA N1GKA. 
 
 the power of voluntary motion being one of the chief 
 characteristics essentially distinguishing animal from 
 vegetable life. These Oscillatorise grow in masses of fila- 
 ments based on a mucilaginous substance, the remains 
 of old dead individuals deprived of their colour and 
 agglutinated together, the whole emitting a strong odour 
 of sulphuretted hydrogen which is extremely disagreeable, 
 and sometimes causes severe headache. They have been 
 found in a great variety of situations, ascending as high 
 as 17,000 feet, or even 18,000 feet on the Himalayas.
 
 136 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 Some species grow in moist, damp places, where they 
 form a thin glossy-black pellicle of indefinite extent over 
 the ground, strongly resembling, when dry, a piece of 
 black satin (Fig. 19). Others are found in ditches and 
 ponds; a third species spreads extensively over damp 
 walls in autumn and winter, a peculiar variety covering 
 the damp walls in the inside of some Suffolk churches 
 with bright sky-blue mould-like patches ; a fourth is 
 often found on rotten timber, and trunks of aged trees 
 where rain-water trickles down. They may be found 
 parasitic upon mosses in rapid streams, and forming 
 thick glossy strata of a dull-brown or vivid-green colour, 
 at the bottom of clear, tranquil linns, wherever a film of 
 soil is allowed to accumulate upon the naked slippery 
 rocks. They are found in sulphur springs, forming pale 
 yellow continuous tufts wherever the water retains sen- 
 sible sulphureous qualities, as if the hepatic gas were 
 necessary to their growth ; and in the celebrated warm 
 waters of Bath, a peculiar species grows in broad velvet- 
 like patches of a dark-green colour. Their vitality is so 
 great that they are capable of enduring the extremes of 
 heat and cold, for they have been found on fragments of 
 ice in Melville Island, where the temperature is consider- 
 ably below zero; and they have been found growing in 
 thermal springs in different parts of the globe, where the 
 heat is sometimes so great that the inhabitants of the 
 surrounding districts dress their food over them, and use 
 them for other economic purposes instead of fire. 
 
 A magnificent species forms thick woolly fleeces of a 
 deep red colour, in the central and western districts of 
 India, occurring in great profusion in the hot/sweltering
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 137 
 
 valleys of the great Runjeet, ascending into Nepaul and 
 the lower slopes of the Himalayas. The most singular 
 member of this curious group, however, is the Tricho- 
 desmium erythrceum of Ehrenberg. It occurs in extra- 
 ordinary profusion in the Red Sea, over the surface of 
 which it spreads for many miles, according to the direc- 
 tion of the wind, in the form of a dark-red shining scum. 
 It is composed of little bundles of filaments marked with 
 striae, which have been compared to minute fragments 
 of chopped hay. In certain states of the weather it 
 emits a disagreeable, pungent smell, affecting strongly 
 the mucous membrane, and causing violent sneezing and 
 ophthalmia, thus adding to the list of annoyances which 
 render the passage of the Red Sea peculiarly disagree- 
 able to passengers from the West. The habit of this 
 alga is widely different from that of its congeners, and 
 resembles that of the Sargassurns or Gulf-weeds, which 
 form extensive floating meadows to the west of the 
 Azores, and are supposed to indicate the site of sub- 
 merged lands. The name of the Red Sea greatly puzzled 
 the ancients, and has occasioned in later times a display 
 of much superfluous learning to determine whether it 
 was derived from the colour of the water, the reflection 
 of the red coral sand-banks and the neighbouring moun- 
 tains, or the solar rays struggling through a dense 
 atmosphere. Another conjecture may be hazarded, that 
 it has acquired its denomination from the extreme pre- 
 valence and conspicuousness of this red alga in its 
 waters. 
 
 The filaments of all the species of Oscillatoria are 
 elastic, simple, exceedingly minute, and mathematically
 
 138 . FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 straight. They are distinguished by close parallel rings 
 easily separating from each other. The motion of oscil- 
 lation, for which all the species are distinguished, is in 
 some remarkably vivid, and would favour the supposition 
 that they are animals and not plants, were it not that 
 their other characteristics are peculiarly those of vege- 
 tables. The filaments continually move from right to 
 left, or from left to right, but in a very irregular manner, 
 some going in one direction and others in another ; some 
 bei^g at rest while others are in motion. This lateral 
 oscillation has been attributed to various causes. The 
 majority of naturalists, inclining to the opinion that it 
 is mechanical and not voluntary, have ascribed it to 
 rapidity of growth, which, in such simple plants, is ex- 
 cessive ; to the molecular action of light, or to the agita- 
 tion, by hidden causes, of the water in which the fila- 
 ments are immersed for inspection. But none of these 
 suppositions afford a satisfactory explanation, as Captain 
 Carmichael ascertained by the following simple contriv- 
 ance : He placed a small portion of the stratum of a 
 species of Oscillatoria, composed of a great many indivi- 
 duals united together, in a watch-glass filled with water, 
 and covered it with a thin plate of mica, which effectually 
 excluded the outer air, and kept the water as motionless 
 and fixed as a piece of ice. The glass, with its contents 
 thus arranged, was placed under the microscope, and the 
 oscillation of the filaments was observed most vividly, 
 there being no possibility of disturbance by the agitation 
 of the water, showing clearly that this singular move- 
 ment was independent of that cause. " The action of 
 light," says this accomplished naturalist, " as a cause of
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. ' 139 
 
 motion, cannot be directly disproved, because we cannot 
 view our specimens in the dark ; but indirectly there is 
 nothing easier. If a watch-glass, charged as above, be 
 laid aside for a night, it will be found that by next 
 morning not only a considerable radiation has taken 
 place, but that multitudes of the filaments have entirely 
 escaped from the stratum, both indicating motion in- 
 dependent of light. Rapidity of growth will show itself 
 in a prolongation of the filaments, but will not account 
 for this oscillation to the right and left, and still less for 
 their travelling in the course of a few hours to the dis- 
 tance of ten times their own length from the stratum. 
 This last is a kind of motion unexampled, I believe, in 
 the vegetable kingdom." Many species, it may be re- 
 marked, possess at their extremity a tuft of very minute, 
 delicate ciliaB, which possess the power of imparting 
 motion to the filaments on which they are developed. 
 Another strange fact in the economy of these very sin- 
 gular and anomalous plants, is the extremely limited 
 term of their existence. Their cycle of life is often com- 
 pleted in three or four days. The community of in- 
 dividuals associated together in one patch or stratum 
 live for several months; but the individuals themselves 
 die off, and are succeeded by others with a rapidity truly 
 marvellous. The remains of the dead filaments form the 
 bases of the living ones, and thus they go on increasing 
 in depth and breadth until they often cover the whole 
 bed of a streamlet. This peculiarity connects them with 
 the coral-zoophytes, and supplies another link between 
 the animal and vegetable kingdoms. 
 
 Several obscure and curious organisms have been in-
 
 140 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 eluded by botanists in this vast and varied order of plants, 
 some of which are supposed to be fungi in an embryonic 
 or imperfectly developed state. They are composed of 
 hyaline or coloured articulated filaments, aggregated to- 
 gether and forming a kind of fibrous crust, sprinkled over 
 with loose granules, which are supposed to be the fruc- 
 tification. The localities where many of them are found 
 prove that they are not genuine algse. One curious 
 species is found on windows and damp glass in shady 
 places, where it forms round white spots, radiating like 
 a spider's web from a centre, and sprinkled with minute, 
 whitish, powdery particles. Another forms simple, trans- 
 parent, club-shaped filaments, from a line to an inch in 
 length, on the bodies of fishes and dead flies, found on 
 decaying leaves and weeds in the water. Several species 
 are found in chemical solutions and various infusions, 
 such as distilled rose-water, dissolved muriate of barytes, 
 and gum-dragon. The white flocculent matter often 
 found on the surface of old stale ink, and the yellow 
 hyaline filaments found at the bottom of wine bottles, 
 are referred to this class of plants, to which the generic 
 name of Hygrocrocis has been given, from their byssoid 
 nature, and the situations which they affect. There is 
 one species, the saffron rock byssus (Chroolepus aureus), 
 which deserves, on account of its beauty, more than a 
 passing notice. Unlike the other confervoid algae, which 
 are found in moist situations or in water, it is restricted 
 to the shady side of overhanging cliffs, trunks of trees, 
 leaves and other objects, and never grows in water. It 
 is abundant in the Highlands of Scotland, in deep, leaf- 
 embowered ravines near a mountain-lake or waterfall.
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 141 
 
 It grows among dense cushions of the beautiful apple 
 and other mosses, to which it affords a fine contrast by 
 its velvety tufts of a deep orange colour, which are ren- 
 dered especially brilliant by the stray sunbeams that 
 chance to reach their growing-place. In similar locali- 
 ties, and particularly on the micaceous rocks on the 
 Highland mountains, may often be observed its Ethiopian 
 relative, the black rock byssus (Chroolepus ebeneus), form- 
 ing a thin, black, velvety patch of indefinite extent, 
 composed of fine, branched, black hairs, closely matted 
 together, and sometimes sprinkled over with black pow- 
 der. Few would suspect its vegetable character ; indeed, 
 it bears a greater resemblance to a piece of black felt 
 scraped from a hat than to any plant. Both*these plants 
 are supposed to be peculiar states of certain lichens, their 
 reproductive bodies being very similar. What a con- 
 vincing proof do these heterogeneous productions, grow- 
 ing as they do on the most unlikely substances, and in 
 the most unfavourable situations, afford us that the ten- 
 dency to vegetate is a power restless, perpetual, and 
 universal ! 
 
 The extraordinary phenomenon of red snow has long 
 been familiarly known to scientific men in this and other 
 countries, and has naturally enough excited the greatest 
 interest. This singular colour in a substance with which 
 we are accustomed to associate ideas of spotless purity 
 and radiant whiteness, has been ascertained to result 
 from an immense aggregation of minute plants belonging 
 to the family now under consideration. They form the 
 species called Protococcus nivalis (Fig. 20), in allusion 
 to the extreme primitiveness of its organization, and the
 
 U2 . FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 peculiar nature of its habitat. If we place a portion of 
 the snow coloured with this plant upon a piece of white 
 paper, and allow it to melt and evaporate, we find a 
 residuum of granules just sufficient to give a faint crim- 
 son tinge to the paper. Placed under the microscope 
 these granules resolve themselves into spherical purple 
 cells, from the I0 1 00 th to the -ginnr^ P ar t of an inch in 
 diameter. Each of these cells has an opening, surrounded 
 by serrated or indented lines, whose smallest diameter 
 measures only the -g-gV^th part of an inch. The plant, 
 when perfect, bears no inapt resemblance to a red-currant 
 
 FIG. 20. PBOTOCOCCUS NIVALIS. 
 
 berry; as it decays, the red colouring matter gradually 
 fades into a deep orange, which finally appears to change 
 into a brown hue. The thickness of the wall of the 
 cell does not exceed the 20 ^ 0o th part of an inch. Each 
 one of the cells may be regarded as a distinct individual 
 plant, since it is perfectly independent of others with 
 which it may be aggregated, and performs for and by 
 itself all the functions of growth and reproduction, hav- 
 ing a containing membrane which absorbs liquids and 
 gases from the surrounding matrix or elements, a con- 
 tained fluid of peculiar character formed out of these 
 materials, and a number of excessively minute granules
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 143 
 
 equivalent to spores, or, as some would say, to cellular 
 buds, which are to become the germs of new plants. 
 There is something extremely mysterious in the perform- 
 ance of these widely different functions, by an organism 
 which appears so excessively simple. That one and the 
 same primitive cell should thus minister equally to 
 absorption, nutrition, and reproduction, is an extraordi- 
 nary illustration of the fact, that the smallest and sim- 
 plest organized object is in itself, and, for the part it 
 was created to perform in the operations of nature, as 
 admirably adapted as the largest and most complicated. 
 Saussure, the celebrated geologist, appears to have 
 been the first scientific person who noticed this produc- 
 tion, for in his " Voyages dans les Alpes," he states that 
 he found considerable patches of it near the snow-crowned 
 summit of Mont Breven, in Switzerland, so long ago as 
 the year 1760, and afterwards very frequently and in 
 great abundance in -his wanderings over the Pennine 
 Alps, and particularly on the Col du Ge'ant on the ascent 
 of Mont Blanc. After this period several eminent botan- 
 ists collected it in various places ; Hammond on the 
 snow-capped peaks of the Pyrenees, and Sommerfeldt 
 on the Doffrefels and other lofty hills in Norway. In 
 March 1808, red or rather rose-coloured snow fell in 
 considerable quantities in the Tyrol, and on the moun- 
 tains of Carinthia in Illyria; and over Carnia, Cadore, Bel- 
 luno, and Feltri, to such an extent that the hills were 
 covered with it to the depth of six feet. Ten years later, 
 it is recorded that enormous quantities of the same sub- 
 stance were spread like a bloody pall over the Apennines 
 and the other Italian hills, occasioning no small alarm
 
 144 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 among the superstitious inhabitants of the surrounding 
 districts, who looked upon it as a dreadful omen of im- 
 pending calamity, and sought refuge from their fears in 
 various protective ceremonies. Among the Peruvian 
 mountains, Darwin relates that on several patches of snow 
 he found this curious appearance. His attention was 
 called to it by observing the footsteps of the mules 
 stained a pale red, as if their hoofs had been slightly 
 bloody. The snow was coloured only where it had 
 thawed very rapidly, or had been accidentally crushed. 1 
 It is in the Arctic regions, however, that the red snow is 
 found most frequently, and in the greatest luxuriance. 
 Sir John Ross, during his memorable expedition to these 
 regions in 1808, found on the 16th of June in about 
 latitude 75, a range of cliffs rising about 800 feet above 
 the level of the sea, and extending eight miles in length, 
 entirely covered with snow, which seemed as though it 
 had been watered by some crimson decoction. Sir W. E. 
 Parry found the same phenomenon, during his heroic 
 attempt to reach the Pole by travelling over the ice in 
 1827 ; and ascertained besides, that wherever the surface 
 of the snow-plain, although previously of its ordinary 
 spotless hue, was crushed by the pressure of the sledges 
 and of the footsteps of the party, blood-like stains ap- 
 peared most visibly; the impressions being sometimes 
 tinged with an orange colour, and sometimes appearing 
 of a pale salmon hue. 
 
 Red snow, however, seems by no means peculiar to the 
 
 i It is a curious circumstance, that Dr. Hooker never met with a single 
 specimen of red snow, during all his wanderings over the lofty snow sur- 
 faces of the Sikkim Himalayas, especially as on almost every mountain 
 range elevated above the line of perpetual snow, it has been seen, often in 
 abundance.
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 145 
 
 Arctic regions, or the highly elevated mountains of the 
 globe. It has been discovered spreading over decayed 
 leaves and mosses on the borders of small lakes, and in 
 water tanks in hot-houses ; and in greater perfection on 
 limestone rocks within reach of the spray of the ocean 
 in Lismore, an island off the coast of Argyleshire. W. 
 H. Harvey, the distinguished Irish botanist, found small 
 patches on micaceous schist near Miltown Malbay, on 
 calcareous rocks at Limerick, and in the neighbourhood 
 of Dublin on granite, with only an occasional supply of 
 moisture. On Ben Nevis and Ben Lawers I have more 
 than once detected specimens, upon the surface of the 
 large masses of unmelted snow, with which the summits 
 of these mountains are sometimes covered even in the 
 depth of summer. 
 
 The fact that the red snow is capable of growing in 
 such spots as those in which it has chiefly been found in 
 Britain, namely, on rocks, leaves, and mosses, exposed to 
 occasional or frequent inundations of water, seems to 
 prove that the ice- plains of the Arctic regions, and the 
 snow-crowned sides and summits of the European moun- 
 tains, are not its natural situations. When, however, its 
 germs have once been deposited in these barren and 
 cheerless localities, the simplicity of its organization, and 
 the consequent strong persistency of the vital principle 
 in it, enable it effectually to resist the cold ; and with that 
 extraordinary power of rapid development which char- 
 acterizes in a greater or less degree all the members of 
 the family to which it belongs, it forms in a few years, 
 when nourished by the moisture produced by the melting 
 of the icy snow during summer, vast and dense masses, 
 K
 
 146 
 
 FOO TNO TES FROM 
 
 sometimes twelve feet in depth, and extending many 
 miles in length, which afford by their strange contrast 
 to the painful uniformity of the pure and dazzling white- 
 ness all around, a sight more surprising to the Arctic or 
 the Alpine traveller than would be the realization of all 
 the fabled wonders of the Arabian tales. 
 
 Another supposed species of Protococcus was disco- 
 vered by Baron Wrangel in the province of Nerike or 
 Nericia in Sweden, not far from the town of Orebo, and 
 
 FIG. 21. PALMELLA CKUESTTA. 
 
 (a) Fructification slightly magnified, 
 (ft) Fructification much magnified. 
 
 (c) Fructification highly magnified. Cells dividing into two, and then into 
 four parts, each capable of propagating the plant 
 
 named by him Lepraria Kermesina. The same plant was 
 afterwards found by various continental botanists among 
 the fissures of rocks, and on the under surfaces of stones 
 in various localities, and called by them Protococcus viri- 
 dis, or green snow. It was also observed by Martins in 
 similar situations in Spitsbergen. It is now, however, 
 ascertained beyond doubt to be a mere variety of Proto- 
 coccus nivalis, as it is identical with it in every respect 
 save colour ; and this difference is owing to the different 
 nature of the circumstances in which it is developed.
 
 THE PAGE OF NATUJtE. 147 
 
 The actinic power of the solar light, aided by some pecu- 
 liar, and as yet unknown property belonging to the natu- 
 ral whiteness of the snow itself, is highly essential in the 
 production of the beautiful crimson or rose colour, by 
 which the red snow is distinguished ; but this colour, as 
 in the case of the varieties mentioned above, gradually 
 changes to green when secluded from the direct action 
 of light, and developed on dark or opaque objects. 
 
 Another extremely curious plant closely allied to the red 
 snow is ihePalmella cruenta (Fig. 21) or Gory Dew. Like 
 the Protococcus it consists of a number of aggregated 
 globose cells, forming a very thin crust-like frond of a 
 dark blood colour. Each of the cells divides first into 
 two, then into four parts, each capable of propagating 
 the plant. It grows on damp limestone in the open air, 
 or on whitewashed walls, particularly in cellars, and the 
 mouldering rooms of old neglected buildings, and figures 
 largely in the history of the superstitions of the middle 
 ages. Pitarello, a peasant residing at Legnaro, near 
 Padua, observed large patches of it covering the walls of 
 an old and rarely visited room in his house, which so 
 closely resembled huge clots of venous blood, that the 
 greatest curiosity and consternation were excited. The 
 streets of Padua leading to Legnaro were thronged by 
 anxious crowds hastening to inspect the phenomenon, and 
 full of the calamities it foreboded. Many regarded it as 
 a direct judgment of God upon the unhappy peasant, for 
 having forestalled corn during the famine. During the 
 last invasion of epidemic cholera, thesame plant was found 
 in abundance, purpling the ground near Oxford, as if red 
 wine or blood had been poured out.
 
 143 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 In connexion with the present subject, it may be inter- 
 esting to glance over the several examples of blood pro- 
 digies which history furnishes. The almost unanimous 
 judgment of modern times has stamped these examples 
 as pure fables ; but I think it is easy to account 
 for the presence in them of so much that seems in- 
 credible, and to show how that into which the apparently 
 fabulous enters in so large a proportion, can yet be 
 received in the main as true history. Our present in- 
 vestigations will go far to evince that the great bulk of 
 what ancient writers hand down to us as prodigies and 
 miracles, is capable of explanation on grounds intelligible 
 to any ordinary understanding : and thus that history, 
 so far as these things are concerned, may be true in its 
 narrative of facts, though it be often in error in the 
 view it takes of the nature of the facts narrated. That 
 rivers have run blood, that skies have rained blood, that 
 the very bread in men's houses has been sprinkled with 
 blood, and thus ministered death instead of nourish- 
 ment to those who have eaten it, and that consecrated 
 wafers and priestly vestments have repeatedly exhi- 
 bited these horrible appearances, that all these won- 
 derful things have really happened, we have every 
 reason to believe, from the circumstantial accounts of 
 them given in records purporting to be authentic, 
 received as such by the age that produced them, and 
 preserved and handed down as such to our own times. 
 We believe the facts ; but we do not believe the ex- 
 planation given of them, or the inferences deduced from 
 them ; our superior scientific knowledge enabling us to 
 account, on natural grounds, for what, in an age of
 
 THE PA GE OF NA TURE. 149 
 
 ignorance and superstition, appeared prodigies of fatal 
 presage. 
 
 There is an instructive resume of Ehrenberg's paper 
 on this curious subject in Cfiambers's Journal, from 
 which the following paragraph of portents is extracted : 
 " Appearances of blood flowing from bread when 
 bitten, are recorded as occurring at Tours in 583 ; at 
 Spires in 1104; at Namur in 1193; at Rochelle in 
 1163, and at many other places. At Augsburg, in 1199, 
 a person having kept the consecrated wafer in his mouth, 
 brought it at a later period to the priest changed into flesh 
 and blood. Pilgrimages were not unfrequently made to 
 witness bleeding hosts, as that of Doberan in 1201 ; 
 and that of Balitz, near Berlin, which had been sacrile- 
 giously sold by a girl to a Jew. In 1296, the Jews at 
 Rotil, near Frankfort, having been reported to have 
 caused a host to bleed which they had bought, a fana- 
 tical persecution of these people took place, whereby 
 10,000 were said to have been slaughtered. Several 
 Jews were burned at Giistrow, in Mecklenburg, for a 
 similar offence. In 1492, a priest, one Peter Dove, re- 
 siding in Mecklenburg, sold two hosts to a Jew for the 
 purpose of redeeming a pawn ; and they having pierced 
 them, abundance of blood flowed out. The priest, now 
 tormented with remorse, confessed the transaction, and 
 betrayed the Jews ; twenty of their number were burned 
 on an eminence at Sternberg, since called Judenberg, 
 and at this very Judenberg did the Mecklenburg deputies 
 recently commence their sittings. In 1510, thirty- 
 eight Jews were executed and then burned, for ' having 
 tormented a consecrated host until the blood came.'
 
 150 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 The bleeding of the host, produced in consequence of 
 the scepticism of the officiating priest, gave rise to the 
 miracle of Bolsena in 1264, the priest's garment stained 
 with blood being preserved until quite recent times as a 
 relic. This gave rise to the foundation of the festival of 
 the Corpus Christi by Urban iv., although Raphael, 
 painting his celebrated picture in 1512, substitutes 
 Julius n." 
 
 Dr. D'Aubigne", in his History of the Reformation, 
 thus describes from the writings of Zwingle in a some- 
 what inflated, but vivid and interesting style, the ap- 
 pearance of a similar phenomenon : "On the 26th of 
 July, a widow, chancing to be alone in her house, in the 
 village of Castelenschloss, suddenly beholds a frightful 
 spectacle, blood springing from the earth all around her ; 
 she rushes in alarm into the cottage . . . but oh, horrible ! 
 blood is flowing everywhere, from the earth, from the 
 wainscot, and from the stones ; it falls in a stream from 
 a basin on a shelf, and even the child's cradle overflows 
 with it. The woman imagines that the invisible hand 
 of an assassin has been at work, and rushes in distrac- 
 tion out of doors, crying, ' Murder, murder !' The vil- 
 lagers and the monks of a neighbouring convent as- 
 semble at the noise ; they partly succeed in effacing the 
 bloody stains ; but a little later in the day the other in- 
 habitants of the house, sitting down in terror to eat 
 their evening meal under the projecting eaves, suddenly 
 discover blood bubbling up in a pond, blood flowing 
 from the loft, blood covering all the walls of the house. 
 Blood, blood ! everywhere blood ! The bailiff of Schen- 
 kenberg and the pastor of Dalheim arrive, inquire into
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 151 
 
 the matter, and immediately report it to the Lords of 
 Berne and to Zwingle." 
 
 This extraordinary and alarming effusion of blood, 
 along with the previously mentioned instances of bleed- 
 ing hosts, although plainly exaggerated by the dilated 
 eye of fear, which in those troubled times saw every- 
 where frightful portents and terrific signs, apparently 
 foreboding the most calamitous events, were no doubt 
 owing to the excessive development, under peculiarly 
 favourable circumstances, of an exceedingly minute alga, 
 bearing a strong superficial resemblance to the red snow 
 plant. This alga was called by Ehrenberg the purple 
 monad, under the impression that it was an animalcule. 
 More accurate researches, however, have since deter- 
 mined its vegetable nature, and it is now called Palmella 
 prodiffiosa, from the wonderful rapidity with which it 
 develops and extends itself. The body of this curious 
 atom is but from the one three-thousandth, to the one 
 eight-thousandth of a line (twelfth of an inch) in 
 length. In a cubic inch from 46,656,000,000,000 to 
 884,736,000,000,000 may therefore exist, a number, 
 of course, utterly beyond the range of human words and 
 conceptions, and which would take many thousands of 
 persons working unceasingly from the creation of man to 
 the present day to count. Like the red-snow plant, 
 it first of all appears in the form of small, bright, red 
 points, like so many coloured minute dew-drops, or the 
 roe of fishes, composed of inconceivable myriads of in- 
 dividuals, which afterwards unite into large red-currant- 
 jelly-like patches, coalescing and penetrating the sub- 
 stances upon which they are produced. Its peculiar
 
 152 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 habit would seem rather to indicate affinity with the 
 fungi than with the algae. 
 
 The accounts of blood -prodigies found in ancient his- 
 tory, are matched by well-authenticated phenomena which 
 have presented themselves within the memory of many 
 now living. So late as the beginning of this century, 
 the excessive growth of red algae on the surface of the 
 Elbe made that river for several days seem to run blood; 
 while shortly afterwards some portions of the Nile 
 reddened in the same way, and remained blood-like and 
 putrid for many months. In Silliman's North American 
 Journal, there appeared several years ago, a description 
 of an extraordinary fountain of blood discovered in 
 South America. A person approaching the grotto from 
 which the waters flowed observed a disagreeable odour, 
 and when it was reached, he saw several pools of the 
 blood in a state of coagulation. Dogs ate it eagerly. The 
 late Don Raphael Osijo undertook to send some bottles of 
 this singular liquid rivalling the famous blood of St. Jan- 
 uarius- to London for analysis, but it corrupted within 
 twenty-four hours, bursting the bottles. Before the potato- 
 blight broke out in 1 846, red mould spots appeared on wet 
 linen surfaces exposed to the airinbleaching-greens, as well 
 as on household linens kept in damp places in Ireland. In 
 September 1848, Dr. Eckard, of Berlin, while attending 
 a cholera patient, observed the same appearance on a 
 plate of potatoes which had been placed in a cupboard 
 of the patient's house. The potatoes were transmitted 
 for examination to Ehrenberg, who found the colouring 
 matter to consist of extremely minute algae, or animalcules 
 as he called them, somewhat allied to the Palmella pro-
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 153 
 
 digiosa. In the spring of the year 1825, the waters of the 
 Lake of Morat presented an appearance in many places 
 of being coloured with blood, and popular attention was 
 speedily directed to this strange occurrence. M. de 
 Candolle, however, proved that the phenomenon in ques- 
 tion was caused by the development of myriads of the 
 purple conferva (Oscillatoria nibescens). The pheno- 
 menon occurred every spring for several years, when the 
 fishermen of the neighbourhood, more poetical than this 
 class of persons usually are, remarked that " the lake 
 was in flower." M. Montagne records a similar pheno- 
 menon in the Comptes Rendus. He happened to be 
 at the Chateau du Parquet in July 1852, when the tem- 
 perature had been exceedingly high for about ten succes- 
 sive days. This continued warmth of the atmosphere, was 
 probably instrumental in providing the conditions suit- 
 able for the development of a red parasite, which attacked 
 all kinds of alimentary substances, and particularly 
 pastry, imparting to them a bright red colour, resem- 
 bling arterial blood. " The servants," he observes, " much 
 astonished at what they saw, brought us half a fowl 
 roasted the previous evening, which was literally covered 
 with a gelatinous layer of a very intense carmine-red, and 
 only of a bright rose colour where the layer was thinner. 
 A cut melon also presented some traces of it. Some 
 cooked cauliflower which liad been thrown away, and 
 which I did not see, also, according to the people of the 
 house, presented the same appearance. Lastly, three 
 days afterwards, the leg of a fowl was also attacked by 
 the same production." From a microscopic examina- 
 tion, M. Montagne concluded it to be the same thing
 
 154 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 as described by Ehrenberg. The particles of which it is 
 composed have an active molecular motion, and hence 
 Ehrenberg's mistake in supposing it to be an animalcule. 
 Its resemblance to the gelatinous specks which occur on 
 mouldy paste, or raw meat in an incipient state of de- 
 composition, would seem to indicate that it is a fungus 
 allied to the moulds, and not an alga. Its vitality is 
 not impaired by desiccation, even at a high temperature/ 
 A portion of paste containing this Palmella was 'dried in 
 an oven for forty-eight hours, until nearly baked into 
 biscuit, yet fragments of it readily grew when scattered 
 on fresh-made dough. 
 
 A red colour, closely resembling blood, not unfre- 
 quently astonishes the sailor in some parts of the ocean. 
 Captain Tuckey mentions that the water of the Gulf of 
 California is reddish, whence it is sometimes called the 
 Vermilion Sea. Captain Colnett, in his interesting voy- 
 ages, states that " the set of the currents on the coast of 
 Chili, may at all times be known by noticing the direction 
 of the beds of small blubber (gelatinous algae) with which 
 the coast abounds, and from which the water derives a 
 colour like that of blood. I have often been engaged," he 
 adds, " for a whole day in passing through various sets 
 of them." D'Orbigny also remarks that there are immense 
 tracts off the coast of Brazil filled with small animals so 
 numerous as to impart a red colour to the sea ; large por- 
 tions are thus highly coloured, and receive from the sailors 
 the name of the Brazil bank, which extends over a 
 great part of the coast of the country, keeping at nearly 
 the same distance from the shore. Another bank of the 
 same kind occurs near Cape Horn in latitude 57, and
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 155 
 
 was encountered by Captain Cook during his third 
 voyage. Mr. Scoresby narrates that he noticed in his 
 last expedition to the Arctic regions in 1823, some in- 
 sulated patches of reddish brown water, which were 
 found to be occasioned by minute algse ; and often too 
 were the floating icebergs tinged with them of a carmine 
 or deep orange hue. Ehrenberg frequently observed in 
 the steppes of Siberia, lakes and other collections , of 
 water filled with red algse. " In a fen," he remarks, 
 " with a pool of water, the dark-red blood colour was 
 very striking even at a distance. This colour I found 
 on examination was confined to the slimy surface, which 
 in different places formed a shining skin. The red 
 colour was darkest at the edge of the marsh." How 
 many a wonderful fairy tale has science divested of its 
 gilded ornaments, and converted into hard fact and un- 
 varnished truth ! And how many a phenomenon, mag- 
 nified by the unthinking ignorance and credulity of 
 vulgar superstition into an evidence of supernatural 
 agency, and an omen of future calamity, has the micro- 
 scope resolved into a mere collection of minute and simple 
 vegetables, or equally harmless animalcules ! 
 
 There is a startling thought suggested by these ac- 
 counts of blood-prodigies. Occurring as most of them 
 did before the outbreak of epidemics which they were 
 supposed to herald, they obviously point to the conclu- 
 sion that they were developed by abnormal conditions of 
 the atmosphere. In ordinary circumstances, but few either 
 of the animals or plants which caused these alarming 
 appearances are produced, and then only in obscure and 
 isolated localities ; but their seeds lie around us in im-
 
 156 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 mense profusion, waiting but the recurrence of similar 
 atmospheric conditions as existed in former times, to ex- 
 hibit as extraordinary a development. For all we know 
 there may be existing amongst us the germs of other 
 forms of life, ready to develop themselves into new mani- 
 festations of the power and wisdom of God, if it should 
 please Him to adapt the vital envelope of our globe to 
 the uses of other occupants. The present electrical con- 
 dition of the air is admirably adapted for the healthy 
 development of the forms of life that now exist in it ; 
 and so likewise is the water for the organisms that per- 
 vade it. But who can tell what species of plants and 
 animals would succeed the present species, were there 
 but the smallest change effected in the proportions of 
 the constituents of these elements 1 Geology reveals 
 to us the singular fact that, when the air and the water 
 were densely impregnated with carbonic gas during the 
 coal era, an extraordinary development of the humblest 
 forms of animal and plant life was the result. The earth 
 was covered with dense forests of ferns and mosses, and 
 the waters were peopled with myriads of corallines. 
 And were similar conditions of the atmosphere and the 
 water to occur again, or should any change be produced 
 in the existing conditions, the change, while it would 
 prove fatal to the most highly organized of the present 
 race of animals and plants, would stimulate into excessive 
 growth and profusion animals and plants of the simplest 
 construction, which are now kept in check, and occupy 
 but the most obscure and subordinate positions in the 
 ranks of nature's agencies. And if the advent of wide- 
 spread plagues in the middle ages was heralded by the
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 157 
 
 vast development of the confervas and infusoria, we are 
 led by a cogent induction to conclude that it is a change 
 of the air and water which breeds the epidemic, and 
 that these are the first growths of that new animal and 
 vegetable kingdom which would succeed the existing 
 forms, if mankind were to be swept away ! 
 
 The subdivision of the conferva? to which the red 
 snow and the gory dew belong, contains the simplest of 
 all vegetable forms, if, indeed, they be plants at all, 
 occurring in shapeless gelatinous masses of all hues, 
 covering irrigated perpendicular cliffs in dark and shady 
 places, or rocks exposed to the spray of waterfalls, and 
 frequently hanging down in flakes from their surface. 
 Their extreme simplicity is more puzzling to the botanist 
 than any amount of complexity would have been. Their 
 fundamental structure, in almost all cases, appears to be 
 simply a mass of cells variously arranged in a jelly-like 
 polymorphous substance, to which the name of frond 
 has been applied, more for the sake of convenience 
 than from any sense of its propriety; each cell being 
 a distinct individual plant, apparently having no 
 connexion with the other cells to which it is placed 
 in juxtaposition, and performing for and by itself 
 all the processes of nutrition and reproduction. The 
 question naturally arises, whether these obscure and 
 extremely simple organisms which stand at the very 
 lowest extremity of the vegetable kingdom, be really 
 perfect plants, or rather the commencement, the first of 
 the transitional stages of more highly organized plants, 
 unable to develop themselves owing to their being placed 
 in unfavourable circumstances 1 Some eminent botanists
 
 158 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 have contended that the spore germs of the lower cryp- 
 togamic plants are in all cases precisely the same, deve- 
 loping themselves into different plants according to the 
 medium and the circumstances in which they are placed : 
 becoming palmellas when produced on moist rocks, con- 
 fervse in streams, confervoid mosses on shady banks 
 and fields, lichens on dry rocks when stimulated by the 
 action of light, and fungi when produced on decaying 
 substances, and excluded from air and light ; and this 
 opinion seems to be strengthened by the fact so well 
 known to botanists, that the permanent organization of 
 the lowest plants is very frequently only the temporary 
 or transitional condition of higher, and that so close is 
 the resemblance between them that without due care in 
 watching the progress of their development, they may 
 easily be set down as distinct species. To this theory 
 of development, however, plausible though it looks, I 
 do not subscribe. Some of these productions may not 
 be autonomous, some may seem to pass into each other 
 by intermediate forms, and may bear a close resemblance 
 to the primordial stages of plants belonging to other 
 tribes ; but still there are real species among these 
 lower genera species which are permanent and do not 
 undergo any further transformation, for in the circum- 
 stances in which they are found they can exist and mul- 
 tiply and perfect their fructification independently. Few 
 objects are more beautiful and interesting under the 
 microscope than some of these obscure bodies, and their 
 study is absolutely necessary to the physiologist, if he 
 wishes to obtain a clear insight into the real character 
 and phenomena of growth and reproduction in the higher
 
 THE PAGE OF NATUBE. 
 
 159 
 
 tribes of plants, and especially the changes which take 
 place during the very early or embryonic condition of 
 the more complicated structures. 
 
 The Nostoc (Fig. 22), one of the species belonging to > 
 this strange class of plants, is interesting on account of 
 the historical associations connected with it. It occurs 
 in the form of a greenish jelly or slimy mass on 
 gravelly soils, rocks, pastures, and roadsides, among grass 
 and moss, especially in moist weather. It is widely dis- 
 tributed, occurring as far south as the Antarctic regions, 
 several species having been found by Dr. Hooker on wet 
 rocks near the sea in Kerguelen's Land. It ranges, on 
 
 FIG. 22. NOSTOC COMMUNE. 
 
 the other hand, as far north as Baffin's Bay, and the 
 shores of the Polar Ocean, growing on the soft, boggy 
 slopes of the sea-shore, from whence it is drifted . about 
 by the wind in detached masses, and forming the only 
 vegetable production of any importance over many 
 square leagues. Dr. Sutherland, in his fascinating 
 journal, relates that it has often been found in great 
 abundance on floating icebergs, and in small depressions 
 in the snow upon the ice, at a distance of ten miles from 
 the land. It affords a welcome food, far more palatable 
 than the tripe de roche, the only other edible substance
 
 160 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 which occurs in these inhospitable regions, consisting as 
 it does of a modification of cellulose, without any delete- 
 rious mixture. It affords food and shelter to several 
 species of Podurae, and an interesting little spider called 
 Desoria Arctica. In the warm springs of India the 
 Nostoc frequently occurs, and is successfully employed 
 by the natives as an outward application for scrofulous 
 affections, owing to the presence in it of minute quan- 
 tities of an alkaline iodide. In China, it is a frequent 
 denizen of ponds and streams, whence it is carefully 
 gathered and dried, to form an ingredient with the 
 famous edible bird's nests, in their rich and nutritious 
 soups. In the salt lakes of Thibet, and the marshes in 
 the woods of New Zealand, it attains frequently gigantic 
 proportions, forming masses of quaking gelatine, many 
 feet in circumference. The vulgar suppose the Nostoc 
 to be the remains of a fallen star, or of a Will-of-the- 
 wisp, and hence they attach many superstitious ideas to 
 it. It derived its name from Paracelsus, the celebrated 
 alchemist, who employed it from its ambiguous character 
 and simple structure in the composition of the universal 
 solvent and the elixir vitse. We find frequent mention 
 of it in the writings of the alchemists, by whom it was 
 highly esteemed on account of the mysterious virtues 
 which it was supposed to possess. 
 
 The structure of this plant, simple as it appears, is 
 very curious and interesting. Examined under the 
 microscope, it is found to consist of a number of slender 
 moniliform threads or necklaces of spores, invested with 
 a firm and copious gelatine, which originated at an 
 early stage from each individual thread, but has now
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 161 
 
 become the common envelope of the whole mass. The 
 plant is propagated by the division of these threads into 
 their individual joints, which burst through the common 
 jelly, and become dispersed in the water, where they are 
 endowed with spontaneous motion, enabling them to con- 
 tend against currents. "These fragmentary threads," 
 says Berkeley, " divide longitudinally and transversely, 
 at last constituting a bundle of new threads, which 
 gradually, by increase of the gelatinous or filamentous 
 elements, assume the normal form of the species." 
 
 Another allied species is the mountain dulse_of the 
 Scotch (Palmetto, montana), occurring very frequently in 
 patches of a deep but dull purple colour, in moist, stony 
 places, on the mountains of Skye, Arran, and on the 
 west coast of Scotland, where it is used by the High- 
 landers, when rubbed between their hands in water, as a 
 paste with which to purge their calves. Attached to 
 aquatic plants, and the stones at the bottom of ponds, 
 and in the shallow margins of still lakes, may often be 
 seen a very curious little plant belonging to this tribe, 
 called Rivulana angulosa. It closely resembles green- 
 gage plums in size, shape, and appearance, and is 
 always found associated in little colonies. It is a simple, 
 roundish mass of gelatine, filled internally with beautiful 
 beaded filaments. The least touch detaches it from its 
 growing-place, when it rises to the surface of the water 
 with the velocity of an air-bubble, and refuses to sink 
 again, floating freely about. The whole genus Rivularia 
 is composed of exceedingly curious plants, most of them 
 occurring in shallow rivulets, and alpine cascades and 
 streamlets, where they adhere, in the form of gloesy, 
 L
 
 162 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 bead-like dots of a dark-olive colour, to the stones of the 
 bottom, generally preferring the pure white quartz and 
 the glittering mica schist. The whole plant is not 
 larger than a pin's-head, or a small pea ; but it some- 
 times spreads widely in favourable situations, covering 
 all the stones in the bed of a streamlet, and giving them 
 an appearance, as the little, bustling, transparent waves 
 roll and sparkle over them, as if they were full of eyes. 
 But the most beautiful and interesting of all the mem- 
 bers of the gelatinous confervse is the Batrachospermum 
 moniliforme (Fig. 23), which is universally distributed 
 
 Fio. 23. BATRACHOSPERMUM MONILIFORME. 
 (a) Magnified. (6) Natural size. (c) Magnified. 
 
 over Britain, and is especially abundant in subalpine 
 streamlets. It is easily known by its growing in clusters 
 composed of branching filaments, which appear even to 
 the naked eye like necklaces or strings of small beads, 
 being strung, as it were, with numerous gelatinous 
 globules placed close beside each other. These branches 
 are so exceedingly flexible that they obey the slightest 
 movement of the water, and it is impossible to express 
 the 'pleasure which is excited in the mind of the botanist,
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 163 
 
 while contemplating a cluster of this little alga, in those 
 pure, clear, sunny wells, with which he sometimes meets in 
 his wanderings among the hills, springing up far away in 
 lonely spots, where the curlew builds her nest among 
 the rushes, their mossy sides starred with the large, 
 snow-white flowers of the grass of Parnassus, and 
 adorned with the closed hoods and diamond-studded 
 leaves of the sun-dew. Every movement of the tiny 
 fairy exemplifies the curve of beauty, every filament 
 winds ceaselessly and rapidly through a thousand forms 
 of matchless grace. When removed from the water, 
 however, the filaments lose all trace of organization, and 
 slip through the fingers like a piece of jelly or frog- 
 spawn. The Batrachospermum occurs in the Ganges, 
 in North America, Herniite Island near Cape Horn, 
 and New Zealand, and is probably distributed all over 
 the world. " One curious circumstance in this plant is, 
 that the threads of the knot-like masses send decurrent 
 joints down the stem, thus making that compound which 
 was originally simple." 
 
 On shady walls and thatched roofs, at the foot of 
 rocks and houses in damp situations, may often be seen 
 a stratum of densely-crowded transparent green leaves, 
 plaited and wrinkled with rounded lobes. This plant, 
 called Ulva crispa, is the terrestrial variety of .the u 
 familiar green laver*of the sea- coast. Another species of * 
 the same genus (U. bulbosa), occasionally fills stagnant 
 pools and ditches of fresh water, with its excessively 
 soft and lubricous masses, appearing as if in a state of 
 fermentation. It is exactly the counterpart of the com- 
 mon sea species. The Enteromorpha intestinalis, with
 
 164 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 which every visitor to the sea-coast is familiar, adding 
 greatly to the beauty of rocky pools, left full by the 
 receding tide, also occurs not unfrequently in fresh- 
 water ponds and stagnant waters in spring and summer. 
 An allied species, Tetraspora lubrica, forming irregular 
 masses of considerable extent, and exceedingly lubricous, 
 in gently running water, has its fruit, consisting of 
 minute granules imbedded in the fronds, loosely arranged 
 in fours. The first stages of all these fresh-water repre- 
 sentatives of the marine ulvae, are in all respects simple 
 confervse ; but the cells at the extremity of the filaments 
 divide, and by repeated division, these filaments are 
 laterally expanded, until they form a plaWleaf-like 
 frond, as in ulva, or close all round after they have ex- 
 panded, until they produce a tube or sac as in entero- 
 morpha. 
 
 One of the most singular of the confervaceous algae is 
 the Botrydium granulatum. It grows on the ground in 
 moist shady situations in spring and autumn, and is per- 
 haps more frequent than is supposed, its minute size 
 causing it to be overlooked. It consists of a number of 
 green vesicles of the size of mustard-seed, aggregated 
 together, and sunk, as it were, into the soil, the whole 
 bearing a close resemblance to a miniature branch of un- 
 ripe grapes, whence the name. Under the microscope, 
 each vesicle appears rilled with a watery fluid containing 
 minute granules, which escape when ripe by an opening 
 at the top ; in dry weather the upper part collapses, 
 sinks in, and becomes cup-shaped. The vesicles are 
 attached to the soil by a tuft of root-like fibres, into 
 which their fluid contents descend when pressed. This
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 165 
 
 singular provision is necessary, as the plant is frequently 
 exposed to dry air, which absorbs the moisture on the 
 surface of its native soil, and would consequently wither 
 it, were it not furnished with radicles, which penetrate 
 beyond the risk of desiccation. There are some very 
 curious and little-known green algae allied to this plant, 
 which are furnished with similar adaptations, as their 
 fronds are so incrusted with lime as to render nutriment 
 through the surface precarious. They resemble cacti, reti- 
 culated corals, flabelliform corallines, little wheels fixed 
 on delicate stems, etc., and are very beautiful in their 
 shapes or in their structure, when divested of the car- 
 bonaceous coating in which they are masked. Caulerpa, 
 Halimeda, Acetabularia, etc., are examples of these curious 
 organisms, which might easily be overlooked as corals. 
 They are all natives of warm climates, such as New 
 Zealand and Papua. In pools and ditches of fresh water 
 may often be seen vast masses of the two-pronged fila- 
 ments of Vaucheria dichotoma, each filament being some- 
 times two feet long, almost rivalling the huge masses 
 of Cladophora mirabilis, and the Conferva melagonium 
 of the Arctic regions. It differs little from the Botrydium, 
 except that the spherical vesicle of the latter is elongated 
 into a simple or branched thread. Another species is 
 very common on the ground in damp, dark situations, 
 such as the ledges and crevices of cliffs in sub-alpine 
 glens, and is also occasionally observed in gardens on walls 
 or unfrequented walks, creeping over the earth in a very 
 thin intricate fleece of a bright grassy-green colour. The 
 filaments are tubes containing an internal green pulveru- 
 lent mass like the other confervse ; but the fructification
 
 166 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 is developed on the outside in the form of dark green 
 homogeneous vesicles attached to the filaments. The 
 spores of some of the species are furnished with ciliae, 
 and are in consequence endowed with active motion, while 
 they are vivified by the agency of spermatozoa. 
 
 The various species of confervse are known in country 
 places by the popular name of crow-silks, and are used 
 when dried for stuffing beds, for making wadding for 
 garments, and some of them even for manufacturing 
 paper. Pliny mentions that, in his time, they were in 
 much repute as a healing remedy for fractured limbs. 
 They sometimes abound to such an extent as to be posi- 
 tively injurious to the health of the people. After floods, 
 for instance, when the water stands several days, they 
 sometimes luxuriate so much, as on their subsidence to 
 form a uniform paper-like mass, to which the name of 
 meteoric paper has been given. Till the stratum be- 
 comes perfectly dry, which is a slow process, except on 
 the outer surface, the smell is often very disagreeable, 
 and the gas generated from it renders the meadows ex- 
 tremely unwholesome. Every one must have remarked 
 the unpleasant odour exhaled by streamlets when their 
 waters begin to fail in a hot summer, and thus expose 
 the masses of confervse which they contain. Specimens 
 of the so-called meteoric paper have been preserved in 
 the library of Bernhedin. One side is smooth, and of a 
 brownish-ash colour, the other of a greenish red-brown. 
 One of the pieces preserved was thirty-four feet long and 
 three feet wide. The grey side was the more compact, 
 and much resembled grey blotting-paper. It received 
 its paler Lue from the bleaching effect of the sun's rays.
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 167 
 
 The existence of life within life, or of a flora within 
 the bodies of living animals, is one of the most extra- 
 ordinary facts which the microscope has revealed to us. 
 Upwards of ten species of entophytes have already been 
 discovered parasitic upon man, two of which belong to 
 the confervse : the one Lewenhoeck's alga, a minute fila- 
 mentous plant growing between the interstices of the 
 teeth, and covering the roof of the mouth in abnormal 
 conditions of the body ; and the other the Sarcina ven- 
 triculi of Goodsir, a free unattached plant existing in 
 rare cases in the stomach, and counteracting, by its ex- 
 treme minuteness and its very rapid reproductive power, 
 the expulsive efforts of that organ. Man, however, is 
 less infested by these entophytes than any other animal, 
 on account of the cooking process to which his food is 
 subjected, which effectually destroys the germs of para- 
 sites, and his high degree of organic activity, which is 
 unfavourable to their development. Animals of feeble 
 vitality and sluggish habits, using solid innutritions food 
 difficult of assimilation, and therefore remaining long in 
 the alimentary canal ; or animals swallowing their food in 
 large morsels, to which the germs of plants may adhere, 
 are rarely, if ever, free from these entoparasitic plants, 
 which, however, when few in number, or not of excessive 
 size, are quite harmless. They are found principally in 
 those portions of the body which are easy of access from 
 without, such as the stomach and intestinal canal, and 
 where, of course, all the indispensable conditions for the 
 maintenance and reproduction of such life exist. In ac- 
 counting for their origin the opinion may be hazarded, 
 either that their germs belonged to plants growing ex-
 
 168 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 ternally, and were taken along with the food into the 
 digestive organs, where they commenced as it were a 
 transmuted development under the influence of abnormal 
 conditions, or that they are the natural and normal form 
 of new cryptogamic plants which exist frequently in the 
 open air around us, although from their exceedingly 
 minute size they escape our observation, their primitive 
 structure enabling them to grow indiscriminately in all 
 situations, and even in the most opposite circumstances. 
 Dr. Joseph Leidy, to whom we are indebted for much 
 new and interesting information upon this obscure sub- 
 ject, found the most extensive entoparasitic flora with 
 wonderful uniformity within the intestinal canal of a 
 species of myriapod, and a species of beetle living in de- 
 caying stumps of trees. The vegetable forms he discovered 
 in this singular situation are exceedingly curious, and 
 notwithstanding their very subsidiary position as parasites, 
 display as high a degree of organization as any of the 
 larger conferva which inhabit our streams. They con- 
 sist, in almost every case, of yellowish or colourless 
 transparent tubes, varying from half a line to two or 
 three lines in length, attached to their growing- place by 
 broad disks, and proceeding in a straight or gently 
 flexuose curved line to the free extremity. They are 
 filled with exceedingly minute, faintly yellowish, oil like 
 grannies, enveloped by much larger globules, arranged like 
 a string of beads along the whole interior. Exceedingly 
 minute and obscure although these organisms are, they 
 present many beautiful instances of means adapted to the 
 end in view in their form. " They are generally fixed 
 upon the mucous membrane of the intestinal canal in
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 169 
 
 which they grow ; and from their delicate structure they 
 must be more or less constantly liable to rupture in the 
 peristaltic movements of the bowels, and the passage 
 onwards of the food ; but from the spiral arrangement 
 of one species, and the sigmoicl flexure of another, these 
 graceful filiform plants may be elongated or stretched 
 onwards for a considerable distance without danger of 
 being torn." The economy of these plants is altogether 
 peculiar ; existing as they do under circumstances totally 
 different from those in which all other plants are found, 
 and in this respect strikingly illustrative of the wonder- 
 ful capacities of vegetable life. That vegetable life can 
 exist within animal life is an extraordinary circumstance ; 
 but a circumstance still more extraordinary in connexion 
 with their history is, that many of these entophytes are 
 developed upon entozoa, or animals within animals, and 
 are in their turn the seat of other parasitic entophytes 
 more minute, while even on these parasitic entophytes 
 themselves are produced still more minute forms of 
 vegetation. To exhibit this wonderful chain of life more 
 clearly, in the intestinal canal of a species of beetle 
 there has been found a parasitic animal ; on this animal 
 is found growing a plant ; on this plant is growing an- 
 other plant, and on this second plant a third is developed, 
 the smallest variety of the one being produced upon the 
 largest variety of the other. We have thus within the 
 microscopic compass of a beetle's body, an epitome of 
 what takes place on a large scale throughout the world 
 of sense and sight life supported by life to the third 
 and the fourth degree. These parasite and parasitic- 
 parasite entophytes sometimes grow with such luxuriance
 
 170 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 that they completely cover the original plants, and hide 
 their forms from view ; while at other times they are 
 confined to the extremity of the branches, or form con- 
 centric circles around their base and middle. They con- 
 sist of simple or branched filaments, sometimes aggregated 
 into thick radiating tufts, like a thick tassel held up- 
 wards, each thread or filament measuring from the 
 swu^h ^ ^ ne iV'k f an i ncn * a l en gth, and from 
 the soooo^h to the 2 5 o o o^h f an ^ nc ^ ^ n diameter. 
 Some of these seem to be articulated, and to contain 
 spores or germs between the joints ; but owing to their 
 exceedingly minute size, the power of the microscope in 
 its present condition is not sufficient to resolve them into 
 their component parts, and of their processes of growth 
 and propagation we know absolutely nothing. They 
 tremble on the extremest verge of the horizon of human 
 knowledge, like the remotest fixed stars in heaven ; and 
 whatever proof of design they may present in their struc- 
 ture and functions, it is not intended for our ken ; for 
 Nature jealously guards the secrets of her inmost shrine, 
 and forbids her most ardent votary to approach beyond 
 the threshold. 
 
 But the most extraordinary of all the members of 
 this numerous and highly varied family of plants are 
 the diatoms or brittle- worts, which form a wonderful 
 microcosm of their own ; an impenum in imperio. 
 It is but a few years since the miscroscope has drawn 
 aside the veil which hid them from our view, but our 
 knowledge of them, thanks to the all-absorbing at- 
 tention with which scientific men have regarded them, 
 is already remarkably extensive and accurate. Though
 
 THE PA GE OF NA TUBE. 171 
 
 these curious vegetable atoms occupy the lowest place 
 in the scale of vegetation, they are, nevertheless, in- 
 tensely interesting and suggestive of marvellous thought. 
 They constitute an immense family, the individuals of 
 which are numerous beyond the sands of the sea-shore 
 or the stars of heaven ; ay, even beyond the wildest 
 dreams of the Pantheist. They cannot be reckoned by 
 millions simply, but by hundreds of thousands of mil- 
 lions. There is hardly a spot on the surface of the land, 
 or in the depths of the ocean, where some species or 
 other of them may not be found either in a dead or 
 living state. They inhabit streams, ditches, and stag- 
 nant pools ; they clothe the leaves and fringe the stalks 
 of sea-weeds ; and they are found in inconceivable mul- 
 titudes amid the mud and detritus deposited by rivers 
 at their mouths, and by the accumulation of their exuvise, 
 year after year, occasion a vast deal of labour and cost 
 to the dredger. The mud of the Nile and the Ganges, 
 which have formed the great deltas of Egypt and Ben- 
 gal, is full of them. Naturalists, who have explored 
 the virgin forests of the tropics, inform us that the very 
 branches of the trees are covered with vast numbers of 
 them ; and those peculiar organisms which are some- 
 times found in particular diseased states of the stomach 
 and bladder are referred to them. They have been dis- 
 covered in the stomach of the oyster, the clam, and the 
 barnacle ; and Dr. Hooker says, in the Botany of the 
 Antarctic Voyage, that the stomachs of the salpse and 
 other molluscous animals, which were washed up in im- 
 mense masses on the ice, invariably contained several 
 species of diatoms. On the soil of our fields they occur
 
 172 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 in myriads among guano, the proclu6t of those vermiver- 
 ous shore-birds which inhabit the desolate islands of the 
 South Seas ; and on the tops of the highest British 
 mountains Ben Lawers, Ben Nevis, and Ben Macdhui 
 I have repeatedly gathered them in great quantities 
 from the black mud which is generally found under 
 masses of melting snow. The ice-bound seas of the 
 north are peopled by almost nothing else ; along with 
 various species of animalcules, they are the cause of that 
 peculiar olive-green tinge which extends over a portion of 
 the Arctic ocean, amounting to not less than 20,000 square 
 miles, every two miles of which, according to Scoresby's 
 estimate, comprehends 23,888,000,000,000,000, a 
 number which would have employed 80,000 persons 
 since the creation to reckon I 1 In the Antarctic Ocean, 
 on the other hand, far beyond the limits where even the 
 hardy lichen, moss, and sea-weed refuse to vegetate upon 
 the rocks, and where every circumstance would seem 
 inimical to the growth and propagation of even the 
 simplest plants, they occur in countless myriads on the 
 floating ice, and cover the sea with meadows of a pale- 
 brown hue, extending as far as th.6 eye can reach, and 
 down from the surface of the water to abysses deeper 
 
 1 Scoresby says, " After a long run through water of the common blue 
 colour, the sea became green and less transparent. The ^colour was 
 nearly grass-green with a shade of black. Sometimes the transition be- 
 tween the green and blue water is progressive, passing through the inter- 
 mediate shades in the space of ten or twelve miles ; at others it is so 
 sudden that the line of separation is seen like the ripple of a current, and 
 the two qualities of water keep apparently as distinct as the waters of a 
 large muddy river on first entering the sea. In 1817, I fell in with such 
 narrow stripes of various coloured water, that we passed streams of pale- 
 green, olive-green, and transparent blue, in the course of ten minutes' 
 sailing."
 
 I 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 173 
 
 than plummet ever sounded. They form an enormous 
 bank, flanking at an average depth of 1800 feet the 
 whole length of Victoria Barrier a glacier of ice some 
 400 miles long and 120 broad. And it is extremely 
 probable that they are uniformly dispersed over the whole 
 surface of the ocean ; for, owing to their extreme minute- 
 ness in their individual state, and the transparency of 
 their tissues, they cannot be perceived by the naked eye 
 unless when accumulated into immense masses and con- 
 trasted with opaque substances. The surface of the sea, 
 it has been said, is one wide nursery, its every ripple a 
 cradle, and its bottom one vast cemetery. The floor of 
 the ocean is paved with these organisms ; those mysteri- 
 ous submarine plains, where the seer's vision of the " sea 
 of glass " seems realized, where no wind blows, and no 
 storm rages, and no current frets, are covered with their 
 remains, unmixed even with a single particle of sand. 
 The soundings obtained from these silent motionless 
 depths, are as pure and free from the slightest intermix- 
 ture of other matter, as the new-fallen snow-flake is from 
 the dust of the earth. And as a snow-cloud in a still 
 January evening discharges its wavering flakes upon the 
 earth, so are the waves continually letting fall upon their 
 bed showers of minute diatoms whose term of life had 
 expired, kindly strewing the melancholy wrecks of ships 
 with their fleecy coverings, and protecting by their soft 
 cushions the floor of the deep from the abrasion of the 
 waters. 
 
 Humble and minute although these diatoms may be, 
 they are among the oldest of the living inhabitants of 
 the globe, having performed their part in creation long
 
 174 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 ages before the first parents of the human race were 
 called into existence. The wonderful records which they 
 have left behind them in our rocks carry us back to a 
 period when the world, now so beautiful with its verdant 
 meadows and waving woods, was one dreary pestiferous 
 bog, where calamites, sigill arias, and other gigantic marsh 
 plants formed intricate jungles, in whose damp recesses 
 horrid reptiles roared and wallowed, and made war upon 
 each other. In the waters of the primeval seas they 
 flourished in the greatest profusion, supplying the ulti- 
 mate food of the pleiosauri, ichthyosauri, and the other 
 huge reptiles with which they swarmed, just as their 
 successors form the basis of subsistence, through an 
 amazing series of links, for those mighty devourers, the 
 whales, the seals, and the walruses of the Arctic and 
 Antarctic oceans. The fiery cataclysms, which extirpated 
 whole races of plants and animals, left these atomies un- 
 injured ; the physical changes going on over the whole 
 earth only served to carry them uninjured from one 
 geological epoch to another, until at length we behold 
 in the diatoms of our pools, rivers, and seas, the represen- 
 tatives and exact counterparts of the races that lived 
 and died in those ages of the world, compared with 
 which the antiquity of recorded time is but as yesterday. 
 Step by step, up from the lowest fossiliferous strata, 
 when life was just feebly dawning, when the eye that 
 gazed upon the dreary lifeless scenes which the earth 
 then presented was more rudimentary than that of 
 the mollusc, and the ear that listened to the wild cease- 
 less moaning of waves, the splintering of rocks, and 
 the roar of volcanoes, was but a mere oolitic vesicle ;
 
 THE PA GE OF NA TURE. 1 75 
 
 through the old red sandstone, with its numerous strange 
 and monstrous fishes ; the carboniferous strata, with 
 their countless forms of gigantic vegetable life ; and 
 the limestone rocks, the graves of whole hecatombs of 
 madrepora, through all these different geological de- 
 posits we can trace the presence of these little plants. 
 Endowed with the power of investing themselves, as if 
 by a mysterious process of electrotype, with the silicious 
 matter held in solution by the waters in which they 
 abound, they are in truth indestructible ; and of their 
 remains, individually so minute that thousands may be 
 contained in a drop, and millions packed together in a 
 cubic inch, deep beds of marl, extensive chains of hills, 
 huge limestone rocks, ay, even whole territories of allu- 
 vial soil, have been in a great measure composed. 
 
 In Virginia, there are vast beds of silicious marl, com- 
 posed of the skeletons of countless generations of diatoms; 
 and it is said that the towns of Richmond and Peters- 
 burg, in the same province, are built upon an enormous 
 stratum of these plants, every cubic foot of which con- 
 tains billions more than the living population of men 
 that throng the streets above them. Extensive tracts 
 covered with similar relics of a former age occur through- 
 out Britain ; the peat mosses of Ireland and the High- 
 lands of Scotland abound with them, and hundreds of 
 species have been found beautifully preserved in the vast 
 amber beds of Prussia. The peculiar white powdery sub- 
 stance known by the name of Berg meld, or mountain 
 meal, found in Swedish Lapland, under beds of decayed 
 moss, and mixed by the inhabitants with their food 
 in times of scarcity, is composed of fossil diatomacea?,
 
 176 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 several species of which are still living, and occasionally 
 seen in this country. The fossil flour which the Chinese 
 mix with their wheat or rice on similar trying occasions ; l 
 the unctuous clay which the Otomacs gather on the shores 
 of the Orinoco and Meta, and eat by way of a lonne 
 bouche after their regular meals ; the yellowish earth 
 called caouac found in Guinea, of which the negroes are 
 passionately fond ; the kieselguhr or meerschaum, found 
 in Turkey, and employed in the manufacture of pipes ; 
 and the polierschiefer, or polishing slate of Berlin, which 
 supplies the tripoli used for polishing stones and metals, 
 are all found, when subjected to the microscope, to con- 
 sist almost entirely of the silicious plates of diatomacese, 
 united together without any visible cement. The world, 
 it has been well said, is a vast catacomb of diatoms, a 
 grand herbarium in which these most ancient plants have 
 
 1 The following particulars regarding Chinese fossil flour, adapted from 
 Ehrenberg's late great work, Mikrogeologie, may be interesting : 
 
 " Various kinds of edible earth were known in China in very ancient 
 times, and it may be presumed that many of them are mixed or pure tri- 
 politan fresh -water bioliths, i.e., species of earths or stones, the elements 
 of which consist chiefly of remnants of microscopic living beings. In the 
 year 1839, Biot read before the Academy of Sciences in Paris a treatise, 
 containing everything that was then known on .this subject, to which his 
 son, the Oriental linguist, Biot, furnished translations from Chinese and 
 Japanese works. From Schott, in Berlin, Professor Ehrenberg obtained, 
 in addition, the following information, taken from Chinese sources. The 
 first mention of edible earth dates from the year 744 after Christ, and is 
 contained in the Chinese work, Pen-tsao-kang-mu, where it is called 
 Schimian, Stone-bread, or Mi-anschi, Bread-stone ; the article in the Japan- 
 ese Encyclopedia, which Biot has translated, is taken from this work. 
 The Pen-tsao says, according to Schott, that stones contain several sub- 
 stances which are edible, especially a yellow meal and fatty liquid, which 
 is contained in the Yu (a stone), and is therefore called the fat, marrow, or 
 mucilage of the white Yu. An earthy substance, prolonging life, and 
 called Schi-nao, is found in the very smooth stone Hoa-shi, which is sup- 
 posed to be Steatite, and may perhaps be decomposed Steatite. The Schi- 
 mian is only used as a substitute for bread in times of scarcity, when it is
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. Ill 
 
 been preserved in a state of completeness and accuracy 
 little short of their living perfection, to be to us the un- 
 impeachable records of time, as it were, beyond time, of 
 mountains and shores, rivers and seas, that seem mythical 
 even to the geologist. 1 They were at work in the prim- 
 eval world long before man was ushered upon the scene, 
 and they are at the present day employed in altering and 
 modifying the grand features of the globe ; in producing 
 results which man is as incapable to predict as he is 
 powerless to prevent. Who is there that can gaze upon 
 these wonderful plants, which thus, as it were, " connect 
 the ages and the zones," without a dizzy sense of the 
 infinity and permanence of nature, and the power of Him 
 "whose judgments are unsearchable, and whose ways 
 are past finding out ?" 
 
 But this is not all ! Wonderful as it may seem, the 
 
 miraculously found in different localities, as is believed. The Imperial 
 annals of the Chinese have always religiously noticed its appearance, but 
 have never given any description of the substance. The Pen-tsao quotes, 
 under the Emperor Hiuan-Tsung of the great dynasty Tang, in the third 
 year Tain-pao (744 after Christ), a spring in Wu.jin (now Liang-tschen-fu, 
 in the province Kan-su), which ejected stones that could be prepared into 
 bread, and were gathered and consumed by the poor. (Sehott.) 
 
 "Under the Emperor Hian-Tsung, of the same dynasty, in the ninth 
 year of the period Yuen-ho (809 after Christ), the stones became soft and 
 turned into bread. (Biot.) 
 
 " Under the Emperor Tschin-Tsung, of the dynasty Sung, in the fifth 
 year of the period Ta-tschong-Tsiang-fu (1012 after Christ), in the fourth 
 month, there was a famine in Tsy-tschen (now Ki-tschen in Ping-yang-fu, 
 in the province Schan-si), when the mountains of Hiang-ning, a district of 
 the third rank in the same part, produced a mineral fat (Stone-fat) resem- 
 bling a dough, of which cakes could be made. (Sehott.) 
 
 " Under Jin-Tsung, in the seventh year of the period Kia-yeu (1062), 
 stone meal was found. 
 
 " Under Tschi-Tsung, in the third year of the period Yuen-fong (1080), 
 the stones turned into meal. All these kinds of stone-meal were collected 
 and consumed by the poor. (Biot.)" 
 
 1 As the earliest fossil diatoms yet found; judging from the figures of 
 Ehrenberg, are identical in ever)' point with the great majority of species 
 M
 
 178 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 very realms of the air are peopled with diatoms. The 
 atmospherewe breathe contains hundreds of species, which 
 float about on every breeze, and are wafted hither and 
 thither. Many of them remain for years in the highest 
 strata of the atmosphere, until carried down in the full 
 capacity of life to the nourishing waters of the stream 
 and the lake, by descending currents of air. They have 
 been found in immense numbers in the impalpably fine 
 dust, which at certain seasons broods like a thick haze 
 over the island of St. Domingo, and occasionally falls in 
 great quantities on the decks of vessels far out on the 
 Atlantic. The sirocco and trade winds convey immense 
 quantities of them for hundreds of miles. Clouds of 
 diatomaceous dust, giving the atmosphere an orange or 
 ochre hue, have repeatedly been observed coming in vari- 
 ous directions from the coast of Africa, falling on vessels, 
 and diffusing around a darkness so dense as often to 
 
 now living in our waters, and forming deposits which will become rock at 
 some future time ; and as some species are peculiar to lakes and rivers, 
 and others to seas and firths, while some affect deep and others shallow 
 water, these tiny plants are capable of furnishing considerable information 
 to the geologist, with regard to the conditions under which raised sea- 
 beaches and fresh-water limestone rocks were originally deposited, and the 
 circumstances which operated in the production of the different strata in 
 which they occur. I may add, as an illustration of the universal diffusion 
 of these plants, the curious fact, that the late Dr. Gregory found numerous 
 most interesting diatomaceous forms in small fragments of soil not exceed- 
 ing a pinch of snuff, adhering to specimens of exotic plants in herbaria. 
 In every case, without exception, he found these organisms ; and in all, 
 the proportion to the whole non-calcareous earthy residue was wonderfully 
 large. The soils in which the most numerous species were found, were re- 
 spectively obtained from the Sandwich Islands and Lebanon. Many of 
 Ehrenberg's profound observations were made on portions of foreign soil 
 procured in this manner, and his example should stimulate collectors of 
 plants to preserve carefully every vestige of earth adhering to the roots of 
 their exotic specimens, as in this way many new forms may be brought to 
 light, and many rare ones studied in the quiet and leisure of home, with- 
 out the trouble and fatigue of collecting them in their native localities.
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 179 
 
 cause them to run ashore. Similar showers are not un- 
 frequent in China, and spread over several provinces at 
 once and far out to sea. They are raised from the Mon- 
 golian steppes regions of sand more than 2000 miles 
 long and 400 broad and falling into the waters of the 
 Yellow Sea, give it that peculiar tinge from which it 
 derives its name. During the dry season in the lifeless 
 plains of the Orinoco, and the great Amazonian basin, 
 when the soil is parched and triturated by the intense, 
 long-continued drought, dense clouds of diatomaceous 
 dust are raised by the winds and wafted to great dis- 
 tances. These showers happen most frequently in spring 
 and autumn after the equinoxes, but at intervals varying 
 from thirty to fifty days. From the nature of the spe- 
 cies wafted by these winds, the region which originally 
 produced them can be ascertained with tolerable accuracy ; 
 and hence they afford a clue to those mysteriously wayward 
 aerial currents, and cyclical relations in the upper and 
 lower atmosphere, which have hitherto perplexed meteoro- 
 logists. It has been observed that these storms, in cer- 
 tain districts, amply compensate for the annoyance they 
 occasion. The soil of the countries most subject to the 
 visitation, when of a compact character, is loosened and 
 lightened by the dust, and at the same time the lighter 
 fertilizing matters carried away by the great rivers are 
 replaced by organic remains, so that an abundant harvest 
 follows the devastations committed by these dust-showers. 
 Nearer home these curious meteoric phenomena have 
 occasionally been observed. Black rain, composed of 
 portions of decayed plants, mixed with the skeletons of 
 diatoms, fell in Ireland in April 1849, over a district of
 
 180 FOOTNOTES FPOM 
 
 700 square miles. A great mass of substance remark- 
 ably like paper fell during a violent storm in 1687, 
 near the village of Eanden in Courland, which excited 
 great curiosity at the time, and was found after the lapse 
 of many years, by the all-penetrating microscope of Ehren- 
 berg, to consist of a compactly matted heap of diatoms 
 and confervae. Diatoms have even been discovered in 
 the pumice and ashes ejected from the burning craters 
 of volcanoes. 
 
 " The dust we tread upon was once alive ! " was the 
 exclamation of one great poet ; and " How populous, 
 how vital is the grave !" was that of another, but little 
 did either Byron or Young know how extensively true 
 were the words they uttered. The microscope shows us 
 how inconceivably populous is the whole world, when 
 thus the loftiest regions of the atmosphere, and the 
 fathomless depths of the ocean, and the darkest, deepest 
 abysses of the earth, where we should suppose all life 
 impossible, are peopled with myriads upon myriads which 
 the Infinite mind alone can enumerate, of minute vege- 
 table organisms, performing their allotted task in the 
 great workshop of nature, and adding a thousand times 
 more to the mass of materials which compose the 
 crust of the globe, than the bones of elephants and 
 whales ! 
 
 To the investigation of the diatoms, we must not bring 
 any of our preconceived notions of vegetable forms and 
 structures, for we shall assuredly find them completely 
 overthrown, by the new and strange modes of organiza- 
 tion which these minute plants display. Indeed, so 
 peculiar and abnormal are some of these modes, so unlike
 
 THE PA GE OF NA T URE. ] 8 1 
 
 those of all other plants, that the zoologist and botanist 
 are not yet agreed as to which kingdom of nature the 
 animal or the vegetable they ought to be referred ; 
 and, accordingly, they have occasionally been classed and 
 figured as plants by one naturalist, and as animals by 
 another. Ehrenberg, the great Prussian naturalist, whose 
 microscopic researches have laid open to us a new and 
 strange world of minute organic existence, and to whose 
 untiring industry and patience we are indebted for the 
 discovery of most of the wonderful atomies under con- 
 sideration, was from the very first firmly convinced of 
 their animal nature ; and the credit attached in this 
 country to his notions, had the effect of turning away 
 the attention of botanists from them ; while the zoolo- 
 gists rejected them from their systems as suspicious and 
 anomalous objects ; and the mere microscopist regarded 
 them simply as new and strange forms of life, with the 
 contemplation of whose beautiful structure he could agree- 
 ably while away a leisure hour. Nor need we wonder 
 at this perplexity, for even at the present day, when the 
 improvement of the microscope has placed peculiar struc- 
 tures, before quite invisible, within view of the observer, 
 and given him the utmost clearness and definition of 
 outline, many objects remain still undecided ; and much 
 has yet to be done before we can come to a satisfactory 
 conclusion regarding them, or even venture to pronounce 
 an opinion upon them at all. In external form the 
 diatoms present remarkable similarities to many species 
 of infusorial animalcules, and spontaneous movements 
 long thought peculiar to the animal kingdom, they like- 
 wise exhibit. Even chemical analysis itself, that ulti-
 
 182 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 mate test before which every doubt and difficulty usually 
 vanish, is of no assistance to us in their determination ; 
 for in their elementary composition they are identical 
 with some of the lowest members of the animal kingdom. 
 In these primitive plants and animals, we may fairly 
 enough conclude that the animal and vegetable kingdoms 
 pass into each other ; they form the one common base or 
 point from which these two systems of life start, to recede 
 so widely from each other in the large and complicated 
 organizations which stand at the head of both. " From 
 man to the primary animal and vegetable cell," Schmidt 
 justly observes, " there exists no gap in the realization 
 of a general idea upon which nature as a whole is based. 
 There is no abrupt transition from one kingdom to 
 another, but an insensible gradation. Thus the embryo 
 germ of an alga or sea-weed is identical, in elementary 
 composition and form, with that of a medusa or ascidia ; 
 in the former we have the higher stage of development 
 of the plant, in the latter the simpler form of the 
 animal." 
 
 The forms which the diatomaceaB assume are exceed- 
 ingly varied and beautiful. Most of them, as already 
 mentioned, are invested with a very thin transparent 
 glass-like pellicle, engraved with median lines and trans- 
 verse striae, the patterns of which are wonderfully con- 
 stant in the same species, and afford admirable tests for 
 the general excellence of the object-glass of the micro- 
 scope ; the distance between the different markings being 
 often the 35 5ooth P ar t of an inch, and some, it is even said, 
 being only the yssoooth of an inch separate, requiring for 
 their distinct determination a magnifying power of twelve
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 183 
 
 hundred diameters, and the aid of oblique light. Some 
 species consist of chains of parallelograms (Fig. 24), con- 
 nected together at one single point, more beautiful in 
 
 Fio. 24. DIATOMA BIDDULPHIANA magnified. 
 
 appearance, and more richly and elaborately carved than 
 the costliest bracelet on the arm of a queen. Some re- 
 semble miniature flags or 
 fans, adorned with the most 
 exquisite figures; some grace- 
 ful boats, frosted and granu- 
 lated, in which a tiny anim- 
 cule might float over a dew- 
 drop ; and some little trees 
 (Fig. 25), covered with va- 
 riegated leaves, arranged in 
 fan-like clusters, as though 
 intended for microscopic 
 models of a grove of fan- 
 palms. In short, they form 
 circles, triangles, squares, 
 
 F.G.25.-EXILAEIAFLABEI.LATA. ^ ^^ W&J ^fl Q f 
 
 mathematical figure (Fig. 26), to the utter subversion of 
 all the ideas of vegetable forms which we are accustomed 
 to entertain. They are generally colourless ; but some 
 species are of a deep green, or rich brown, or a pale
 
 184 
 
 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 yellow or red. They are delicate as hoar-frost, and seem 
 more like the strange vegetation produced on our window- 
 panes on a cold frosty morning, than veritable living plants. 
 These little organisms, we must not forget, exquisitely 
 beautiful and curious in form and structure as we find 
 them under the microscope, appear to the naked eye a 
 mere green or dark-brown film, or indefinite slimy scum, 
 on the leaves of an aquatic moss, or the stalk of a sea- 
 weed ! 
 
 The propagation of the diatomaceae is performed in a 
 
 FIG. 26. ACHNANTHES ujfiPDJTCTATA slightly and much magnified. 
 
 very singular manner. At certain stages of their growth 
 the frustules or fragments of which they are composed, 
 separate in some species into two portions, each of which 
 forms around itself a cell-wall, possessing a form and 
 character precisely similar to those of the original one ; 
 and thus a very material increase in the number of 
 frustules is, through course of time, effected. This pro- 
 cess is called fissiparous or merismatic division. In 
 some cases the process of reproduction is performed by 
 the conjugation of two approximated filaments, as was 
 seen in the case of the larger confervse, the result being
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 185 
 
 the union of their contents by means of interposed tubes, 
 and the subsequent production of a germinating spore ; 
 thus leaving their vegetable origin no longer a doubtful 
 question. The inconceivable rapidity with which these 
 plants propagate themselves will fully account for their 
 almost universal diffusion, and the enormous accumula- 
 tion of strata which they form in certain districts. In- 
 deed, so extraordinary are these powers of reproduction, 
 that Ehrenberg describes several species of diatoms, 
 which carry on the process of merismatic division to such 
 an extent, as to produce from a single frustule, invisible 
 to the naked eye, the enormous number of 140,000,000 
 of distinct individuals, in the short space of four days 
 a number sufficient to form, by the accumulation of their 
 silicious skeletons, two cubic feet of the Bilin polishing 
 slate. 
 
 Such is a brief and imperfect sketch of the history 
 and peculiarities of these wonderful plants. They open 
 up to us the infinitude of microscopic life, reveal a vast 
 and glorious realm of new creative design, whose limits 
 can never be fathomed, and whose mysteries can never 
 be exhausted by man's finite researches. It is not so 
 much what they actually disclose that awes and astonishes 
 us ; but the bewildering boundlessness of the unknown 
 arcana beyond, to which they point. The vast addi- 
 tions which they have made to our knowledge, have 
 only left the immensity of the universe of life greater 
 and more mysterious than before. For it is all but cer- 
 tain, that if our vision could be made more piercing, 
 and our instruments more perfect, while we explored 
 onwards through the successive realms of the invisible
 
 186 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 towards the inmost shrine of nature, we should find new 
 scenes of wonder and beauty continually unfolding them- 
 selves, and new fields of omniscient display constantly 
 revealing to us that God was still before us in all His 
 exhaustless, creative energy, and that we saw but the 
 " hidings of his power."
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 187 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FUNGI. 
 
 " Each step we take is over graves 
 
 On which we careless tread ; 
 For ever fresh creative power, 
 
 Glows in the quick and dead ; 
 Not dead, the slime that greens the ditch 
 
 Is quick, a vital force 
 Coheres the stone and rolls the star, 
 
 Along its life-sprung course." 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 NATURE is a perpetually revolving panorama. No 
 sooner does she withdraw one object from our admiring 
 gaze, than she immediately places another as interesting 
 or as beautiful in its room. In watching the progress of 
 vegetation especially, as month after month it expands 
 before us, we are struck with the regularity with which, 
 each species of plant visits us in its own appointed time. 
 So remarkably constant are the same plants to their 
 appointed seasons, that their appearance might be re- 
 garded as a kind of floral calendar, indicating the various 
 periods of the year. This regularity is not confined to 
 the highest tribes of plants, but is equally observable in 
 the very humblest. The smallest and most obscure 
 tribes have some peculiar functions adapted to each period
 
 188 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 of the year. Though most of them are perennial, yet 
 they are more luxuriant in some seasons than in others, 
 and are particularly exact and exclusive as to their periods 
 of reproduction. The hard and apparently lifeless lichen 
 remains unchanged upon the rock for years, perhaps as 
 long as the rock itself continues uncrumbled, but every 
 year at the approach of winter, when the moist, stormy 
 weather in which it delights prevails, its dormant sus- 
 pended life revives, and when all other plants and an- 
 nuals are hybernating, it begins to exercise the various 
 functions of vitality. The bright silken tufts of the moss 
 continue throughout the whole year to soften the rough 
 harsh aspect of the wall and ruin, and to form velvet 
 pads on the woodland walks to hush the fall of fairy feet, 
 but in spring when " a fuller crimson comes upon the 
 robin's breast, and a young man's fancy lightly turns to 
 thoughts of love," it awakens under the ethereal influ- 
 ence of the universal feeling, clothes itself in its fairest 
 robes, and puts forth its crimson urns, that burn like 
 fairy love-jewels among its emerald leaves. The naiad- 
 like confervse vanish from the waters, for nine months in 
 the year, and return to luxuriate in their cool, clear 
 haunts, as duly as the warm breath of April melts away 
 the icy fetters from the rejoicing streams, and once more, 
 
 " Inverted in the tide, 
 
 Stand the grey rocks, and trembling shadows throw, 
 And the fair trees look over side by side, 
 And see themselves below." 
 
 While the approach of autumn is unmistakeably indi- 
 cated by the springing up of mushrooms in the moist 
 dark recesses of the woods, even when the viewless bound-
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 189 
 
 ary of summer is not yet past, and the air is still balmy 
 and sunny, and the robe of nature is yet fadelessly green. 
 
 Fungi are intimately associated with autumn ; unrobed 
 prophets that see no sad visions themselves, but that 
 bring to us thoughts of change and decay. Indeed, so 
 close is this association that they may be called autumn's 
 peculiar plants. The blue-bell still lingers in the sod, 
 and in the woods a few bright but evanescent and scent- 
 less flowers appear, but fungi and fruits form the wreath 
 that encircles the sober and melancholy brow of autumn : 
 fruits the death of flower-life ; fungi the resurrection of 
 plant-death. The seasonal conditions which arrest the 
 further progress of all other vegetation, which cause the 
 leaf to fall, and the flower to wither, and the robe of 
 nature everywhere to change and fade, give birth to new 
 forms of plant-life which flourish and luxuriate amid de- 
 cay and death. From the relics of the former creations 
 of spring and summer, reduced to chaos, springs up a 
 new creation of organic life, and thus nature is not a 
 mere continuous cycle of birth, maturity, and decay, but 
 rather a constant appearance of old elements in new 
 forms. 
 
 This new tribe of plants comes in at a peculiarly season- 
 able time, when the more aristocratic members of the vege- 
 table kingdom have departed, leaving the favourite haunts 
 of the botanist bare and destitute of interest. Their col- 
 lection in the field, and the study of their peculiarities in 
 the closet, will furnish ample occupation of a most ab- 
 sorbing and fascinating nature during the whole season, 
 as new facts always connect themselves with new forms. 
 To those who enjoy mysteries and paradoxes there can
 
 190 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 be no lack of such enjoyment among the fungi. In many 
 respects they are the most mysterious and paradoxical of 
 all plants. In their origin, their shapes, their composi- 
 tion, their rapidity of growth, the brevity of their exist- 
 ence, their modes of reproduction, their inconceivable 
 number and apparent ubiquity, they are widely different 
 from every other kind of vegetation with which we are 
 acquainted. In studying their history we walk amid 
 surprises ; and as we lift each corner of the veil, more 
 and more marvellous are the vistas which reveal them- 
 selves. 
 
 The first thing that strikes us with wonder, in regard 
 to these anomalous organisms, is their origin. Incapable 
 of deriving the elements of growth from the crude un- 
 organized crust of the earth, they are parasitical upon 
 organic bodies, and are sustained by animal and vege- 
 table substances in a state of decomposition. That living 
 and often nutritious objects should spring from festering 
 masses of corruption and decay; that plants, endowed 
 with all the organs and capacities of life, should start 
 into existence from the dead tree that crumbles into dust 
 at the slightest touch, or draw their nourishment from 
 dried and exhausted animal excretions, which have lain 
 for months under the influence of drenching rains and 
 scorching sunbeams, is indeed a profound mystery of 
 nature. No sooner does the majestic oak yield to the 
 universal law of death, than several minute existences, 
 which had been previously bound up and hid within its 
 own, reveal themselves, seize upon the body with their 
 tiny fangs, fatten and revel upon its decaying tissues, 
 and in a short space of time reduce the patriarch and
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 191 
 
 pride of the forest, which had braved the storms of a 
 thousand years, into a hideous mass of touchwood, or 
 into a heap of black dust ! How strikingly do these 
 plants illustrate the great fact, that in nature nothing 
 perishes ; that in the wonderful metamorphoses con- 
 tinually going on in the universe there is change, but 
 not loss; that there is no such thing as death, the ex- 
 tinction of one form of existence being only the birth of 
 another ! And what a remarkable and obvious proof do 
 they also afford of that other great fact, the law of vica- 
 rious sacrifice; a law which permeates and pervades the 
 present system of things, so that if it were to cease, the 
 whole course of the universe would cease likewise. Trace 
 this strange law up through nature, from its lowest to its 
 highest manifestations, and how much that is fitted to 
 astonish and perplex does it suggest ! The mountain 
 rock must yield up that mysterious life it has, which 
 keeps its particles together without changing or decaying, 
 and must have its surface crumbled, by the agency of air 
 or water, into dead inert soil, before the plant can grow. 
 " The destruction of the mineral is the life of the vege- 
 table. Again the same process begins on a yet higher 
 stage. The plant decays, and from its dissolving tissues 
 spring forth new forms of vegetable life. The ear of 
 wheat dies, and out of death more abundant life is born. 
 Out of the soil in which deciduous leaves are buried, the 
 young tree shoots vigorously, and strikes its roots deep 
 down into the realm of decay and death. Upon the life 
 of the vegetable world the myriad forms of higher life 
 sustain themselves; still the same law, the sacrifice of 
 life to give life." Further still, the lower animals feed
 
 192 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 the higher, and man himself is nourished at the expense 
 of the creatures which he uses for food. The child lives 
 upon its parent's life, and one man suffers for another's 
 benefit. In short, the law of vicarious sacrifice is the 
 law of universal life ! 
 
 In many of their properties, the fungi are closely 
 allied to some members of the animal kingdom. They 
 resemble the flesh of animals, in containing a large pro- 
 portion of albuminous proximate principles; and they 
 are almost the only plants that contain azote or nitrogen, 
 formerly regarded as one of the principal marks of dis- 
 tinction between plants and animals. This element re- 
 veals itself by the strong cadaverous smell, which most 
 of them give out in decaying, and also by the savoury 
 meat-like taste which others of them afford. Unlike 
 other vegetables, they possess the remarkable property 
 of exhaling hydrogen gas; and the great majority of 
 species, like animals, absorb oxygen from the atmosphere, 
 and disengage in return from their surface a large quan- 
 tity of carbonic acid. By chemical analysis, they are 
 found to contain besides sugar, gum, and resin, a yellow 
 spirit like hartshorn, a yellow empyreumatic oil, and a 
 dry, volatile, crystalline salt, so that their nature is 
 eminently alkaline, like animal substances extremely 
 prone to corruption. Another property they possess, 
 which connects them with animals, is their luminosity, 
 or the evolution of phosphorescent light from the struc- 
 ture of many of them. Some flowers, especially those of 
 an orange colour, such as the marigold and nasturtium, 
 occasionally present a luminous appearance on still warm 
 evenings, the light being either in the form of slight
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 193 
 
 electric sparks, or steadier, like the phosphorescence of 
 the glow-worm. But this quality is very rare among 
 plants, and is almost peculiar to the lowest orders of 
 animals, particularly those which inhabit the ocean. A 
 species of mushroom (Agaricus olearius) grows on the 
 olive-tree, which is often luminous at night, and re- 
 sembles the faint, pale, lambent flickering light emitted 
 by the scales of fish and sea-animals kept in a dark 
 place. A kind of fungus called Ehizomorpha, from its 
 root-like appearance, covers the walls of dark mines with 
 its long, black, branchy, flat fibres, and gives out a re- 
 markably vivid phosphorescent light, almost dazzling the 
 eye of the spectator. In the coal-mines near Dresden, 
 these fungi are said to cover the roof, walls, and pillars, 
 with an interlacing network of beautiful flickering" light, 
 like brilliant gems in moonlight, giving the coal-mine 
 the appearance of an enchanted palace on a festival 
 night. Mr. Gardner, in his interesting travels in Brazil, 
 gives the following account of a remarkable phenomenon 
 of this nature : " One dark night, about the beginning 
 of December, while passing along the streets of the 
 Villa de Natividade, I observed some boys amusing 
 themselves with some luminous object, which I at first 
 supposed to be a kind of large fire-fly; but on making 
 inquiry, I found it to be a beautiful phosphorescent 
 fungus, belonging to the genus Agaricus, and was told 
 that it grew abundantly in the neighbourhood on the 
 decaying leaves of a dwarf palm. Next day, I ob- 
 tained a great many specimens, and found them to vary 
 from one to two and a half inches across. The whole 
 plant gives out at night .a bright phosphorescent light, 
 H
 
 194 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 of a pale greenish hue, similar to that emitted by 
 the larger fire -flies, or by those curious soft -bodied, 
 marine animals, the Pyrosomse. From this circumstance, 
 and from growing on a palm, it is called by the inhabi- 
 tants, ' Flor-de-Coco.' The light given out by a few of 
 these fungi in a dark room was sufficient to read by. I 
 was not aware at the time I discovered this fungus, that 
 any other species of the same genus exhibited a similar 
 phenomenon ; such, however, is the case in the Agaricus 
 olearius (mentioned above) of Decandolle ; and Mr. 
 Drummond, of Swan River colony in Australia, has given 
 an account of a very large phosphorescent species occa- 
 sionally found there." This luminous property which so 
 many of the fungi possess, is attributed by some botanists 
 to a slow spontaneous combustion, somewhat similar to 
 what is exhibited by the Dictamus albus, which contin- 
 ually gives off from its surface a volatile oil, and inflames 
 upon the application of a match, so that the bush may 
 thus be enveloped in flames and yet not consumed. Other 
 authorities, however, refer the phenomenon to the libera- 
 titih of phosphorus from some of its combinations in the 
 plant, which seems to be the most plausible explanation. 
 Superstition and ignorance have magnified this simple 
 appearance of nature into a supernatural manifestation ; 
 the ignis fatuus occasionally seen in damp old woods, 
 and regarded by the credulous as a sign of approaching 
 death and an omen of evil, being nothing else than the 
 flickering phosphorescence of fungi in a state of decay. 
 It may be remarked in connexion with this luminous 
 property, that many fungi are capable of generating con- 
 siderable heat. Dutrochet ascertained that the highest
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 195 
 
 temperature produced by any plant, with the exception 
 of the curious cuckoo-pint of our woods, was generated 
 by a species of toadstool called Boletus ceneus. Such 
 being the curious properties exhibited by these plants, it 
 is not surprising that at one period they should have been 
 suspected to be animal productions, formed by insects for 
 their habitations, somewhat like the coral structures of 
 zoophytes and sponges. Though this view has long been 
 felt to be utterly untenable, inasmuch as they have the 
 growth and texture of plants, and it is well ascertained 
 that they produce, and are produced from seeds like 
 other plants, yet they are evidently one of the links in 
 the chain of nature which unite the vegetable to the 
 animal kingdom, and show how arbitrary and unfounded 
 were the old definitions which served to distinguish 
 them from each other. 
 
 Fungi, unlike most plants, are to a great extent in- 
 sensible to the influence of light. They commonly prefer 
 damp, close, ill-ventilated places, where the light if any, 
 is of a pale, cold, and sickly character. Within the 
 sheltering darkness of dense leafy woods 
 
 " Some lone Egerian grove, 
 Where sacred and o'ergreeting branches shed 
 Perpetual eve, and all the cheated hours sing vespers ' 
 
 they are to be found crowding together, and are only 
 accidentally found elsewhere. This propensity to avoid 
 the exposed glare of sunlight, and to grow in the darkest 
 shade, seems very paradoxical, when we consider the 
 essential importance of light among the vital agencies. 
 Even the humblest lichen, moss, or conferva, will not 
 develop itself in the same degree of darkness which is
 
 196 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 t 
 
 essential to the wellbeing of the fungus. All other plants 
 are absolutely dependent upon light for their very 
 existence. Roses, tulips, sun-flowers, wait upon the 
 beams of the sun, and live only in his smiles. They 
 may be supplied with the requisite conditions of heat, 
 air, and moisture, but without light they will wither 
 and die ; or, if they do seem to grow, it is only a false, 
 unnatural, and sickly growth, losing their substance 
 instead of increasing it, and weighing less when dried 
 than the dry seed from which this amorphous growth 
 proceeded. Light is not required for the germination 
 of seeds ; but if the plant be suffered to grow up in 
 darkness, it merely uses up the store of food contained in 
 the seed, and when that is exhausted its further growth 
 is stopped. It can obtain no new food from without ; 
 for it is light alone that can occasion the decomposition 
 of the carbonic acid contained in the vessels of all the 
 parts exposed to its influence, and without this light 
 the plant could not assimilate the carbon to its own use. 
 It is a remarkable fact that the heat of the sun alone 
 will not enable the plant to perform this operation. It 
 must be exposed directly to the light of the sun ; and 
 every cloud in the sky, and every shadow from rock or 
 tree that obscures or hides this direct sunlight, retards 
 the vital activity of every plant on which such shadow 
 falls. The particular ray in the sunlight which produces 
 this intense effect upon the organization of plants, has 
 been separated by physiologists. By causing plants to 
 effect the decomposition of carbonic acid in the prismatic 
 spectrum, Professor Draper, to whom we are indebted for 
 this interesting discovery, ascertained that the yellow
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 197 
 
 ray is by far the most effective, and violet, the nearest 
 to darkness, the least so. The sunbeam has recently been 
 divided into actinic, luminous, and calorific rays. The 
 actinic or chemical rays are indispensable to germination ; 
 under the influence of the luminous rays, a mantle of 
 green overspreads forest and field, and the woody tissue 
 is formed ; while the calorific rays bring forth flowers 
 and fruit. Thus spring, summer, and autumn each enjoy 
 a peculiar influence from the sun j although, probably, 
 in all the three processes, of germination, growth, and 
 fructification, the three forces are concerned, but in 
 modified activity. Even during the day this distinction 
 is observed ; in the evening there being less actinic 
 power than in the morning, and at noon more luminous 
 and calorific power. To all these influences of light the 
 fungi are to a great extent insensible. They do not dis- 
 turb themselves or deign to turn towards the light at 
 all ; they continue to shoot out perpendicularly, horizon- 
 tally, or even reversed, just as the surface from whence 
 they spring happens to be directed. The Geranium 
 growing in the cottage window, yearningly stretches out 
 its tender leaves and blossoms to the smiling sunshine 
 without ; and the pea or potato sprouting in a cellar, 
 which has but one north window, half-closed, spreads its 
 cadaverous, blanched, and brittle shoots in the direction 
 of that feeble flicker of light ; but the fungus points its 
 stalk and its seed-vessel as readily from as to the light, 
 as unconsciously downwards to the earth, as upwards 
 from it. Give it air, warmth, moisture, and undisturbed 
 quiet, and it can live and luxuriate without light. But 
 this love of seclusion and darkness gives a dull, sober
 
 198 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 complexion to the whole tribe. In consequence of this 
 habit, they are the most sombre of all plants, the neutral 
 tints prevailing, to the almost total exclusion of the 
 bright vivid hues of the families of flowers. Green, 
 which is the most frequent of all colours, the household 
 dress of our mother earth, predominant not only in 
 trees, herbs, and grasses, but even in ferns, mosses, 
 lichens, and algae, is almost unknown in the fungi, most 
 of which are of a pale, etiolated, sickly hue. 
 
 Another of the remarkable peculiarities of the fungi 
 is the extreme rapidity of their growth, a peculiarity more 
 frequently to be seen among the lowest forms of animal 
 life than among plants. They seem special miracles of 
 nature, rising from the ground, or from the decaying 
 trunk of the tree, full-formed and complete in all their 
 parts in a single night, like Minerva from the head of 
 Jupiter, or the armed soldiers from the dragon's teeth of 
 Cadmus, sown in the furrows of Colchis. It has long 
 been known that the growth of fucgi takes place with 
 great rapidity during thundery weather, owing, in all 
 probability, to the nitrogenized products of the rain which 
 then falls. One is surprised after a thunderstorm in the 
 beginning of August, or a day of warm, moist, misty 
 weather, such as often occurs in September, to see in the 
 woods thick clusters of these plants, which had sprung 
 into existence in the short space of twenty-four hours, 
 covering almost every decayed stump and rotten tree. 
 In tropical countries, stimulated by the intense heat and 
 light, the rapidity of vegetable growth is truly astonish- 
 ing ; the stout, woody stem of the bamboo-cane, for 
 instance, shooting up in the dense jungles of India at
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 199 
 
 the rate of an inch per hour. In the Polynesian Islands, 
 so favourable to vegetable life are the climate and soil, 
 that turnip, radish, and mustard-seed when sown show 
 their cotyledon leaves in twenty-four hours ; melons, 
 cucumbers, and pumpkins spring up in three days, and 
 peas and beans in four. But swift as is this develop- 
 ment of vegetation in highly favourable circumstances, 
 the rapidity of fungoid growth, under ordinary condi- 
 tions, is still more astonishing. These plants usually 
 form at the rate of twenty thousand new cells every 
 minute. The giant puff-ball (Bovista gigantea), occasion- 
 ally to be seen in fields and plantations, increases from 
 the size of a pea to that of a melon in a single night ; 
 while the common stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus), has 
 been observed to attain a height of four or five inches 
 in as many hours. Mr. Ward, in his work On the 
 Growth of Plants in closely -glazed Cases, says of it : "I 
 had been struck with the published accounts of the ex- 
 traordinary growth of Phallus impudicus. I therefore 
 procured three or four specimens in an undeveloped state, 
 and placed them in a small glazed case. All but one 
 grew during my temporary absence from home. I was 
 determined not to lose sight of the last specimen ; and 
 observing one evening that there was a small rent in the 
 volva, indicating the approaching development of the 
 plant, I watched it all night, and at eight in the morn- 
 ing the summit of the pileus began to push through the 
 jelly-like matter with which it was surrounded. In the 
 course of twenty-five minutes it shot up three inches, 
 and attained its full elevation of four inches in one 
 hour and a half. Marvellous are the accounts of the
 
 200 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 rapid growth of cells in the fungi ; but, in the above 
 instance, it cannot for a moment be imagined that there 
 was any increase in the number of cells, but merely an 
 elongation of the erectile tissue of the plant." The force 
 developed by this rapid growth and increase of the cells 
 of fungi is truly astonishing. Monsieur Bulliard relates 
 that, on placing a fungus within a glass vessel, the 
 plant expanded so rapidly that it shivered the glass to 
 pieces, with an explosive detonation as loud as that of a 
 pistol ; while Dr. Carpenter, in his Elements of Physio- 
 logy, mentions that " in the neighbourhood of Basin g- 
 stoke, a paving-stone, measuring twenty-one inches 
 square, and weighing eighty -three pounds, was completely 
 raised an inch and a half out of its bed by a mass of 
 toad-stools, of from six to seven inches in diameter ; 
 nearly the whole pavement of the town being heaved up 
 by the same cause." Every one has heard of the por- 
 tentous growth of fungi in a gentleman's cellar, pro- 
 duced by the decomposing contents of a wine cask, 
 which, being too sweet for immediate use, was allowed 
 to stand unmolested for several years. The door in this 
 case was blocked up and barricaded by the monstrous 
 growth ; and when forcible entrance was obtained, the 
 whole cellar was found completely filled ; the cask which 
 had caused the vegetable revel, drained of its contents, 
 being triumphantly elevated to the roof, as it were, upon 
 the shoulders of the bacchanalian fungi ! Rapidity of 
 growth in fungi is necessarily followed by rapidity of 
 decay. Though some of the larger and more corky 
 species last throughout the summer, autumn, and winter, 
 and a few are perennial, growing on the same trunk for
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 201 
 
 many years, slowly and almost insensibly adding layer 
 to layer, and attaining an enormous size, yet the vast 
 generality of fungi are very fugacious. They are the 
 ephemera of the vegetable kingdom. The entire life of 
 most of the species ranges from four days to a fortnight 
 or a month ; while there are numerous microscopic 
 species of the mould family whose lives are so brief and 
 evanescent as scarcely to allow sufficient time to make 
 drawings of their forms. What a contrast there is be- 
 tween the minute Bread-mould at the bottom of the 
 scale, and the gigantic Wellingtonia of the Oalifornian 
 forests at the top ! The one during the warm moist 
 weather of summer appears suddenly, as if by magic, 
 on a stale crust laid aside in a dark cupboard, attains 
 its highest development, ripens and scatters its seeds, 
 and perishes in a few days ; the other sent forth its 
 embryo shoots in the primeval solitude more than three 
 thousand years ago, and may yet witness the revolution 
 of many centuries ere it begins to decay. The largest 
 stalk of the Bread-mould is no thicker than a pin, and 
 may be half-a-liue or the twentieth part of an inch in 
 height ; the trunk of the Wellingtonia, like a huge 
 church-tower, rises nearly 300 feet into the sky, and 
 measures upwards of a hundred feet in circumference. 
 Why does this enormous difference exist 1 Why does 
 the fungus live for a day and the tree for ages 1 Why 
 does one seed produce a plant that has but a winter's, 
 or at most a summer's growth, and another grow into a 
 plant which endures for more than three thousand 
 years ? They are both composed of the same materials 
 a collection and combination of simple cells ; is it
 
 202 FOO TNO TES FROM 
 
 difference of form only that gives a longer terra of life 
 to the Wellingtonia than to the Bread-mould 1 We 
 cannot by any search ascertain the source of life in the 
 fresh seed, or account for the decay by which mature 
 development is followed, and there is nothing in the 
 structure of any plant, or indeed of any created thing, 
 out of which the assigned limit of its life could be 
 found. It is an impenetrable mystery, to be referred 
 humbly to the simple exercise of the Creator's will. 
 
 Fungi are extremely simple in their organization. 
 They bring us back to first principles, and reveal to us 
 the secret manner in which nature builds up her most 
 complicated vegetable structures. They are composed 
 entirely of cellular tissue, of a definite aggregation of 
 loose, more or less oval, elliptical cells, with cavities be- 
 tween them. These cells in many species may be seen 
 by the naked eye, and consist of little closed sacks of 
 transparent colourless membrane. Here is the starting- 
 point of life. Such cells are the primary germ or element 
 from which every living thing, whether plant or animal, 
 is produced. The whole process of vegetable growth is 
 but a continuous multiplication of these cells ; new 
 ones being formed within the old ones when their nutri- 
 ent matter increases in quantity beyond a certain point, 
 which then dissolve and disappear, while the secondary 
 or daughter cells in their turn produce two, four, 
 eight, or more young cells to occupy their places, and so 
 on till the number of cells becomes multiplied beyond 
 calculation. In the flowering plants the various vessels 
 and organs arise in a differentiation, or a setting apart 
 of particular groups of these cells, and altering their
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 203 
 
 forms and contents for the performance of particular 
 functions in the economy of the plant. In the fungi, 
 however, there is little or nothing of this specializing or 
 differentiating process. Their entire structure is uni- 
 form ; each group of cells is an exact repetition of all 
 the other cells ; one part of each is exactly like the 
 rest. There are no special organs or vessels for the 
 performance of the processes of absorption and reproduc- 
 tion, no complicated apparatus of secretion and excretion. 
 There are no leaves, stems, or roots. Every cell is an 
 assimilating surface ; the whole plant is a reproductive 
 organ. Every part of the structure performs the func- 
 tions, which in more complex plants are performed by 
 organs specially set apart. 
 
 Owing to this extreme simplicity and unity of struc- 
 ture, they possess a remarkable power of reproducing 
 and repairing such parts of their substance as have been 
 injured. This power, it is well known, is always more 
 active as the organization of the individual, or the part 
 affected, is less complicated ; many of the simplest 
 animals, such as the polypes, admitting of being multi- 
 plied by mere mechanical division almost to an un- 
 limited extent. It has been often remarked, that in 
 man and the vertebrata generally, the power of regenera- 
 tion is confined to the replacement of small portions of 
 the simplest texture, although in them the process of 
 renewal is sometimes very extraordinary. The more 
 highly organized structures, such as muscular and nervous 
 substance, cannot be replaced ; should they be ruptured, 
 the wound is repaired by the formation of cellular, or 
 some other of the less complex tissues. Every part of the
 
 204 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 04 
 
 fungus, however, j* its structure is uniform throughout, 
 can be re-formed with equal facility. Even the organs 
 of reproduction, which may be considered its most highly 
 organized parts, can be replaced or repaired if in any 
 way injured. The tubes of the toadstool, and the gills 
 of the mushroom, have been cut out and separated from 
 the living plant by way of experiment, and yet in a 
 brief space of time they have been so carefully repro- 
 duced, that no one could possibly tell they had ever been 
 removed. Snails, to whose soft tender lip they form a 
 succulent and agreeable morsel, are continually eating 
 holes into them, but when they are in active growth, 
 they speedily fill them up again with new tissue. Puff- 
 balls growing among grass on the borders of wood- 
 lands, and in the open meadows, are frequently very 
 much injured by the scythe of the mower, cut open, and 
 whole parts sliced off, but these wounds speedily heal 
 themselves, and the parts that have been removed are 
 remodelled, without leaving the slightest cicatrice to 
 mark the point of junction or the seat of injury. 
 
 Owing likewise to this extreme simplicity of structure, 
 they possess the faculty of almost indefinite expansion, 
 determined only by the amount of pabulum which the 
 decaying substances on which they are produced afford. 
 The limits of some species are strictly marked out, and 
 they rarely exceed them, retaining nearly the same 
 dimensions throughout their whole lives. It is princi- 
 pally the smallest and simplest species which are thus 
 circumscribed ; and these make up by their immense 
 profusion for the insignificance of their individual state. 
 The largest and most highly developed species, which are
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 205 
 
 but sparingly produced, frequently attain to almost fabu- 
 lous dimensions in favourable circumstances. The scaly 
 polyporus (Polyporus squamoms), one of the commonest 
 fungi, everywhere to be met with on the decayed trunks 
 of trees, especially the ash, and easily recognised by its 
 brown scaly pileus, and white porous under-side, grows 
 to a larger size than any other species. Instances have 
 been recorded of its measuring seven feet five inches in 
 circumference, and weighing thirty-four pounds avoirdu- 
 pois, having attained these vast dimensions in the short 
 space of three weeks. The liver fungus (Fistulina 
 Iwpaticci) has been found on an ash-pollard weighing 
 nearly thirty pounds. Mr. Badham, in his interesting 
 work on the Esculent Fungi of Britain, mentions having 
 seen a fungus in the neighbourhood of Tunbridge Wells 
 which rose nearly a foot from the ground, measured con- 
 siderably more than two and a half feet across, and 
 weighed from eighteen to twenty pounds. Specimens 
 of agaric and puff-ball may frequently be met with, 
 measuring a foot and a half in diameter, and weighing 
 many pounds. 
 
 Although the structure of all fungi is entirely of a 
 loosely cellular nature, yet they exhibit an astonishing 
 variety of consistence. Each genus, and in many in- 
 stances each species, displays a different texture. They 
 range in substance from a watery pulp or a gelatinous 
 scum to a fleshy, corky, leathery, or even ligneous mass. 
 Some are mere thin fibres of airy cobweb, spreading like 
 a flocculent veil over decaying matter ; while others 
 resemble large irregular masses of hard tough wood. 
 Their qualities are also exceedingly various. Like the
 
 206 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 ferns they all possess a peculiar odour by which they may 
 be easily recognised, although it is somewhat different 
 in different individuals, some smelling strongly of cinna- 
 mon and bitter almonds, others of onions and tallow, 
 while others yield an insupportable stench. The foetid 
 charnel-house smell of the common stinkhorn (Phallus 
 foetidus) may be felt at a distance of several hundred 
 yards, when the wind is blowing in one's direction, and 
 leads infallibly to its detection, when otherwise it might 
 escape observation, covered, as it usually is, with leaves 
 and broken sticks. Like putrid meat it attracts flies, 
 which are always buzzing about its head ; and a few in- 
 dividuals are sufficient to make a whole wood intolerable. 
 Bad as this species is, there is another, if possible, in still 
 worse odour the Clathrus, which happily is not found in 
 this country, although abundant on the Continent. Like 
 the curious leafless Stapelia, it diffuses a most loathsome 
 stench, which is utterly insupportable at close quarters. 
 This, with its putrid, hideous -looking, raw -flesh -like 
 structure, has originated the popular superstition among 
 the peasants of the Landes, that it is capable of produc- 
 ing cancer ; and hence they cover it carefully over with 
 leaves and moss when they come across it in the pine- 
 woods, lest by accident some one should touch it, and be 
 infected with the disease. As regards their tastes the 
 fungi are equally diversified, being insipid, acrid, styptic, 
 caustic, or rich and sweet. Some have no taste in the 
 mouth while masticated ; but shortly after swallowing, 
 there is a dry, choking, burning sensation experienced at 
 the back of the throat, which lasts for a considerable time. 
 Variety is the great characteristic of divine workman-
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 207 
 
 ship. The forms of nature are infinitely diversified, so 
 as to gratify the eye, and improve the mind by furnish- 
 ing it with ever new objects of contemplation, and ever 
 fresh incentives to study. The number of species and 
 sub-species, where there is a marked difference, is im- 
 mense ; but when we attempt to search out the varieties 
 of the same species, we find ourselves treading on the 
 confines of infinitude. No two blades of grass from the 
 same root, no two leaves of the same tree, no two flowers 
 of the same plant, are ever found precisely alike in any 
 one particular. So exhaustless are the conceptions of 
 the Divine mind, and so boundless His skill and power, 
 that no two individuals of -any created existence have 
 ever been cast in the same mould, or wrought to the 
 same pattern. And yet this endless variety is invariably 
 so constituted as to secure a general uniformity. There 
 appears everywhere a unity of design and composition, 
 amid an almost infinite diversity of forms. Every indi- 
 vidual of every species bears the unmistakable mark of 
 a specific uniformity ; and every species, however much 
 it may vary in some subsidiary particular, exhibits the 
 broad and palpable character of the genus or the family 
 to which it belongs. This law of variety with general 
 uniformity, displayed among all the members of the 
 vegetable kingdom, as well as in all the works of nature, 
 is if possible still more strikingly manifested among the 
 simplest and least organized plants. It is impossible for 
 us to conceive how simply, by a little change of arrange- 
 ment, and a little variation in the amount and propor- 
 tions of materials, such an endless multitude of objects, 
 and such a countless variety, can be produced, objects,
 
 208 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 though all composed of the same cellular tissue, the same 
 simple substances, yet so different in appearance and 
 composition as to seem to have little or nothing in com- 
 mon. And yet this is what is presented to us in the 
 great order of plants now under review. Simple and 
 uniform as is their structure, we have seen how exten- 
 sively diversified they are in their specific qualities. 
 They are no less varying in their forms. It were impos- 
 sible to give a true comprehensive idea of these varieties 
 without entering into specific details. Upwards of 1400 
 distinct species have been found and described in Britain 
 alone. In round numbers it may be said that fungi 
 form about a third of the flowerless plants, numbering 
 as they do about 4000 species altogether. To show 
 how numerous and varying are their forms, it may be 
 mentioned that the British species are distributed in 154 
 genera, an unusually large proportion, only nine species 
 on an average being included in each genus. A large 
 number of these species constitute separately distinct 
 genera. In no family of plants, indeed, are there so 
 many single forms, which, owing to the absence of affini- 
 tive characters, cannot be associated together, so many 
 genera consisting of only one species. While, on the 
 other hand, there are no other plants which have such 
 immense genera, containing, some of them, hundreds of 
 species. The genus Agaricus, for instance, in this country 
 alone has upwards of 450 species, so closely allied to the 
 common mushroom of our tables, that many of them are 
 continually confounded with it, and yet exhibiting spe- 
 cific differences in colour, shape, size, etc., so distinct as 
 to be easily distinguished by an educated eye. The two
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 209 
 
 genera, Sphseria and Peziza whose ideal forms, in the 
 former case a simple round ball furnished at the apex 
 with a minute orifice, and filled internally with minute 
 flask-shaped seed-vessels ; and in the latter case, a shal- 
 low cup or plane disk of gelatinous matter, surrounded 
 with a margin are so diversified, that in Great Britain 
 there are no less than 200 species of the one, and 106 
 species of the other. Some of the other genera are also 
 unusually large, showing how rigidly nature's laws of 
 uniformity and variety are adhered to in this class of 
 plants. 
 
 The following instances may be brought forward, as 
 illustrations of the remarkable shapes which many of 
 the fungi exhibit. On the trunk of the oak, the ash, 
 the beech, and the chestnut, may occasionally be seen a 
 fungus, so remarkably like a piece of bullock's liver that 
 it may be known from that circumstance alone. This is 
 the Fistulina hepatica or liver fungus. Its substance is 
 thick, fleshy, and juicy, of a dark modena red, tinged 
 with vermilion. It is marbled like beet-root, and con- 
 sists of fibres springing from the base, from which a red 
 pellucid juice like blood slowly exudes. Of all vegetable 
 substances this exhibits the closest resemblance to animal 
 tissue. Even in the minutest particular it seems to be 
 a caricature of nature, a sportive imitation on an unfeel- 
 ing oak-tree of the largest gland of the animal body. 
 Tennyson might, with more truthfulness, personify an oak 
 thus furnished with a substitute for the seat of passion, 
 than the garrulous individual which adorned the woods 
 of Sumner Chase ! As already mentioned, it sometimes 
 attains an enormous size, hanging down from the trunk 
 o
 
 210 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 of the oak like the liver of one of the geological monsters 
 of the Preadamite world. Like the liver it is also 
 nutritious, and forms a favourite article of food in 
 Austria, though it is somewhat tough and acrid in taste. 
 Another remarkable species of fungus, called Jew's Ears 
 (Exidium auricula Judae) from its close resemblance to 
 the human ear, clings to the trunks of living trees, par- 
 ticularly the elder, throughout the whole autumnal season. 
 It is of a dusky or red-brown colour, like the ear of a 
 North American Indian, and is wrinkled with large 
 swelling veins branching from the middle, where they 
 are strongest, and somewhat convoluted, the upper side 
 covered with a hoary velvet down, the inside smooth and 
 darker coloured. When it grows on a perpendicular 
 stump or tree, it turns upwards. Another remarkable 
 species (Tremella cerebrina), occurring occasionally in 
 winter and spring on dead wood and branches in very 
 moist, dark places, exactly resembles the brain of an ani- 
 mal. Its substance is of a dirty-white colour, more or less 
 tinged or streaked with red, like the ramifications of minute 
 blood-vessels. It occurs in scolloped undulating masses, 
 of a tender, gelatinous consistence when young, growing 
 tougher when old. Its congener, the Tremella mesen- 
 terica of more frequent occurrence all the year round, 
 particularly on furze bears a strong resemblance to the 
 human mesentery. It is of a rich orange colour. This 
 extraordinary resemblance which different fungi bear to 
 the different parts of the animal body, served to confirm 
 the opinion of the ancient botanists and herbalists, that 
 they were animal structures, or at least intermediate 
 links between the animal and vegetable kingdoms.
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 211 
 
 The simplest fungi consist of a few primordial cells, 
 either separate or conjoined, or of cellular, branched fila- 
 ments or threads, performing the functions of nutrition 
 and reproduction. Between these and the mushroom, 
 which may be regarded as exhibiting the highest develop- 
 ment of fungoid life, there are numerous intermediate 
 forms more or less complex. Some resemble minute 
 mussels with their edges upwards; some are shell-shaped, 
 and others shrubby and branched like coral. Some form 
 large round balls, splitting into star-like expanding rays ; 
 others are crowned with mitres or peaked caps. Some 
 are cup-shaped, trumpet-shaped, bell-shaped. Some, such 
 as the leaden-coloured Nidularia so frequent in potato- 
 fields, form a nest in which to rear their young. One 
 forms a yellow scum on moss-tufts in woods, which in a 
 few days dries up and becomes converted into a heap of 
 black powder like soot ; another forms, on the stems of 
 grass some inches above the soil, a thick white froth, 
 somewhat resembling the salivaceous exudation of the 
 Cicada spumaria so frequent in summer woods, and 
 which may easily be supposed of animal origin. Some 
 form beautiful little goblets elevated on slender hair-like 
 stems ; while others are only to be seen through a thick 
 red lattice-work which surrounds them. In short, there 
 is almost no end to the vague, indeterminate shapes 
 which this curious tribe exhibits. Nature, in a capri- 
 cious or sportive mood, seems to have formed them in 
 imitation of the higher objects of creation, as. they are 
 her humblest and latest productions. Having such ex- 
 tremely simple and plastic materials to work upon, she 
 seems to have followed the wildest vagaries of fancy in
 
 212 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 the determination of their shapes, and to have moulded 
 many of them in imitation of the substances upon which 
 they are produced. 
 
 Although fungi in general are sober, nun-like plants, 
 preferring quiet quaker colours suitable to the dim 
 secluded places which they usually affect, yet some of 
 them depart widely from this soberness, and exhibit 
 themselves in the most gaudy hues. Some species are 
 of a brilliant scarlet colour; others of a bright orange. 
 Many are yellow, while a few don the imperial purple. 
 In short, they are to be found of every colour, from the 
 purest white to the dingiest black, dark emerald or leaf- 
 green alone excepted. Some are beautifully zoned with 
 iridescent convoluted circles, or broad stripes of different 
 hues. Some shine as if sprinkled with mica ; others are 
 smooth as velvet, and soft as kid-leather. Such is a 
 rapid survey of the varied forms, colours, and qualities 
 exhibited by these simple plants ; and surely it is suffi- 
 cient to show us the vast amount of interest connected 
 with them. 
 
 Let us take a specimen of one of the most perfectly- 
 formed and highly-developed fungi, the common shaggy 
 mushroom for instance (Agaricus procerus, Fig. 27), 
 which is also the most familiar example, and endeavour 
 to point out the peculiarities of its structure. Like all 
 plants, it consists of two distinct parts, the organs of 
 nutrition or vegetation, and the organs of reproduction ; 
 the former bearing but a very small proportion in size 
 to the latter. The organs of nutrition or vegetation con- 
 sist of greyish-white interlacing filaments, forming a 
 flocculent net-like tissue, and penetrating and ramifying
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 
 
 213 
 
 through the decaying substances on which the mushroom 
 grows. These filaments are formed of elongated colour- 
 less cells. They are developed under ground, and in 
 other plants would be called roots. This part of the 
 fungus is called by botanists mycelium, and is popularly 
 known as the spawn by which the mushroom is fre- 
 quently propagated. In favourable circumstances this 
 mycelium spreads with great rapidity, sometimes, espe- 
 cially when prevented from developing organs of repro- 
 
 Fio. 27. PARTS OF MUSHROOM (Agaricus procerus). 
 
 (a) Pileus or Cap. (6) Hymenium or Gills, (c) Annulus. (d) Stipe or 
 Stalk, (e) Volva. (/) Mycelium or Spawn, (g) Spores. (K) Basidia. 
 
 duction, attaining enormous dimensions. It may be kept 
 dormant, in a dry state, for a long time, ready to grow 
 up into perfect plants when the necessary heat and mois- 
 ture are applied. When the requisite conditions are pre- 
 sent, and the mycelium begins to develop the repro- 
 ductive tissue, there is formed at first a small round 
 tubercle, in which the rudiments or miniature organs of 
 the future plant may be distinctly traced, just as the
 
 214 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 future flowers may be traced in the bulb of the hyacinth 
 or the root of the moonwort fern. In this infantile con- 
 dition, the mushroom is covered completely with a fine 
 silky veil or volva, which afterwards disappears,, The 
 tubercle rapidly increases, until at last it produces from 
 its interior a long, thick fleshy stem or stipe, sxmnounted 
 by a pileus, or round concave cap, similar to that anciently 
 worn by the Scottish peasantry. This is the organ of 
 reproduction, equivalent to the thecae of mosses and the 
 flowers of phanerogamous plants. This cap is covered 
 with a veil or wrapper, which is ruptured at a certain 
 stage, and retires to form an annulus or ring round the 
 stem. When it is removed from the under side of the 
 pileus, a number of vertical plates or gills is revealed of 
 a pale salmon colour, different from the rest of the plant, 
 and radiating round the cap from a common centre. The 
 whole of this apparatus is called the hymenium. Each 
 of the gills, when examined under the microscope, is 
 found to consist of a number of elongated cells called 
 basidia, united together on both sides of a cellular 
 stratum, and bearing at their summits four minute 
 spores supported on tiny stalks. It is by these spores 
 that the plant is propagated. When a small fragment 
 of a ripe gill is placed on the glass slide of the micro- 
 scope, in a drop of water, the spores will detach them- 
 selves from the gill and float freely on the water; or 
 even if a whole mushroom be laid on a sheet of paper, 
 it will often leave behind its spores in the form of a thin 
 impalpable powder. These spores are so very minute, 
 that many millions of them are required to make a body 
 the size of a pin-head ; and they are capable of enduring
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 215 
 
 a temperature at least equal to that of boiling water, as 
 was satisfactorily proved a few years ago when the bar- 
 rack bread in Paris was affected with mould, which was 
 in active growth almost before the bread was cold. The 
 remarkable elastic force with which many of the fungi 
 eject their seed has often excited attention, and is fully 
 equal to anything of the same kind observed among the 
 flowering plants. In hot-houses, adhering to decaying 
 leaves, may occasionally be seen a curious little plant 
 called Sphaerobolus stellatus (Fig. 28), which bears no 
 
 FIG. 28. SPHAEROBOLUS STELLATUS. 
 Natural size and magnified. 
 
 inapt resemblance in its shape and functions to a LiK- 
 putian mortar. It is of a pale straw-colour, and consists 
 of two coats, both stellated, and separated from each 
 other by a bead of dew exuded by the plant. The rays 
 of the outer case are orange. No sooner is the inner 
 case touched, than it becomes suddenly inverted, and 
 shoots forth, with a loud jerk, a little pellucid ball to a 
 distance of upwards of three feet. This ball or sporangium 
 contains the seeds, and is ejected with a force which, 
 considering the nature and diminutive size of the plant,
 
 216 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 far exceeds that employed in the projection of a shell 
 from the largest mortar, or a cannon-ball from an Arm- 
 strong gun. It is a far more curious and interesting 
 object than the squirting cucumber of which so much is 
 made. Another denizen of the hot-bed (Peziza vesicib- 
 losa) exhibits somewhat similar properties. When the 
 sun is shining warmly upon its cup, the least agitation 
 raises a visible cloud of sporidia like a thin wreath of 
 vapour. These are beautiful instances of the adaptations, 
 with which nature has provided these lowly plants, for 
 the certain dissemination of their seed. 
 
 The mushroom may be regarded as an ideal fungus of the 
 highest type ; and consequently the preceding description 
 is only applicable to the class which it represents. There 
 are varieties of structure as there are varieties of form. 
 There are four large sub-orders of fungi in which the or- 
 gans of fructification are widely different. The first sub- 
 order is called Hymenomycetes, or naked fungi, because 
 the seed-bearing organs are naked, or placed externally: 
 This is the largest, most important, and most highly de- 
 veloped order, containing in this country forty-six genera, 
 and upwards of seven hundred and twenty species. The 
 mushroom, chantarelle, amadou, toadstool, morell, and 
 ergot, are familiar examples of this order. The hymen- 
 ium assumes various shapes in the different genera. 
 In the mushroom it forms gills, in the toadstool tubes, 
 in the chantarelle veins, in the amadou pores, and 
 in the hydnum spines. Sometimes it is placed on the 
 lower surface of the pileus, as in the mushroom, and at 
 other times it is formed on the upper surface of the cap, 
 as in helvella. The second sub-order, called Gasteromy-
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 217 
 
 cetes, has the seed-bearing organs enclosed in a membran- 
 ous covering, like the stomach of an animal, whence the 
 name. This order contains sixty-one genera in this 
 country, and only about three hundred species ; one genus 
 alone (Sphseria) containing two hundred species. The 
 stinkhorn, the truffle, the bird's-nest fungus, and the puff- 
 ball, are familiar examples of this order. The third sub- 
 order is called Hyphomycetes, or web-like fungi, because 
 the spores are developed on naked filaments, whose ter- 
 minal cells are often transformed into a series of spores, 
 like a row of beads. The general appearance of the plants 
 belonging to this order, is that of a quantity of dust-like 
 seeds imbedded in a flaky cottony substance, like a spider's 
 web. The different kinds of common mould, blue, yellow, 
 and green, the grape Oidium, and the red cheese mould, 
 are common examples of this class. It contains only 
 thirty-three British genera, and only about a hundred 
 species, the largest genus containing only nine species. 
 The fourth and last sub-order is called Coniomycetes, or 
 dust fungi, because the spore-cases are produced beneath 
 the epidermis of plants, or the matrix in which they are 
 developed, in the form of a minute collection of dust, en- 
 tirely destitute of any covering or receptacle, except that 
 which is furnished by the skin of the plant raised around 
 it. This class is the simplest and least organized of the 
 fungi, but it is nevertheless the most destructive of the 
 whole tribe. It contains sixteen genera, and upwards 
 of one hundred and sixty-seven species, three genera 
 alone containing respectively thirty-eight, thirty-one, and 
 sixty-three species. Mildew, smut, bunt, and rust, are 
 too familiar examples of this most notorious class.
 
 218 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 Such is a brief analysis of the different orders of Brit- 
 ish fungi, and a general survey of the different kinds of 
 fructification. In regard to the spores themselves, pro- 
 duced by these organs, they are either naked or they are 
 contained in oval cases called thecse or asci, mixed with 
 peculiar but little-known filaments, to which the provi- 
 sional name of antheridia has been given, because they 
 are supposed to perform the functions of these organs in 
 the fertilizing of the seed. The Ascomycetes or asci- 
 bearing fungi resemble lichens in every respect, except that 
 they are produced on decaying substances, and are pos- 
 sessed of a . mycelium or spawn, peculiarities unknown 
 among the lichens. By some authors, such as Schleiden, 
 they are included among the lichens, notwithstanding these 
 discrepancies. Spores then are produced in the interior of 
 distinct sacs, called thecse ; or they are developed on the 
 outside of distinct sacs, called basidia ; or they are pro- 
 duced in the midst of a gelatinous mass, without any evi- 
 dent organization, when they are called myxospores. 
 
 "We have thus seen that all these forms of fungoid life, 
 excessively minute in size and simple in structure al- 
 though many of them are, yet obey the great law of 
 nature in propagating themselves by seeds or germs. In- 
 dividuals of the antiquated school of La Marc and Oken, 
 as the author of the Vestiges of Creation, have adopted 
 the strange theory that these plants are the productions 
 of spontaneous or equivocal generation, springing up with- 
 out seed or germ from the soil, or from substances in a 
 state of fermentation. This theory is countenanced and 
 rendered plausible by the almost instantaneous appear- 
 ance of mildew, dry-rot, mouldiness, and others of the
 
 THE PA GE OF NA TURE. 2 1 9 
 
 simplest class of fungi on the objects affected, and the 
 strange and almost inaccessible situations in which they 
 are found, as, for instance, in the inside of a large cheese, 
 in the core of an apple, beneath the wrapper with which 
 the careful housewife covers her cherished preserves, and 
 under the epidermis of living plants, localities where it 
 is difficult to conceive how any seed, however minute, 
 could find a lodgment. The nature and habits of these 
 plants are now, however, better understood than they 
 were in the time of La Marc ; and no intelligent natu- 
 ralist will, at the present date, be found to support 
 the theory of spontaneous generation. Enlarged and 
 more accurate researches into the mysteries of nature 
 have established the fact upon a sure and immovable 
 foundation, that a seed is as necessary for the production 
 of the minutest speck of mouldiness which the micro- 
 scope can reveal to our view, as the acorn is for the ger- 
 mination of the giant oak of the forest, or the date for 
 the growth of the magnificent palm of the desert. It is 
 true that these plants are most frequently found on the 
 products of animal or vegetable decomposition ; but 
 they occur in such situations, not because these decaying 
 substances originate them, but just because they afford 
 them the necessary conditions of their growth, their 
 germs having been previously deposited there by pre- 
 existing species. If we sow a quantity of the black dust 
 or spores of the common bread-mould on a stale crust, 
 we shall have a quicker growth and a more abundant 
 crop of fungi than if the crust be left to a natural or 
 chance supply of seeds ; just as the farmer has a surer 
 and more plentiful harvest when he deposits a sufficient
 
 220 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 quantity of seeds in the ground, than when he leaves the 
 chance of a crop to the scattering self-sown wheat of the 
 previous autumn. Indeed, the most prolonged and closest 
 observations, and the most carefully-conducted experi- 
 ments, have not led to the proof of a single instance of 
 spontaneous or equivocal generation, even of one of the 
 simplest of all living things ; but, on the contrary, they 
 all lead farther and farther from, or entirely disprove it. 
 F. Schulze, of Berlin, performed an experiment to test 
 the possibility of equivocal generation, under the play of 
 the indispensable conditions of life, free from access to 
 any pre-existing vegetable or animal germs. " A glass 
 vessel, half filled with a mixture of various dead vege- 
 table and animal substances in water, was heated to 
 212 Fahr., so as to destroy any living bodies which 
 might exist within. To the vessel was then adapted a 
 pair of Liebig's bulbs, one of which contained sulphuric 
 acid, the other a solution of potassa, and through these 
 only could the exterior air have access to its interior. 
 The apparatus was then placed in a window, where it 
 received the full influence of light, and the necessary 
 temperature for the production of life. The air within 
 the vessel was daily renewed from May till August, by 
 blowing through the sulphuric acid, from which it could 
 suffer no change, except to be deprived of moisture and 
 organic particles. During all that time not even the 
 simplest animal or vegetable forms were produced ; 
 while in an open vessel, containing the same mixture in 
 the same situation, there were observed on the following 
 day numerous vibrios and monads, and to these were 
 soon added larger animaculee." This interesting experi-
 
 THE PAGE OF N A TUBE. 221 
 
 ment is conclusive of the fact, that, if due care be taken 
 to get quit of the ova of animals and the seeds of minute 
 vegetables from any fluid or other suitable matrix, and 
 at the same time carefully to exclude the further entrance 
 of them through the admitted air, no traces of animal 
 or vegetable life will appear. The presence of mould in 
 such an apparently inexplicable place as the interior of a 
 large cheese, is owing to the exposure of the curd to the 
 air when the cheese was being made, and the consequent 
 deposition upon it of the minute germs of fungi floating 
 around, which afterwards developed themselves when the 
 curd thus impregnated formed the inside of the cheese. 
 It is well known that the exposure of curd for a single 
 day to the atmosphere, will have the effect of producing 
 mouldy cheese. 
 
 Countless millions of the subtle seeds of fungi, in- 
 visible to the naked eye, and light almost as the particles 
 of vapour around them, are continually floating in the 
 air we breathe, or swimming in the water we drink, or 
 lying amid the impalpable dust and sand of the soil, 
 waiting but the combination of a few simple circum- 
 stances, the presence of warmth or moisture, or a suit- 
 able matrix, to display their vital energies, and to burst 
 into full, free, independent life. Hundreds of thousands 
 of the minute germs of the various moulds which ap- 
 proach us in our very houses, and fasten upon different 
 articles of domestic use, might be and often are dancing 
 about in the air-currents of our apartments, though 
 totally invisible to us ; but could we sufficiently magnify 
 them, as a sunbeam darted in at our windows and illu- 
 minated their bodies, they would appear like so many
 
 222 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 cannon-balls, moving rapidly up and down, and in every 
 direction. If we venture for a moment to imagine the 
 overwhelming number of seeds which the different species 
 of fungi must disseminate in the course of a single year, 
 if we consider that each individual of the common puff- 
 ball contains upwards of ten millions of seeds, and these 
 so small as to form a mere cloud when puffed into the 
 air, and that a single filament of the mould which in- 
 fests our bread and preserves, will produce as many 
 germs as an oak will acorns, so that a piece of decaying 
 matter, not two inches each way, will scatter upon the 
 air at the slightest breath of the summer breeze, or the 
 gentlest touch of the smallest insect's wing, as many 
 seeds, quick with life, as this country will produce of 
 acorns in a twelvemonth ; if we take these things into 
 consideration, it is not too much to suppose that the 
 seeds of fungi must be ubiquitous, and from their exces- 
 sively minute size penetrate into every place, even into 
 the stomachs and other parts of animals. This circum- 
 stance has been made the ground of a belief that 
 malarial and epidemic fevers have their origin in crypto- 
 gamic vegetables or spores. Much valuable information 
 has of late years been acquired regarding the habits 
 and mode of propagation of these diseases ; but little 
 as yet has been ascertained regarding their essential 
 nature. The pestilence still " walks in darkness," and 
 neither chemistry nor any other science can tell us what 
 is its essential nature, nor in what its terrible potency 
 consists. If the spores of fungi be really the excit- 
 ing cause, in predisposing circumstances, of zymotic dis- 
 eases, these minute bodies conveyed through the air, and
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 223 
 
 introduced into the body in respiration, could easily be 
 detected. The minutest of all known living beings is 
 the Vibrio lineola. of Miiller, measuring only the 36,000th 
 part of an inch, and the smallest known vegetable spore is 
 very much larger than this ; while particles of inorganic 
 matter can be distinguished by the microscope so minute 
 as the 200,000th part of an inch. Be the origin of these 
 diseases however what it may, it is, a matter of fact that 
 when cholera last appeared in this country in 1847, an 
 extraordinary quantity of these microscopic spores were 
 found in the air. If they were poisonous, as many of 
 the fungi are, it admits of being suggested at least that 
 those living in places where dense clouds of them were 
 present, being devitalized by other noxious influences, 
 such as vitiated air, defective sewerage, bad water, or an 
 inadequate supply of food, and consequently in a state of 
 body unable to resist the deleterious action of these 
 cryptogamic germs, died from a form of poisoning. These 
 countless myriads, then, of invisible seeds which continu- 
 ally float in our atmosphere, ever ready to alight and 
 spring into life, as the advanced heralds of the plague 
 and the pestilence, may well strike us with astonishment 
 if not with awe. Above us, about us, and in us they 
 roam like vigilant spirits, " seeing that all is right with 
 our physical constitution ; but gladly availing themselves 
 of the slightest, flaw to work our destruction." 
 
 Although fungi are in an especial manner capable of 
 universal dissemination, yet we find that in their geo- 
 graphical distribution they are as much restricted as 
 other plants. Some representatives of the class are 
 found in every part of the world, and some particular
 
 224 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 species have the power of indefinite extension and locali- 
 zation, but, as a whole, like the higher cryptogams, they 
 can only spread within certain limited areas. In tropi- 
 cal forests, where the heat fills the stifled and confined 
 air with moisture, where the exuberance of the vegetation 
 excludes the rays of the sun and creates the "dim religi- 
 ous light " which they love, and where, more especially, 
 there is always an immense quantity of decaying organic 
 matter ; in such favourable situations we might expect 
 to find them in the greatest quantity and luxuriance. 
 But, strange to say, fungi as a class, are comparatively 
 rare in tropical woods. While every tree has its creeper, 
 and almost every flower its parasite, the plants which, 
 above all others, are most parasitical have very few re- 
 presentatives there ; and dead trunks and prostrate 
 boughs, and decaying herbage, rot and crumble away 
 untouched by the ravages of mushroom or mould. In- 
 sects in these countries perform the office of fungi in 
 hastening the decomposition of dead matter, and incor- 
 porating and deodorizing the decaying particles ; and it 
 must be confessed that they perform this duty more 
 speedily and effectually ; while, unlike the fungi, they 
 leave no unpleasant traces, no putrifying masses behind 
 when their work is accomplished, and their own turn 
 comes to die. Like some of the epidemic diseases, as, 
 for instance, typhus, with which they are said to be 
 connected, the too high temperature of the tropics seems 
 to offer an effectual barrier to their general distribution 
 in those countries. Their head-quarters seem to be in 
 northern latitudes, where the temperature is mild and 
 genial, and where there is a constant supply of moisture.
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 225 
 
 Professor Fries of Upsal, the presiding genius of these 
 plants, gathered in Sweden, within a space of ground 
 not exceeding a square furlong, more than two thousand 
 distinct species. " This country," says Berkeley, " with 
 its various soils, large mixed forests, and warm summer 
 temperature, seems to produce more specifis than any 
 part of the known world ; and next in order, perhaps, 
 are the United States, as far as South Carolina, where 
 they absolutely swarm. A moist autumn after a genial 
 summer is most conducive to their growth, but cold, wet 
 summers are seldom productive. The portion of the 
 Himalayas, which lies immediately north of Calcutta, is 
 perhaps almost as prolific in point of individuals as the 
 countries named above, but the number of species on 
 examination proves far less than might at first have been 
 suspected. It is probably not a fifth of what occurs 
 in Sweden. Great Britain, though possessing a con- 
 siderable list of species, is not abundant in individuals, 
 except as regards a limited number of species. The 
 exuberance even in the most favourable autumn is not to 
 be compared with that of Sweden or many parts of Ger- 
 many." They are found in the Arctic and Antarctic 
 regions, almost as far as the limits of vegetation. They 
 penetrate to the dreary regions of Greenland and Lap- 
 land, supplying the natives with their tinder, and with 
 an excellent styptic for stopping blood and allaying 
 pain ; and they announce to the hapless exiles of Sibe- 
 ria, when their gaily-coloured forms spring forth from 
 the crevices of the rocks, and in the dark haunts of the 
 gloomy fir-woods, that the stormy blasts of winter are 
 past, and that the spring and the summer, those short 
 p
 
 226 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 sweet seasons of indescribable beauty and pleasure, are 
 nigh. 
 
 Certain genera and species occur only in tropical 
 and sub-tropical regions, having their northern limit in 
 the north of Africa or the coast of the Mediterranean. 
 Several genera and species are confined to New Zealand, 
 others to Ceylon and Java, others to the Cape de Verde 
 Islands and the United States. " In the Sikkim and 
 neighbouring Himalayas we have species of every differ- 
 ent climate at different heights. We have below Poly- 
 porus sanguineus and xanthopiis, which are peculiar to 
 the hottest parts of the tropics ; higher up we have 
 the species of Ceylon and Java ; we have then the 
 species of Southern Europe ; and finally, the more north- 
 ern species ; or, if we have not the identical species, we 
 have others so nearly allied that it is matter of diffi- 
 culty to distinguish them. One species occurs as high as 
 18,000 feet, while others flourished in the warm vale at 
 a comparatively low height above the level of the sea." 
 
 But while the fungi are, to a certain extent, restricted in 
 their geographical distribution within certain well-known 
 limits ; they are, on the other hand, almost ubiquitous 
 in their choice of habitats. There is hardly a single 
 substance on which some species or other of them may 
 not, under favourable circumstances, be found. As a 
 general rule they all grow on dead and decaying organic 
 matter, on the mouldering trunks and branches of trees 
 and withered plants, and on the bones and droppings of 
 animals. But they are also occasionally found on living 
 trees, and on green leaves, and parts of plants that show 
 no symptoms of decay. A large class called hypoder-
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 227 
 
 mous or entophytic fungi spring from beneath the cuticle 
 of living plants, and a considerable proportion of our 
 flowering plants are affected with them a different 
 fungus being developed upon almost every species. 
 Their minute sporules are either directly applied to the 
 plants upon which they are found, entering by the sto- 
 mata or breathing pores ; or they are taken up from the 
 soil by their seeds in the process of germinating, enter 
 into their structure, circulate through their tissues, re- 
 maining all the time in a dormant state, until at last, 
 when the part which forms the most suitable nidus for 
 them is developed, they suddenly appear upon it exter- 
 nally in the form of patches or aggregations of black or 
 coloured granules. Many species, contrary to the habits 
 of the race, seem to live on mineral matter. Numerous 
 exotic Polypori, for instance, grow on hard volcanic 
 tufa, without a particle of organic matter. Other fungi 
 are not unfrequently found in this country growing in 
 abundance on the hardest gravel stones, and bare plas- 
 tered walls destitute of all organic nourishment. Mr. 
 Ivor found a Didymium on a leaden cistern at Kew ; 
 another was found by Mr. Sowerby, in the outer gallery 
 of St. Paul's, on cinders ; while a still more extraordi- 
 nary instance is related by Schweinitz of a species of 
 JEthalium vegetating on iron which had been subjected 
 to a red heat a short time before. " A blacksmith," he 
 says, " at Salem, by no means void of sense or cultiva- 
 tion, had thrown on one side a piece of iron which he 
 had just taken from the fire, being called off to some 
 other business. On his return in the morning, he was 
 astonished to see on this very piece, lying over the water
 
 228 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 in his smith's trough, a quantity of this fungus, of a 
 soft gelatinous consistency. He immediately sent for 
 Schweinitz without moving anything from its place, 
 who was equally astonished to find a distinct species of 
 JLthalium. (This plant forms a yellow mass like curdled 
 egg in tan-pits and hot-houses, cucumber and melon 
 frames, where it is very common and injurious.) The 
 mass of fungi was two feet in length, consisting of a 
 series of many confluent individuals. It had crept from 
 the iron to some adjacent wood; and not, as might be 
 objected, from the wood to the iron. The immense 
 mass had grown in the space of twelve hours." All 
 these curious instances show that fungi do not always 
 derive nutriment from their matrix, and that many of 
 them are essentially meteoric, depending on matter con- 
 veyed to them by the surrounding air or moisture. A 
 species of Phycomyces, which bears a strong resemblance 
 to an alga, from its green colour and shining aspect 
 when dry, grows rapidly and in prodigious quantities in 
 soap and candle manufactories, covering walls that are 
 saturated with oil or grease in immense flakes. It is 
 supposed to be a transformation of the common green 
 mould. Some species, such as the truffle, are subter- 
 ranean, vegetating in the absence of all the external 
 stimulants upon which other plants depend, being ap- 
 parently attached to the roots of trees, often at a con- 
 siderable distance underground. Some species are found, 
 as already mentioned, in the coal mines of Dresden. 
 A peculiar fungus (Racodium cellare), like a bacchana- 
 lian gnome, is found on casks and bottles, and hanging 
 down from the roof in close cellars. It grows in great
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 229 
 
 abundance in the London docks. The dim vaults, with 
 their vistas of casks, extending in the darkness farther 
 than eye can reach, are festooned with this fungoid 
 cobweb hanging from the roof like a soft and comfor- 
 table form of stalactite, in the strangest forms and in 
 immense masses. It begins as an incrustation resem- 
 bling white cotton wool forming on the brickwork of the 
 vault, and as it grows, descending in irregular shapes, 
 hanging down a foot or two in length, and changing to a 
 dingy brown colour, very like a mouse-skin. The men who 
 live in the place are proud of this extraordinary fungus, 
 which carries out the convivial aspect imparted by the 
 wine casks ; it is never interfered with, and they point 
 out any larger mass than usual with some complacency. 
 As a singular instance of the ease with which these 
 plants can accommodate themselves to surrounding cir- 
 cumstances, it may be mentioned that several species of 
 fungi called snow moulds, somewhat allied to the common 
 moulds of our cupboards, are found growing on the barren 
 and unpropitious snow. One of these, called Chionype, was 
 first discovered in the north of Iceland ; but two other 
 species have since occurred in Germany in great abund- 
 ance. The Chionype is developed on the snow in clear 
 Aveather, when the sun has power enough to melt the upper 
 crust, without the existence of a general thaw ; and in all 
 probability springs from the droppings or the urine of 
 animals decomposed in the snow. It spreads over the sur- 
 face of the snow in shining fleecy patches, dotted with red 
 or green particles. When the snow melts, it is left behind 
 upon the underlying grass in the form of a cobweb stratum, 
 which in a few days disappears. Another species of
 
 230 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 snow-mould recently discovered in Germany, and described 
 by Professor Unger, under the significant name of Lanosa 
 nivalis unlike the former, grows underneath the snow, 
 and in certain seasons is extremely destructive to the 
 grass upon which it is developed. " The years hi which 
 it is most injurious are those when a deep snow sets in 
 without any previous frost, when it sometimes destroys 
 whole crops of corn ; and this is so well known to the 
 farmer, that in such seasons it is customary in certain 
 districts to plough up the hard frozen surface of the 
 snow, occasionally during the winter. The plant is of a 
 very simple structure, consisting of merely branched or 
 jointed threads, whose ultimate lateral branches at 
 length assume a red tinge, and separate at the articula- 
 tions, producing oblong spores. It forms white patches 
 a foot or more in diameter, made up of a number of 
 smaller circular patches ; and when the snow melts on 
 the approach of spring, these assume here and there a 
 red tint, as if dusted with red powder, in consequence of 
 the ripening of the spores. The snow is scarcely melted 
 when the whole disappears, leaving behind a withered 
 plot, which, according to the greater or less vigour or 
 duration of the parasite, is either completely barren, or but 
 slowly resumes its verdure. In some years the mould is 
 so abundant that the crops are completely destroyed, and 
 there is no other remedy than to sow them again." 
 
 Not content with preying upon dead organic matter, 
 or growing plants, some fungi also attack living animals. 
 In this country there are several species of Sphseria and 
 Isaria which grow in garden soil on the larvae and pupae of 
 insects; while others are parasitic on the Elaphomyces gra-
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 231 
 
 nulatm and muricatus in pine woods. In New Zealand, a 
 remarkable group of fungi called Sphceria Eobertsii grows 
 from the head of the caterpillar of the Hepialus virescens, 
 a species of moth, when it buries itself among the moss 
 in the woods to undergo its metamorphosis. In appearance 
 it is a somewhat crooked, long, slender stalk terminating 
 in the spike-like fructification. Its growth destroys the 
 caterpillar ; a striking proof that a retrogade step is some- 
 times to be found in the animal kingdom the grub instead 
 of developing itself into a beautiful butterfly being replaced 
 by a nauseous fungus. It is so common and prominent a 
 species in New Zealand, that it has a name in the native 
 language, and is associated with some of the ancient Maori 
 superstitions. In the West Indies, wasps called by the 
 inhabitants Guepes vegetantes, may often be seen flying 
 about with fungoid plants as long and nearly as bulky as 
 their own bodies growing upon them ; while in this 
 country itself, it is by no means rare to see a humble- 
 bee, or a common blue-bottle fly, that had been killed by 
 the growth of a club-shaped Sphseria from its body, from 
 half an inch to an inch in length, of a sienna brown or 
 lemon colour. Flies are usually attacked by a fungoid 
 disease about the end of autumn, when the cold damp 
 weather which then prevails has reduced the vitality of 
 their bodies to the lowest point, and rendered them 
 incapable of resisting external agencies. At this time 
 they forsake their accustomed haunts in the open air, 
 congregating within doors for warmth and shelter, and 
 may be seen in considerable numbers adhering to window 
 sills, walls, and various articles of furniture in our rooms. 
 In a few days they die, but strange to say their appear-
 
 232 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 ance is so little altered, that it is impossible without 
 actual examination to tell that they are dead. When 
 dying in the ordinary way, they always draw up their 
 legs, and cross them beneath their bodies ; but when 
 they perish of this disease, the legs are stretched out 
 supporting their bodies, and retaining them in their 
 natural position. The proboscis is protruded, as if in the 
 act of imbibing nourishment, and their whole appearance 
 is that of vigorous healthy flies that have alighted for a 
 moment, and may be expected in the next to take wing 
 and fly away. The only difference observed is a whitish 
 halo, like a sprinkling of flour, about three inches in 
 circumference, which surrounds them, and consists of the 
 minute dust-like spores shed by the fungus that has 
 attacked them. When more attentively examined, how- 
 ever, the abdomen is seen to be much swollen, the rings 
 composing it being separated from each other by inter- 
 spaces, occupied with white prominent zones of vegetable 
 growth. The body is a mere empty shell, reduced by 
 the slightest touch to a dry friable powder, and lined 
 with a thin, white, felt-like layer of mycelium, the entire 
 viscera and all the juices being consumed by the voracious 
 fungus. This disease has been long familiar to naturalists, 
 but owing to the imperfection of their microscopes, its 
 real nature was not ascertained until a comparatively 
 recent period. It was first accurately determined by 
 De Geer about the end of last century ; and a minute 
 and graphic description is given of it by Goethe, who 
 suffered nothing worthy of notice, however minute, or 
 apparently far removed from his own sphere, to escape 
 his observation. This, and all other vegetable parasites
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 233 
 
 attacking insects, seem to be one of the powerful and 
 efficient checks provided by nature for restraining within 
 due limits the increase of creatures, which, owing to their 
 extraordinary fecundity, rapid development, and un- 
 bounded rapacity, would otherwise prove a terrible 
 scourge. 
 
 The insect Sphaerias are found in different countries. 
 In Australia, where a gigantic species occurs on an enor- 
 mous larva frequently found beside the banks of the 
 Murrambidgee, in North America, and in China, these 
 deadly parasites are developed upon insects of different 
 tribes. They form a favourite medicine in China, where 
 a bundle of the fungi, with the caterpillars attached to 
 them, is placed in the stomach of a duck, which is then 
 roasted and eaten by the patient as a cure for internal 
 complaints. There is a peculiar disease called muscar- 
 dine, affecting the silk-worm in Syria and China, before 
 they have woven their cocoons, which sometimes proves 
 fatal to thousands of these delicate creatures. It not 
 unfrequently happens that the silk-grower loses his 
 whole stock of worms from this cause alone. This 
 disease is caused by the mould-like filaments of the 
 Botrytis bassiana. These filaments grow with great 
 rapidity within the body of the animal they attack, not 
 only at the expense of its nutritive fluids, but after its 
 death ; all the interior soft tissues appear to be converted 
 into a solid mass of mycelium, from which arise one or 
 more aerial receptacles of the spores. It sometimes 
 happens that the caterpillar is only partially affected by 
 this fungoid growth, or only to such an extent as not to 
 destroy the organs immediately essential to its life, in
 
 234 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 which case it may pass through its metamorphosis into the 
 imago state, and become a butterfly or a moth, with the 
 lower portion of its body rilled with a mass of fungoid 
 substance as above described. 
 
 But it is not only insects, and other creatures of in- 
 ferior organization in the larva state, that are thus 
 subject to the attacks of parasitic fungi. They even 
 enter the water an element in which they are seldom 
 found, and where they always refuse to develop them- 
 selves normally and prey upon gold fishes and other 
 scaly tenants of the deep. The Achyla prolifera is one 
 of the most remarkable of these fungi. Every oue who 
 has kept gold-fishes must be familiar with this great 
 enemy of his favourites. It consists of numerous trans- 
 parent threads of extreme fineness, packed together as 
 closely as the pile of velvet, adhering to the surface 
 of the fishes, and covering them as it were with a 
 whitish slime. This appearance is generally regarded 
 as a kind of decay or consumption in the animals them- 
 selves, and not as an external clothing of parasitic plants. 
 It is, however, a true vegetable growth, as is evident 
 when it is placed under the microscope, for the unassisted 
 eye can perceive nothing of its true structure ; each 
 filament being terminated by a pear-shaped ball, about 
 the Y^^JTJ- th of an inch in diameter, and consisting of a 
 single cell filled with a mucilaginous fluid, in which 
 float the reproductive granules. " The contents of this 
 cell are seen to be in constant motion from the earliest 
 stage of their existence ; but as they advance to 
 maturity, the mucilage disappears, and the motion of the 
 granules becomes more rapid and violent, till ultimately
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 
 
 235 
 
 they burst their way through the cell, and are trans- 
 ferred to the water, there to perform their circle of being, 
 and to give birth to new granules. All this takes place 
 with such amazing rapidity, that one hour or two suf- 
 fices for the complete development and escape of the 
 spores ; so that we need not wonder when we are told 
 that, once established, the Achyla prolifera will often 
 complete the destruction of a healthy gold-fish in less 
 than twelve hours." 
 
 The most protean of all the fungi, both in appearance 
 and choice of growing-place, is the group to which the 
 common familiar name of mould has been given. There 
 are no less than three different genera and numerous 
 species included under this one name. There is the 
 white or blue mould, forming the genus Aspergillus 
 (Fig. 29), from the resemblance of its fructification to 
 
 the aspergillus or brush used 
 for sprinkling holy water 
 in Eoman Catholic coun- 
 tries, which is of frequent 
 occurrence on decaying sub- 
 stances of all kinds, and 
 gives a white and downy, 
 or a blue-grey and powdery 
 
 FIG. 29. ASPERGILLUS GLAUCUS. aspect to the objects OH 
 
 which it grows. There is next the green mould, forming 
 the genus Penicillium (Fig. 30), extremely common on 
 all sorts of decaying bodies, and presenting a close resem- 
 blance in appearance to the former genus, with this 
 difference, that its spore -bearing stem divides into 
 numerous branches like a miniature tree, bearing spores
 
 236 
 
 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 not in regular rows, but like leaves or fruit in irregular 
 clusters on each branch, whereas the stem of the asper- 
 gillus is unbranched, and bears on its summit many 
 
 FIG. 30. (a) PEJTICILLIUM CRUSTACEDM. (6) ASPERGILLUS CANDIDUS. 
 
 rows of spores, which are placed in linear order like 
 necklaces, and joined to the stem like a bundle of 
 hairs on a brush. The third kind of mould included in 
 this group forms the genus Mucor (Fig. 31), or yellow 
 
 FIG. 31. MUCOR MUCEDO. 
 (a) Natural size. (6) Highly magnified. 
 
 mould, also extremely common. It differs from the two 
 preceding kinds in having its spores, instead of being 
 exposed naked to the air like them, enclosed in a 
 rounded membranous case, bursting irregularly as the
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 237 
 
 4 
 
 spores arrive at maturity, which then present themselves 
 like so many dusty particles congregated round a central 
 nucleus. Being so minute, the slightest touch, or the 
 gentlest breath of air, is sufficient to scatter them in 
 thousands, and thus they increase with amazing rapidity. 
 The trivial names of blue, green, and yellow mould, it 
 may be remarked, are of no specific significance, as all 
 these colours are common to the species in the different 
 genera, and occur even in the same species in various 
 stages of its growth. In fact, it is by their different 
 fructification under the microscope alone that the differ- 
 ent genera can be recognised, as their mycelium or spawn 
 is precisely similar, and to the naked eye the appearance 
 they present on the different substances which they 
 affect is identical. 
 
 Though generically and specifically distinct, as we have 
 thus seen, yet, for the sake of convenience, adopting the 
 popular notion and considering them all as one plant, we 
 find that this mould is not only universally distributed, 
 where fungi are at all capable of growing, but that it is 
 also remarkably indifferent as to its selection of habitats, 
 assuming different appearances in different situations, some 
 of which are exceedingly puzzling to the botanist. Usually 
 mould is found on pots of jam, on decaying succulent fruits, 
 on bread when kept too long in a warm and damp situa- 
 tion, on clothes and other articles of common wear; but it 
 is sometimes found in strangely different situations, where 
 it presents the most incongruous forms. The fungi which 
 are produced on animal tissues, more especially in certain 
 diseased conditions of the skin or the mucous membranes, 
 and the presence of which, in such cases, seems to cause
 
 238 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 an alteration in the phenomena of disease, have been 
 recently ascertained by careful experiments to belong to 
 this group. There are no less than nine entophytes para- 
 sitic upon man ; and these are all now referred to some 
 species or other of mould in different stages of develop- 
 ment. Several French surgeons narrate cases, in which, 
 on removing bandages from sore surfaces, they have found 
 them covered with a collection of white flocculent fila- 
 ments forming a web-like tissue. These mycodermata, 
 as they are called, of ulcerated and mucous surfaces, are 
 nothing else than the undeveloped spawn, or mycelium of 
 some species of Penicillium. There is a curious endemic 
 disease that occurs in Poland and the adjoining countries, 
 said to be of Asiatic origin, and to have first appeared 
 in Europe in the thirteenth century, in which the hairs 
 get matted together, and become endowed individually 
 with the most exquisitely painful sensibility. This fear- 
 ful disease, to which the name of Plica polonica has been 
 given, is owing to the development of a species of mould 
 on the head. The allied disease known by the name of 
 mentagra affecting the beard of men ; the sordes on the 
 teeth, occurring in persons affected with low typhoid 
 fever ; the aptha or thrush, as the white spots like 
 curdled milk, which cover the mucous membrane of the 
 mouth and palate of children, are called; the disease 
 called tinea or scald-head, so frequent on the heads of 
 infants; all these diseases, as well as the mouldiness 
 found in the air-cells of the eider duck, are different 
 forms of this plastic and ubiquitous mould. The vege- 
 table vesicles or aggregations of small rounded cells found 
 in these different diseases of the human body, have been
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 239 
 
 carefully removed and placed in saccharine matter, on 
 fruits or in syrup, in favourable circumstances, supplied 
 with the requisite conditions of warmth and moisture, 
 and attentively watched, when, in the course of a few 
 days or weeks, they were all found to develop themselves, 
 some into the common blue mould, and others into the 
 common green mould. These experiments render it ex- 
 tremely probable, that there is no fungus found infesting 
 any part of the human body, or any part of the economy 
 of other animals, however different or abnormal the 
 appearance it may present, which is not referrible to one 
 or other of the common genera of mould, Penicillium, 
 Aspergillus, and Mucor ! 
 
 But perhaps the most extraordinary and abnormal 
 forms of mould are those which it assumes in liquids. 
 Fungi, as a class, are entirely confined to solid substances ; 
 but there are very few fluids containing saccharine mat- 
 ter in which this all-pervading mould does not occur. 
 Wine, cider, tinctures, syrups, vinegar, catsup, not unfre- 
 quently become mothery, that is, present the appearance 
 of fibres or flocculent threads running through them. 
 Every one is familiar with the tough mass that is so 
 often brought up on the point of the pen from the ink- 
 holder. This flocculent matter is the undeveloped mycelium 
 of the green or blue mould. While growing in decom- 
 posing liquids, it loses all resemblance to the same plant 
 when growing on decaying fruits and dead organic matter 
 exposed to the air, and becomes a soft, slimy, and some- 
 what gelatinous body, such as is often found in the bot 
 toms of empty wine-bottles. This slimy mass is no 
 other than the famous vinegar-plant, which a few years
 
 240 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 ago aroused the attention of domestic circles and scien- 
 tific bodies, and was extensively diffused as a useful 
 article in the manufacture of vinegar in private families. 
 The report, circulated at the time, of its being an impor- 
 tation from India or South America, has thus been found 
 destitute of foundation, for whatever may have been the 
 history of the first or individual specimens, and though 
 the growth of the plant might go on more rapidly in a 
 warm than in a temperate climate, yet it is evidently a 
 genuine native production, capable of being originated 
 and multiplied indefinitely in this country. This extra- 
 ordinary substance, familiar, no doubt, to many of my 
 readers, may be described as a tough, gelatinous mass 
 of a pale brownish colour, bearing a close resemblance 
 to a piece of boiled tripe. It is usually placed in a 
 small jar containing a solution of sugar or treacle ; 
 and after being allowed to remain in a warm situa- 
 tion for a month or six weeks, the solution is found to 
 be converted into vinegar, this change being due to a 
 kind of fermentation caused by the plant. The solution 
 necessarily causes the vinegar to be of a syrupy nature, 
 but not to such an extent as to communicate a flavour 
 to it ; when evaporated to dryness, a large quantity of 
 saccharine matter is left. Dr. Lindley, and most other 
 botanists, are strongly of opinion that this so-called vine- 
 gar-plant is an abnormal form of the common Penicillium 
 glaucum or blue mould. In fact, it is merely the spawn or 
 mycelium of that plant, increased to an extraordinary extent 
 and closely interlaced together, owing to the absence of the 
 usual spore-bearing stalks, which, as already remarked, 
 are never formed in fungi growing in fluids. Whenever
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 241 
 
 the vinegar is allowed to evaporate, and the mycelium 
 in consequence becomes free from saturation, it produces 
 the usual fructification, and presents the common ap- 
 pearance of mould. Other fungi besides the blue mould 
 may assume the same remarkable form when placed under 
 similar conditions, and all of them may have the power 
 of producing vinegar. Indeed, it should not be so great 
 a matter of surprise, that fungi should assume such ex- 
 traordinary appearances, when prevented from develop- 
 ing their usual organs of fructification ; for do we not 
 find even among the flowering plants, which are not nearly 
 so plastic, or so susceptible to external influences, very 
 singular changes effected in their structure and conforma- 
 tion, by being kept in a barren and undeveloped state 1 
 The tree mignonette is a familiar instance of the change 
 effected in the structure of an annual plant, by being kept 
 from flowering during the natural period, and placed in 
 favourable circumstances ; and still more surprising illus- 
 trations will occur to the florist and botanist. It is 
 worthy of remark that the vinegar-plant, when well sup- 
 plied with food in an acetous solution, divides at a certain 
 stage of its growth into two distinct layers, which in 
 course of time would again increase in size and divide, 
 and so on, each layer being capable of removal to a 
 separate jar for the production of vinegar. This remark- 
 able mode of propagation by dividing into separate la- 
 minae, which has been taken advantage of in spreading 
 specimens of the plant among different individuals, re- 
 sembles the separation of buds in the rnedusa3, and the 
 merismatic mode of division by which the diatoms, and 
 many others of the lowest class of algae, extend themselves 
 Q
 
 242 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 indefinitely ; thus showing the close and intimate con- 
 nexion subsisting between plants that in other circum- 
 stances are widely different, when placed under similar 
 conditions. Such instances as these may be regarded as 
 circumstantial evidence in favour of Darwin's famous 
 theory of the origin of species by natural selection, that 
 is, that all existing plants have descended from three or 
 four progenitors, or even from one primordial form into 
 which life was first breathed by the Creator ; the vast 
 modification which these plants now exhibit being mainly 
 the result of a process of natural selection carried on 
 during vast geological periods and epochs of time. No 
 human intellect, however, unaided by revelation, is at 
 present able to make such conclusions as these matters of 
 positive proof or positive refutation. They must remain 
 a question of opinion, in the discussion of which peculi- 
 arities of mind and education must largely operate as bias- 
 sing influences ; a kind of Penelope's web, which, however 
 skilfully woven by one, will be ruthlessly unwoven by an- 
 other, until a more solid and enduring fabric has been put 
 together in the loom by some more competent artist. 
 
 A still more striking form of the protean mould under 
 consideration, is that which occurs in the fermenting of 
 yeast and other substances. It may surprise many to be 
 told that yeast is merely an undeveloped condition of the 
 common mould which they see on their bread and cheese. 
 Fermentation is in one sense a chemical process, forming 
 the first step towards dissolution, or that re-arrangement 
 of old elements which is necessary to form new com- 
 pounds ; but, strange to say, the action is -also vegeta- 
 tive. The whole mass of fermenting matter gradually
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 243 
 
 assumes the condition of active vegetative growth. The 
 germs of the mould, which had been incorporated in the 
 material, begin to live and expand, each bearing a dis- 
 tinct plant, giving rise either by gemmation or nuclea- 
 tion to new plants indefinitely, until the entire ferment- 
 ing principle is exhausted. The form which the Torula 
 cervisice^OT yeast-plant assumes is that of a number of 
 small vesicles, containing others still smaller in their in- 
 terior, strung together in a moniliform or necklace man- 
 ner. By the time that five or six vesicles are strung- 
 together, the fermentation is sufficiently advanced, and 
 the manufacturer checks it. The vegetation is then sus- 
 pended, and the groups of vesicles separate into indivi- 
 duals, the mass of which thus constitutes the yeast. The 
 cells of the yeast-plant are globular at first, but they 
 soon change, while the fermenting principle is being used 
 up, into the oval form ; when the sugar is still more ex- 
 hausted, they become linear and filamentous, advancing to 
 the primary stage of mycelium ; until finally when the 
 whole fermenting matter is absorbed and evaporated, they 
 develop into the normal crust and organs of fructifica- 
 tion of the common Penicillium or blue mould. 
 
 In all saccharine fluids undergoing the alcoholic and 
 even the acetous fermentation, these minute torulce or 
 yeast-cells make their appearance ; the azote or nitrogen 
 contained in them exercising what is called a catalytic 
 action, that is combining with the carbon and oxygen in 
 the fluid, and causing thereby the alcohol to be dis- 
 engaged. The question here arises whether the fungus 
 produces the fermentation, or the fermentation the fungus. 
 The following judicious remarks, from the pen of a well-
 
 244 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 known writer upon the subject in the Comhill Magazine, 
 may determine the matter. " If the force given out by 
 the liquid in fermenting be the cause of the growth of the 
 plant, yeast should never be formed unless fermentation 
 is going on. If on the other hand the growth of the plant 
 be (as has been supposed by some) the cause of the de- 
 composition, then fermentation should never occur un- 
 less that growth takes place. But it is well known that 
 the yeast-plant is never developed except during fermen- 
 tation, while fermentation will take place, although more 
 slowly, without any formation of yeast. It follows, 
 therefore, that the growth depends on the decomposition, 
 and not the decomposition upon the growth. But fer- 
 mentation is excited by the addition of yeast, and pro- 
 ceeds more successfully in proportion to the rapidity with 
 which the yeast cells are developed. Why should this 
 ]>e if the formation of the living cells is only the effect, 
 and not the cause of fermentation ? The intimate con- 
 nexion of growth and decay explains this fact. The 
 yeast excites fermentation because it is itself exceedingly 
 prone to decompose ; more prone than the liquid to 
 which it is added. And in decomposing, it communi- 
 cates the impulse of its own change to the matter around 
 it, so disturbing the equilibrium of the elements, and 
 bringing about, in a few hours, chemical changes that 
 would otherwise have occupied a much longer time. And 
 this more active decomposition in the fermenting fluid 
 reacts again upon the cells of the yeast, and produces 
 in them a rapid growth and multiplication. They afford 
 the outlet, as it were, for the force given out by the chemi- 
 cal changes to which they have furnished the stimulus."
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 245 
 
 It is a remarkable fact that we owe beer, wine, and 
 spirits, to the agency of the minute undeveloped cells of 
 the common mould, which in other forms is so de- 
 structive and offensive to us ! 
 
 For what purpose, it may be asked by the incurious 
 or the credulous, were plants so excessively numerous, 
 and so universally distributed, created 1 for to many in- 
 dividuals they are such objects of prejudice and disgust, 
 that their real importance as useful productions is little 
 appreciated. We do not know indeed all the wise pur- 
 poses which He who created nothing in vain intended 
 them to serve in the economy of nature ; but we are 
 acquainted with some of them, and these are so obvious, 
 so vastly important, and reveal such numerous and strik- 
 ing instances of adaptation of means to ends, that we 
 cannot but lament that such ignorance and prejudice 
 regarding them should exist in this country. There is 
 no elementary and self-subsistent organic matter in 
 nature, as Buffon erroneously taught, and the health 
 and wellbeing of man himself may more or less imme- 
 diately depend upon the important offices which these 
 despised productions were created to perform. Appear- 
 ing as they do in those months of the year when the 
 flowers are fading, the leaves falling, and all nature yield- 
 ing herself up as the passive victim of decay and death, 
 they are obviously intended to remove those decompos- 
 ing tissues which would otherwise pour volumes of 
 noxious vapour into the atmosphere, and render it unfit 
 to support life ; to call back into the great vortex, the 
 ceaseless round of existence, those fugitive particles of 
 effete matter which had served their appointed purpose
 
 246 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 in one form of organization, and were fast hastening 
 down, by a process of decomposition, to join the atoms 
 of the inorganic world of chaos and death. Every decay- 
 ing leaf of the wood and the field has its own fungoid 
 parasite, which gradually reduces it to a state fitted to 
 minister to the necessities of next year's vegetation ; and 
 thus, through the agency of little insignificant patches of 
 mouldy, rusty tissue, the " carrion in the sun converts 
 itself into trees and flowers." 
 
 In the economy of man, fungi have been applied to 
 many useful purposes. A few are endowed with valuable 
 medicinal properties, and still hold their ground, not- 
 withstanding the vast improvement effected in the nature 
 and choice of drugs in recent times. From their chemi- 
 cal constituents, the medical uses of the fungi are pro- 
 bably of far greater importance than their present very 
 limited application might lead us to suppose ; and in all 
 likelihood, if they were more studied, many of the active 
 species might afford valuable remedies. As it is, how- 
 ever, one species at least is a highly powerful and in- 
 valuable medicine. The ergot of rye is an important 
 article in the Materia Medica, as it has been found 
 capable of exerting a very powerful and specific action 
 upon the womb, and is administered in small doses in 
 certain extreme cases. This remedy has been principally 
 used in America, although of late it has been successfully 
 employed in France and in this country. Dufresnoy is 
 said to have used Agaricus emeticus with success in the 
 early stage of consumption ; and the sweet-scented Poly- 
 porus has been much vaunted for its surprising effects in 
 the treatment of the same disease, but it has now fallen
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 247 
 
 entirely into disuse. A species of Polyporus growing 
 upon the birch is used, when dried and pounded, as an 
 ingredient in snuff, by the Ostyacks on the Obi. 
 Lysums mokusin is used by the Chinese as a remedy in 
 gangrenous ulcers, but its virtues are probably fabulous. 
 In Lapland, the common amadou (Polypoms fomentarius), 
 when beaten out into thin pieces, is employed to remove 
 pain by simply laying a piece of it on the part affected, 
 and igniting it. Like the soft contents of puff-balls, it 
 is used occasionally to- stanch blood in wounds. When 
 steeped in saltpetre, and cut into thin slices, it forms 
 most excellent tinder, and is so employed in many parts 
 of Germany and England. In Lapland, it is considered 
 an indispensable article in domestic economy, Linnseus 
 relating that he saw it hung up for various purposes on 
 the walls of every cottage he entered. 
 
 Many of the fungi are possessed of highly poisonous 
 properties, and serious, and even fatal accidents oc- 
 cur occasionally in this country, and more frequently 
 in France, from an incautious use of them. Sometimes 
 this arises from confounding the edible with the poison- 
 ous species ; but even the edible kinds to some people 
 act always as poisons, and there is reason to believe that 
 the best and safest mushrooms, if taken in considerable 
 quantity for any length of time, induce in many indi- 
 viduals a habit of body which may be pronounced a 
 poisoned one. Upon what their poisonous properties 
 depend is not known. Two active substances have 
 been recognised in them. When distilled with water 
 they yield a fugacious acrid principle, dispelled in 
 the act of drying, or by immersion in acids, alkalies, or
 
 248 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 alcohol. When extracted by water and alcohol, a brown, 
 solid substance called amanitine is obtained, which is 
 more fixed, and resists such processes. The specific 
 action of these two constituents of the poisonous fungi 
 upon the human frame, has not as yet been investigated. 
 They sometimes act like narcotics, producing comatose 
 and other affections of the nervous system, and at other 
 times their action is of an irritant nature, more approach- 
 ing that of arsenic. Some act as anaesthetics, giving 
 complete insensibility to pain ; while, unlike chloroform 
 and ether, the individual under their influence remains 
 conscious all the tune. The common puff-ball deprives 
 the patient of speech, motion, and sensibility to pain, 
 while he is still conscious of everything that happens 
 around him ; thus realizing " that night-mare of our 
 dreams in which we lie stretched on the funeral bier, sen- 
 sible to the weeping of friends, aware of the last screw 
 being fixed in the coffin, and the last clod clapped down 
 upon us in the churchyard, and are yet unable to move 
 a hand or a lip for our own deliverance." When slowly 
 burnt, this fungus has long been employed for stupify- 
 ing bees, and thus robbing their hives of the honey with 
 impunity. Experiments, with the same species, have 
 also recently been made on dogs, cats, and rabbits, and 
 similar effects have invariably been found to ensue. 
 When the fumes of the burning fungus are slowly in- 
 haled, they gradually produce all the symptoms of intoxi- 
 cation, followed first by drowsiness, and then by perfect 
 insensibility to pain, terminating, if the inhalation be con- 
 tinued, in vomiting, convulsions, and ultimately in death. 
 The qualities of fungi seem to vary with the climate
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 249 
 
 in which they have grown ; for many species which in 
 this country are considered highly poisonous, on account 
 of their intensely acrid qualities, and avoided as such, 
 are eaten with impunity on the Continent. Mr. Berkeley 
 mentions his having been informed by a gentleman of 
 great acuteness and observation, that in some town of 
 Poland, where he was detained as a prisoner, he amused 
 himself with collecting and drying the various fungi 
 that grew within its walls, amongst which were,many 
 reputed dangerous, and that to his great surprise his 
 whole collection was devoured by the soldiers. It is 
 well known, indeed, that even the esculent fungi of this 
 country are not always safe to eat ; the qualities some- 
 times varying very considerably according to the nature 
 of the situations in which they occur. The common 
 edible mushroom of this country has sometimes proved 
 fatal on the Continent, so much so that it is invariably 
 excluded from the Italian markets as most pernicious. 
 The most useful and innocent species become poisonous 
 when growing in damp, dark localities, such as old de- 
 caying forests and cellars, where there is little circulation 
 of pure air. The late Professor Burnett, in his Outlines 
 of Botany, very judiciously remarks, that "in certain 
 situations, truffles, morells, and common mushrooms are 
 nearly flavourless, while in others their grateful tastes 
 and smells are highly developed ; and in a similar way 
 certain fungi, which are eatable in one country or when 
 gathered from one situation, are deleterious when grow- 
 ing in another ; this difference depending upon the 
 greater or less quantity of poisonous matter formed, the 
 production of which may be favoured or suppressed by
 
 250 
 
 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 external physical circumstances, just from the same cause 
 as celery is said to be poisonous, and sea-kale and 
 asparagus not eatable when growing wild ; but which 
 become bland and esculent when chance or culture, by 
 excluding light, prevents the formation of their acrid 
 principle." 
 
 The intoxicating Siberian fungus or fly agaric (Agari- 
 cus mmcarius, Fig. 32), may be adduced as an illustra- 
 tion of the remark- 
 able effects produced 
 by some species of 
 fungi, when growing 
 in foreign countries. 
 We have no experi- 
 ence as yet, in this 
 part of Europe, of any 
 effects soextraordinary 
 being produced by any 
 of our native fungi, 
 or even by the same 
 species when growing 
 in the British woods. 
 It is acknowledged to 
 be one of the most 
 poisonous species in this country ; but it does not ex- 
 hibit its curious properties to the same extent here, as it 
 does beyond the Ural Mountains. In European Russia, 
 and Siberia, this fungus is to the inhabitants what opium 
 and hemp are to the natives of India and China ; cocoa 
 to the Peruvians ; and tobacco to the inhabitants of 
 Europe and North America. The craving for narcotic 
 
 PIG. 32. AOARICUS MUSCAKIUS.
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 251 
 
 indulgences, so natural to the human race, has, among 
 the Kamtschatkans and Koriacs, found its gratification 
 in an object so low in the scale of nature as a common 
 toad-stool. These races are so dreadfully degraded, that 
 they personify this fungus under the name of Mocho 
 Moro, as one of their household deities, somewhat like 
 the Goddess Siva of the Hindu Thugs ; if they are urged 
 by its effects to commit suicide, murder, or some other 
 dreadful crime, they pretend to obey its commands ; 
 and, to qualify themselves for premeditated assassination, 
 they have recourse to additional doses of this intoxicating 
 product of decay and corruption. 
 
 This plant, around which such a dark and melancholy 
 interest gathers on account of its debasing associations, 
 is by no means rare in this country ; in fact, it appears 
 to be very generally distributed throughout the whole of 
 the temperate zone. In the Highlands of Scotland, and 
 the sub-alpine districts of England, it is very common 
 and abundant, particularly in woods of fir and birch, 
 where its tall white stem and rich orange scarlet cap, 
 studded with white scaly warts, frequently of portly 
 dimensions, form a beautiful contrast to the green carpet 
 of moss from which it springs, and the draperies of green 
 foliage that overshadow it. It is exceedingly abundant 
 in some parts of Kamtschatka and the northern districts 
 of Siberia ; the ground, in nearly every wood and thicket, 
 being almost concealed by its scarlet sheen. By the 
 natives it is collected during the brief summer months, 
 which in that climate are intensely hot. Sometimes 
 it is plucked up by the roots, and hung up in the 
 air outside their dwellings to dry, and sometimes it
 
 252 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 is allowed to wither and die untouched in the place 
 where it grows, in which case its narcotic properties 
 are better preserved than when it is gathered and 
 artificially dried. When steeped in the expressed juice 
 of the native whortleberry, it forms a very strong intoxi- 
 cating kind of wine, which is much relished. But the 
 more common way of using the fungus is to roll it up 
 like a bolus, and swallow it without chewing, which, it 
 is said, would disorder the stomach. Dr. Greville gives 
 some curious particulars regarding this fungus in the 
 fourth volume of the Wernerian Transactions. He says : 
 " One large or two small fungi are a common dose to 
 produce a pleasant intoxication for a whole day, parti- 
 cularly if water be drunk after it, which augments the 
 narcotic action. The desired effect comes on from one 
 to two hours after taking the fungus. Giddiness and 
 drunkenness follow in the same manner as from wine or 
 spirits. Cheerfulness is first produced, the face becomes 
 flushed, involuntary words and actions follow, and some- 
 times at last entire loss of consciousness. It renders 
 some remarkably active, and proves highly stimulant to 
 muscular exertion. By too large a dose violent spas- 
 modic effects are produced. So exciting is it to the ner- 
 vous system of some individuals, as to produce effects 
 which are very ludicrous. A talkative person cannot 
 keep silence or secrets, one fond of music is perpetually 
 singing, and if a person under its influence wishes to 
 step over a straw or small stick, he takes a stride or a 
 jump sufficient to clear the trunk of a tree." The in- 
 toxication produced by this fungus sometimes amounts to 
 absolute delirium, and not unfrequently terminates in
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 253 
 
 convulsions, coma, and death ; and it is a most remark- 
 able fact that it communicates its narcotic properties to 
 the fluids of the debauchee, which, in consequence, are 
 carefully preserved and eagerly consumed during the 
 winter months, when the season of the plant is over, and 
 the stock of dried specimens is exhausted. Thus a whole 
 village is intoxicated through the medium of one man, 
 and one fungus serves to prolong these most fearful and 
 disgusting orgies for many days at a time. It is a sin- 
 gular circumstance that the very same erroneous impres- 
 sions as to size and distance produced by this plant, are 
 also created by the haschisch of India, and are frequently 
 noticed among idiots and lunatics. It is not improbable 
 that many poor half-demented creatures, particularly if 
 old and ugly, have suffered martyrdom at the stake dur- 
 ing the witch-mania of Scotland owing to this natural 
 defect, inability to step over a straw being considered 
 the conclusive test of familiarity with evil spirits ! 
 
 It is curious to observe how the effects produced by 
 various species of poisonous fungi, should be so very like 
 in many particulars to those produced by alcoholic 
 liquors. The effects in both cases may perhaps be traced 
 to the same cause. Alcohol is the product of fermenta- 
 tion or corruption arrested at a certain stage ; and fungi 
 may also be said to be the products of decaying organic 
 matter, similarly arrested at a certain stage, and em- 
 bodied in a new form of vegetable growth, the decom- 
 posing process in their food being an organizing process 
 in them, or in other words, the force given off in the 
 decomposition of their matrix becoming their "vital 
 force ;" and hence it is but reasonable to expect, when
 
 254 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 their origin is identical, that their effects should be simi- 
 lar. Into the secrets of nature's laboratory, however, 
 we are not permitted to pry too closely, and " no admit- 
 tance even on business " is written in large letters above 
 the portals ! 
 
 Passing from the consideration of the noxious pro- 
 perties of fungi, they exhibit themselves to us now in a 
 more interesting and pleasing aspect as edible substances. 
 In common with several other classes of plants which 
 have the reputation of being poisonous, and yet contain 
 several esculent species invaluable to man, the fungi, 
 although considered as a class dangerous and unwhole- 
 some, yet yield in many instances a large and varied 
 supply of palatable and nutritious food. In this world 
 the bitter and the sweet, life and death, are closely mixed 
 up together, and frequently flow from one another ; the 
 carrot belongs to the same tribe as the deadly hemlock, 
 the potato is closely allied to the poisonous night-shade ; 
 the arrow-root is the innocent product of the fearful 
 woorari poison ; and the common edible mushroom, 
 esteemed by rich and poor as a delicious esculent, be- 
 longs to an immense family, most of which are suspicious, 
 if not absolutely poisonous, productions. No country is 
 perhaps richer in edible fungi than Great Britain ; but 
 such is the extent of wilful ignorance and silly prejudice 
 regarding them, arising from their cold, moist, clammy 
 nature, and the disagreeable situations in which they 
 often grow, that this savoury and important food is year 
 after year allowed to perish ungathered in the woods and 
 fields. Mr. Badham, in his excellent work on the escu- 
 lent fungi of this country, remarks regarding this culp-
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 255 
 
 able neglect : "I have myself witnessed whole hundred- 
 weights of rich wholesome food rotting under trees ; 
 woods teeming with food, and not one hand to gather 
 it ; and this perhaps in the midst of potato blight, 
 poverty, and all manner of privations, and public prayers 
 against imminent famine. I have indeed been grieved 
 to see pounds innumerable of extempore beefsteaks grow- 
 ing on our oaks in the shape of Fistulina hepatica,; 
 Agaricus fusipes to pickle in clusters under them ; puff- 
 balls, which some of our friends have not inaptly com- 
 pared to sweetbread, for the rich delicacy of their un- 
 assisted flavour ; Hydna as good as oysters, which they 
 somewhat resemble in taste ; Agaricus deliciosus, re- 
 minding us of tender lamb-kidneys ; the beautiful yellow 
 chantarelle, growing by the bushel, and no basket but 
 our own to pick them up ; the sweet nutty-flavoured 
 Boletus, in vain calling himself edulis where there are 
 none to believe him ; the dainty Orcella, the Agaricus 
 heterophyllus, which tastes like the craw-fish when 
 grilled ; the Agaricus ruber and Agaricus virescens, to 
 cook in any way, and equally good in all ; these are 
 among the most conspicuous of the edible funguses." 
 
 There are at least thirty kinds of esculent fungi in 
 Great Britain which may be safely used at table, and 
 are as good, if not better than the common mushroom, 
 which appears to be the only species whose merits are 
 at all appreciated. Agaricus Georgii, so called from its 
 usually appearing in this country so early as St. George's 
 day about the beginning of May though generally 
 rejected by housekeepers in the country as unwholesome, 
 is frequently sold in London, under the name of Whits-
 
 256 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 caps. The flavour, however, is far inferior to that of 
 the common mushrooms ; its smell is strong and un- 
 pleasant, and it is little fit for making ketchup, having 
 but a small quantity of juice, and that not of a good 
 colour. It grows to an enormous size, frequently attain- 
 ing forty inches in circumference, and weighing many 
 pounds. It is easily known by its white pileus and 
 gills, slightly stained with yellow when bruised. In 
 France it is known from its white colour as the Boule- 
 de-neige. There is another fungus frequently sold in 
 Covent Garden market under the name of Blewitts, 
 whose taste is very agreeable. This is the Agaricus 
 personatus, occurring abundantly in old pastures during 
 the winter months, and often growing gregariously in 
 large rings. It is easily known by its pale bistre or 
 purple-lilac colour, and its rather overpowering odour. 
 Every one is familiar with the common champignon or 
 Scotch bonnets, which form those sour ringlets in the 
 grassy meadows popularly called fairy rings, strangely 
 attributed by some authors to the effects of electricity, 
 and by others, more poetically and quite as truly, ascribed 
 to the fairies as the traces of their moonlight revels. 
 This curious fungus, the Agaricus oreades of botanists, 
 though tough and strongly tasted, is sometimes used 
 as an article of food in this country, but too frequently 
 very different and poisonous fungi are gathered under 
 the name. It is almost always gregarious, growing in 
 a centrifugal manner, increasing its circle year by year, 
 while the individuals in the centre decay, and impart 
 by their decay to the grass at the edge a more vivid green 
 than that of the rest of the meadow. Some of the
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 257 
 
 species mentioned in the paragraph quoted from Badham 
 are rather suspicious objects of food, and although they 
 may sometimes be taken with impunity, it is best~~as 
 a general rule to avoid them. The Agaricus niber, 
 for instance, is a remarkably beautiful and tempting- 
 looking fungus, having a rich orange or a rose-red cap 
 and snowy gills, but its taste is hot and acrid like that 
 of the mezereon or the cuckoo-pint. Though excellent 
 for food, if properly prepared, it is pronounced by 
 Trattinick to be very unwholesome in a raw state ; 
 and M. Roques' account of it is even more unfavourable. 
 The same objection applies to the Agaricus deliciosus, 
 said by Badham to remind him of tender lamb-kidneys. 
 The odour and taste of this Agaric are agreeable ; 
 but from the account of it given by M. Roques, it 
 would appear that, however delicious, it is not always 
 to be eaten with impunity. These two last mentioned 
 fungi belong to a very remarkable group of the genus 
 Agaricus, called Galorrheus, from the milky juice which 
 every part of them exudes when bruised or broken. 
 This milk is like that of the Euphorbia or spurge when 
 pierced, and like it too is frequently extremely acrid, 
 causing irritation and slight inflammation in the parts 
 with which it comes in contact. It is generally white, 
 like cow's milk, but in some species is variously coloured, 
 being of a bright orange in Agaricus deliciosus. Like the 
 milk in the laticiferous vessels of the flowering-plants, 
 such as lettuce, dandelion, chicory, and celandine, it ex- 
 hibits singular movements under the microscope. Minute 
 molecules are observed to move about in it with extreme 
 rapidity, exactly like those observable in gamboge mixed
 
 258 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 with water. These may be phytozoa, being connected 
 in some mysterious manner with the reproduction of the 
 plant. It is sufficient to mention that this singular 
 group of Agarics contains some of the most poisonous 
 and deadly of all fungi, and that all the species are pos- 
 sessed more or less of the same acrid and narcotic pro- 
 perties, to justify caution in the use of the two members 
 of the group quoted by Badham as esculent, however 
 bland and agreeable they may sometimes be found. 
 With regard to the other species mentioned by this 
 author, they may be used with perfect safety, having 
 stood the test of a pretty long and general experi- 
 ence. Of the Boletus edulis, common in woods and 
 pastures all summer and autumn, and easily known by 
 its broad, smooth, dark umber cap, and white tubes 
 and fawn-coloured stipe, Mr. Berkeley observes : 
 " Though neglected in this country, it appears to be 
 a most valuable article of food. It resembles very 
 much in taste the common mushroom, and is quite as 
 delicate, and might be used with much advantage, as it 
 abounds in seasons when a mushroom is scarcely to be 
 found. Like that, it can be cultivated, but by a much 
 more simple process, as it is merely necessary to moisten 
 the ground under oak-trees with water in which a 
 quantity has been allowed to ferment. The only pre- 
 caution requisite is to fence in the portion of ground 
 destined for its production, as deer and pigs are very fond 
 of it. This method is said to be infallible, and is 
 practised in France in the De'parternent des Landes." 
 
 Next to the common mushroom, the morell (Morchella 
 esculenta, Fig. 33) is everywhere esteemed as a valuable
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE, 259 
 
 and delightful article of food, and as a condiment to 
 heighten the flavour of ragouts. It is unfortunately by 
 no means common in this country. It grows usually in 
 woods, orchards, and cinder-walks in spring and early 
 summer. It presents a singular and easily-identified 
 appearance. It consists of a hollow stem from one to 
 three inches high, surmounted by a round or conical, 
 hollow olive -coloured cap about the size of an egg, 
 with its surface ribbed or latticed with irregular 
 sinuses. Its whole substance is wax-like and friable. 
 We are informed by Gleditch that morells grow in the 
 
 FlO. 33. MORCHELLA ESCULENTA. 
 
 Reduced half size. 
 
 woods of Germany, in the greatest profusion in those 
 places where charcoal has been made. Hence those 
 who collect them to sell, receiving a hint how to en- 
 courage their growth, have been accustomed to make 
 fires in certain spots in the woods, in order to obtain a 
 more plentiful crop. This strange method of cultivating 
 morells being, however, sometimes attended with dread- 
 ful consequences, large woods and plantations being
 
 260 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 destroyed, the magistrates interposed and put an end to 
 the practice. A nearly allied species, called Helvella 
 crispa, is also highly esteemed in some quarters as an 
 agreeable esculent, though hardly known in this country. 
 It is a remarkable-looking fungus, occasionally occurring 
 in woods in autumn. The stem is from three to five 
 inches high, snowy-white, irregular, hollow, deeply fur- 
 rowed, often full of holes or sinuses like the fluted trunk 
 of the yarroura or paddle-wood of the Indians. The cap 
 is deflexed, and commonly divided into curled or folded 
 lobes which adhere to the stem, but it is extremely irre- 
 gular and variable, and has neither gills nor pores. Its 
 substance is wax-like and extremely friable, the surface 
 being soft like satin. 
 
 The most valuable, however, of all the esculent fungi 
 is probably the truffle (Tuber cibarium, Fig. 34). This 
 
 curious subterranean puff- 
 ball, for such it is, is so 
 local and scarce that it 
 I is very little known ex- 
 cept amongst wealthy and 
 titled families in this 
 country, seldom appear- 
 
 FIG. 34. TDBEB CIBARIUM. ing at common tables ; 
 and probably the greater part of what is sold is im- 
 ported. It is very rare in Scotland, but exceedingly 
 abundant in some parts of England. It is usually found 
 in beech-woods, growing in clusters half a foot or a foot 
 beneath the soil. In appearance it is a rounded, rough, 
 irregular nodule like a potato ; at first white, afterwards 
 black, cracked like a pine-apple, or a pine cone, into
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 261 
 
 small pyramidal or polyhedrons warts. The internal 
 substance is solid, of a dirty white or pale brown colour, 
 grained like a nutmeg, with darker serpentine lines. 
 The white portions are considered by botanists to be 
 homologous to the mycelium or spawn of other fungi, as 
 their structure is decidedly filamentous; while the veins 
 are the reproductive parts, containing in their cellular 
 tissue minute oval capsules, with two globular, yellowish, 
 warted seeds in their interior. This curious structure, 
 having all the parts of nutrition and reproduction en- 
 closed internally, instead of externally as in other fungi, 
 reminds one of the flower of the fig, which, it is well 
 known, is fixed upon the inside of the receptacle that 
 constitutes the fruit. The truffles of Great Britain sel- 
 dom exceed three or four ounces in weight ; but in Italy 
 and Germany they have occasionally been found weighing 
 eight and even fourteen pounds. They are received at 
 our tables either fresh, and roasted like potatoes, or 
 dried and sliced into ragouts. They are esteemed for 
 their delicious taste, and are much sought for as a luxury, 
 being hunted by dogs trained for the purpose. Pigs are 
 very fond of them, and advantage is taken of their in- 
 stinctive knowledge of the spots where they are found, 
 and their natural propensity to dig them up, to gather a 
 more plentiful supply than could be obtained by a chance 
 search. Nees von Essenbeck relates an instance of a 
 poor crippled boy who could detect the hiding-places of 
 truffles with more certainty even than the best dogs, and 
 thus earned a comfortable livelihood. They have been 
 successfully cultivated by Bornholz. They are found in 
 dry and light calcareous soil in woods throughout the
 
 262 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 whole of Europe, as well as in Japan, India, Africa, and 
 New Zealand. " In some parts of France, as in Poitou," 
 says Berkeley, "it is simply necessary, in order to their 
 supply, to enclose a spot on the calcareous downs, sowing 
 it with acorns. As soon as the saplings attain a growth of 
 a few years, the truffles appear, and a harvest is obtained 
 for many years successively without further trouble." 
 
 Such is a brief description of almost all the edible 
 fungi known or used in this country ; and the fatal mis- 
 takes which have been sometimes made, by confounding 
 some of them with nearly allied species of a highly 
 poisonous character, have made them less popular than 
 they deserve, and increased the national disinclination 
 to the use of any fungus save the common mushroom. 
 On the Continent, however, fungi afford not merely a 
 flavouring for a delicate dish, or a pleasant sauce or 
 pickle, but the staple food of thousands of the people : 
 indeed, for several months in the year, especially in 
 Poland and Eussia, they constitute not only the staple, 
 but the sole food of the peasantry, and from this cir- 
 cumstance they are called by enthusiastic writers " the 
 manna of the poor." To many who are not reduced 
 by necessity to use them as food, they form a valuable 
 source of income by collecting them for the market. 
 Scarcely any of the four or five hundred species belong- 
 ing to the genus Agaricus is rejected by the inhabitants of 
 northern Europe, with the exception of the dung and fly 
 Agaric, whose loathsome and poisonous properties are 
 such as to deter the most devoted mycophagist from 
 their use. Even species which are elsewhere universally 
 avoided as poisonous, acrid, or disagreeable, are eaten in
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 263 
 
 these countries witu impunity and relish, their noxious 
 properties, if not neutralized by soil and climate, being 
 removed by a process of drying, or pickling in salt and 
 vinegar. M. Roques, in his Histoire des Champignons, 
 gives an extremely interesting account of a large variety 
 of fungi which may be used as food. The golmelle of 
 Lorraine (Agaricus rubescens) ; the jozollo of Italy (Aga- 
 ricus eburneus) ; the verdette and mouceron of the French 
 (Agaricus virescens and prunulus) ; the Nagelschwamme 
 of Austria (Agaricus esculentus), and the Ziegenbart, and 
 gombas, and Brat-biilz of Germany (Clavaria coralloides, 
 and Boletus bovinus], abundantly evince the great regard 
 entertained on the Continent for species which, year after 
 year, are suffered to perish unknown and ungathered in 
 this country. The common mushroom is consumed in 
 enormous quantities in Paris, where its flavour is far 
 superior to ours. All the specimens that appear in the 
 market are reared in the catacombs. By some European 
 nations the edible species are eaten raw and uncooked, 
 as they are considered to be more wholesome and nutri- 
 tious in their natural state. Schwaegrichen informs us, 
 that in consequence of seeing the peasants about Nurem- 
 berg eating raw mushrooms, seasoned with anise and 
 carraway-seed, along with their black bread, he resolved 
 to try their effect himself, and that during several weeks 
 he ate nothing but bread and raw fungi, as Boletus 
 edulis, Agaricus campestris, Agaricus procerus, etc., and 
 drank nothing but water, when, instead of finding his 
 health affected, he rather experienced an increase of 
 strength. Many species of fungi have been used for 
 food from time immemorial in China, whose thrifty in-
 
 264 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 habitants make the most of the productions of their 
 native soil, and easily find substitutes among the cellular 
 plants when their usual food fails them in a season of 
 famine. In India and Africa, likewise, the few edible 
 species that occur have always been highly esteemed ; 
 our common ketchup, it may be remarked, being an 
 Indian invention. A kind of fungus called Mylitta 
 Australia, which grows on the trunks of trees in Van 
 Diemen's Land, and resembles, when dry, hard com- 
 pacted lumps of sago, is so frequently used by the 
 aborigines that it is called "native bread;" while in the 
 wild and desolate island of Tierra del Fuego, the inhabi- 
 tants subsist, during several months, in a great measure, 
 upon a bright-yellow latticed fungus, growing in great 
 abundance on the evergreen beech -trees, and called 
 Cyttaria Darwinii after the accomplished naturalist of 
 the " Beagle," and the author of The Origin of Species. 
 In New Zealand, the gelatinous volva of a species of 
 Phallus called Ileodictyon, is eaten by the natives under 
 the name of thunder-dirt. It has an execrable taste 
 and loathsome smell, in common with the rest of its 
 allies, though its jelly-like consistence would seem to 
 indicate nutritive qualities. Where fungi form the 
 staple or the sole food of the people, it shows that the 
 land is unproductive, or the inhabitants extremely de- 
 pressed by other causes. In this state the New Zea- 
 landers were found by the first emigrants from this 
 country, convulsed and nearly extirpated by intestine 
 wars, and the odious practice of cannibalism, subsisting 
 precariously upon fern roots and fungi, the spontaneous 
 produce of the soil. The land produced no mammal 
 larger than a rat, and yielded neither fruits nor flowers ;
 
 THE PAGE OF NA TUBE. 265 
 
 ferns and other cryptogamia being the sole vegetation. 
 Since then, however, under the protection of the Eng- 
 lish Government, and by the aid of British skill and re- 
 sources, the country has been converted into a luxuriant 
 and fertile garden. The flowerless land can boast of 
 many-coloured gems and delicious fruits amidst the 
 sombre foliage. The soil abundantly rewards the far- 
 mer's toil ; whilst its green swards make it valuable in 
 the graziers' eyes. The present Maori war shows the 
 high appreciation in which the aborigines hold the ad- 
 vantages of civilisation, and the just value they attach to 
 the possessions which they formerly parted with for a 
 mere trifle, and reveals a striking contrast between their 
 present condition and their savage state less than fifty 
 years ago, when they roamed naked through the waste 
 jungles, and fed upon fern roots and fungi, varied too 
 often by a cannibal feast. 
 
 Fungi are to a certain extent capable of artificial 
 propagation, vast quantities of the higher kinds being 
 constantly cultivated for the table. In Italy, a species 
 of Agaric is raised from the grounds of coffee ; and a 
 kind of Polyporus, which is greatly relished, is grown 
 simply by singeing the stumps of cob-nut trees, and 
 placing them in a moist, dark cellar. There is a 
 curious production called the fungus-stone, or Pietra 
 funghaia, supposed to be a species of truffle, but in 
 reality nothing more than the spawn or mycelium of 
 Polyporus tuberaster, traversing masses of earth which 
 it collects about it in a compact form, constantly em- 
 ployed for the propagation of that favourite fungus, 
 whose stem and pileus it readily produces when supplied 
 with the requisite conditions of moisture and tempera-
 
 266 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 tore. The cultivation of the common mushroom is too 
 well known to require comment. Though considered a 
 somewhat precarious crop, it is in the power of almost 
 everybody to grow it, and when carefully conducted it 
 yields a profitable return. This well-known species has 
 almost entirely superseded the wild variety which is now 
 very rarely to be met with in our woods ; as is the case 
 with all the animals and plants which man takes under 
 his care and protection. Mushroom spawn is sold by 
 nurserymen in cakes, and for use is broken into pieces 
 of about two ounces weight. When placed either in a 
 cellar, out-house, or shed, where the covering is effective, 
 in a bed of soil well worked into a compost by the drop- 
 pings of horses and the parings of their hoofs, and 
 allowed to heat to the temperature of new milk, it is 
 certain to produce a plentiful crop. " The common bunt 
 is propagated with certainty by simply rubbing the 
 grains of wheat with the spores ; and the rust of the 
 rose (Coleosporium pingue) may be communicated to 
 trees hitherto unaffected by watering the ground with a 
 decoction of infected leaves. Finally, the disease of the 
 silkworm and several epizoic fungi are readily propa- 
 gated by inoculation ; while many species of moulds are 
 capable of cultivation in the house, by simply sowing 
 their seed on rice paste, or any other convenient matter." 
 Fungi afford a remarkable illustration of the fact 
 almost universally observed, that agencies which are 
 generally beneficial sometimes prove destructive. While 
 performing their office as the scavengers of nature, these 
 plants sometimes carry their operations too far, and by 
 their rapid increase, and their devastating effects on the
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 
 
 267 
 
 fruits of the earth, cause incalculable damage. Some of 
 the most destructive diseases of the cereal crops are 
 caused by the ravages of microscopic fungi, which attack 
 respectively the flower, the grain, the leaves, the chaff, 
 and the straw. Those who have seen corn-fields in July, 
 when the flower is bursting through the sheath, must 
 have often noticed several greyish-black heads appearing 
 here and there among the verdant stalks. In some fields 
 these are few and far between ; in others they are 
 more numerous, almost every alternate stalk presenting 
 this amorphous appearance. When one of the heads 
 
 thus affected is pulled 
 and examined, every 
 chaffy scale is found 
 to be filled with a 
 firm black matter, 
 like soot agglutinated 
 by moisture. This 
 strange phenomenon is 
 attributed to the state 
 of the air, to the con- 
 dition of the seed, or 
 to the character of the 
 soil ; but there are 
 few comparatively who 
 are aware of its ve- 
 getable origin, who 
 FIG. 35.-UREDO SEGETUM. know that it is owing 
 
 to the development of minute parasitic fungi, favoured of 
 course by unhealthy conditions of the atmosphere and 
 the soil. . To botanists it is known under the name of
 
 2G8 
 
 FOOTNOTES FPOM 
 
 Uredo segetum (Fig. 35), and by farmers it is familiarly 
 called smut or dust-brand. It is more frequent in corn 
 than in any other of the cereal 
 crops. Examined under the micro- 
 scope each grain is found to be con- 
 verted into a vast number of minute 
 round balls or sporules of a deep 
 brownish-black colour. Bauer says 
 that in the 1 6,000th part of a square 
 inch he counted forty-nine of those 
 JIG. 36.-UBEDO CAKIES. sporules, so that four millions of 
 
 Sporwiind Myi-elium highly 
 
 magma,*!. them may exist in a single grain of 
 
 On the grains of wheat an equally common but 
 still more injurious fun- 
 gus is developed called 
 bunt ( Uredo canes, Fig. 
 36). In this disease the 
 seeds retain their ori- 
 ginal form and appear- 
 ance, but the inside is 
 completely converted 
 into one mass of black 
 
 corn. 
 
 sporidia, of a much 
 
 rut 
 ikf 
 
 / larger size than the 
 sporules of the preced- 
 ing species, and con- 
 taining granules within 
 them. The ears thus 
 infected are completely 
 spoiled, and give out 
 an exceedingly foetid odour when crushed. Every farmer 
 
 FIG. 37. PUCCISIA GRAMIKIS. 
 
 (a) Hightly magnified. (6) Sporidia, highly 
 magnified.
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 
 
 260 
 
 has painful knowledge of the disease called mildew (Puc- 
 cinia Graminis, Fig. 37). It attacks the leaves and 
 culms of corn, as well as many of the grasses employed in 
 hay-making, and proves most injurious when developed 
 to a great extent, as is often the case when severe frost 
 immediately succeeds copious and continuous rain in 
 autumn. It appears on the diseased leaves in pale whit- 
 ish spots, which speedily diffuse themselves, and become 
 confluent, until the whole plant is covered. These whit- 
 ish spots, under the microscope, are found to consist of a 
 number of filaments aggregated together, on each of which 
 are situated two or three small cells, at first green, 
 then black ; the upper one being filled with a large 
 quantity of minute spores. Another parasitic fungus, to 
 which the name of mildew 
 has been sometimes applied, 
 is frequently developed in 
 the same situations, but it 
 is not nearly so injurious 
 as the true mildew. It is 
 known as rust (Uredo rubi- 
 go, Fig. 38), and consists 
 of yellow oval spots scat- 
 tered on the parts affected. 
 The spores, which are of a red-brown colour, and exceed- 
 ingly numerous and minute, are very easily dispersed. 
 
 One of the most remarkable diseases affecting the 
 cereals is ergot. Though found in various kinds of 
 grasses, such as Agrostis, Festuca, Elymus, and Dactylis, 
 this disease is most frequently produced in rye, and hence 
 it is commonly known as ergot of rye. It is not very 
 
 FIG. 38. UREDO RUBIGO. 
 
 (a) Diseased chaff-scale, (b) Spores.
 
 270 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 common, although diffused in greater or less abundance 
 throughout the whole of Great Britain ; but in the zone 
 where rye is the prevailing grain, comprehending all the 
 countries bordering on the Baltic, the north of Germany, 
 and part of Siberia, it occurs in great abundance, and is 
 often a cause of much distress. It is owing to the growth 
 of a fungus called Spermoedia clavus, which converts the 
 ovary of the grain into an elongated cylindrical excrescence, 
 a little curved, and somewhat resembling a horn or spur 
 projecting from the chaff, and hence the rye thus affected 
 is called in common language spurred-rye. The grain when 
 attacked becomes first soft and pulpy, afterwards it hard- 
 ens and elongates gradually. It is first of a red or violet 
 colour, afterwards lead-coloured, and finally black with a 
 white interior. Generally only two or three grains in a 
 spike are affected, whose nutritious part is thus completely 
 destroyed, and converted into a highly injurious substance. 
 When rye is extensively cultivated, grains thus diseased 
 often compose a considerable part of the bread produced, 
 and thus not unfrequently give rise to one of the most 
 fearful and distressing diseases with which the human 
 frame is affected. Those who live upon it are afflicted 
 with general weakness, and a sense as if insects were 
 creeping over the skin, then the extremities become cold 
 and insensible ; next, excruciating pains are felt ; and, 
 lastly, there is dry gangrene, and the fingers and toes 
 drop off. Strange to say, however, the children in some 
 parts of the north of Europe eat with impunity immense 
 quantities of this diseased rye, under the name of St. 
 John's Bread. This is an extraordinary instance of the 
 uncertain effects of the same species of fungi upon the
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 271 
 
 human constitution, and the wide differences they exhibit 
 in their qualities in different countries. 
 
 Such are some of the most destructive diseases of the 
 cereal crops ; and they show to us in a most striking 
 manner how the welfare, nay the very existence of man 
 himself, may be endangered by the growth of the 
 minutest and humblest plants. It is not difficult to 
 imagine the fearful consequences that would ensue, were 
 these plants to spread universally over all the cereal 
 crops, and convert their nutritious substances into black 
 rottenness and ashes. Not all the vast revenues and 
 resources of England would avail to avert the dreadful 
 results. All the other riches in the world, failing the 
 riches of our golden harvest-fields, were as worthless as 
 the false notes of the forger. How precarious then is 
 the independence of the most independent ! As we ap- 
 proach the season of harvest, we are within a month or 
 two of absolute starvation. Were the rust, or the mil- 
 dew, or the smut to blight our fields ; were each spore of 
 the many millions which each individual of these plants 
 disseminates, to germinate and become fertile on the grains 
 on which it alighted, the scourge would be more terrible 
 than the bloodiest and most devastating campaign ; the 
 rich and the poor, the nobleman and the beggar, the 
 Queen and her subjects, would alike be swept into a 
 common ruin. But the covenant promise made to Noah 
 endures from age to age, and from year to year, in 
 all its integrity, even in the most unpropitious cir- 
 cumstances ; and that kind and watchful Providence, 
 which supplies the large family of mankind with its 
 daily bread, arrests the development and dispersion of
 
 272 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 these vegetable epidemics, and leaves us even in the 
 worst seasons a reasonable supply of the first necessary 
 of life, thus presenting a sublime fact upon which faith, 
 which is better than independence, can rest in peace ! 
 
 The failure of the potato crop, which several years ago 
 came like one of those sudden and unexpected hurricanes 
 of the tropics, carrying death and desolation in their 
 train, is doubtless vivid in the recollection of all. This 
 root, from its extraordinary productiveness, with little 
 labour or exertion of any kind, became gradually a sub- 
 stitute in whole districts, especially in Ireland and the 
 Highlands of Scotland, for the older cereal crops, as the 
 staple food of the people ; so that when a blight fell 
 upon it, and the crop everywhere completely failed, hun- 
 dreds of thousands were deprived of their sole means of 
 subsistence, famine and its consequeut malignant fevers 
 rapidly spread throughout the land, and the social and 
 agricultural system based upon this uncertain and narrow 
 foundation was convulsed and completely broken up. 
 Various attempts have been made to account for this 
 melancholy failure. Some have attributed it to the at- 
 tacks of the Aphis rapce, a most rapacious and prolific 
 insect ; others to unfavourable atmospheric conditions ; 
 and a third class to the growth of minute parasitic fungi 
 or mould. The truth in all likelihood lies in a combina- 
 tion of the two last opinions ; the one being the predis- 
 posing cause, and the other the consequent effect. A 
 minute fungus, called Botrytis infestans (Fig. 39), con- 
 sisting of grey interwoven filaments, bearing a jointed 
 stalk which branches at the top, each division carrying 
 a rounded spore, appears to be almost invariably con-
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 
 
 273 
 
 nected with the disease, and is found on the decaying 
 plants ; the growth of the fungus being probably aided 
 by some predisposition in the state of the vegetable, in- 
 duced by the soil or the atmosphere. The epidemic was 
 not confined to the potatoes grown in this country, but 
 seems to have prevailed throughout the world, attacking 
 indiscriminately all the cultivated varieties, as well as 
 the wild plants in their original centre of distribution, the 
 lower mountain plateaus on the western coast of South 
 
 FlG. 39. BOTRYTIS INFRSTANS. 
 
 (1.) Young plants ; (2.) Full grown; (3.) Spore. All magnified. 
 
 America. This singular fact, while it shows that neither 
 the soil, climate, nor mode of farming in this country 
 was the sole cause, clearly establishes the vegetable 
 origin of the disease. It may be remarked that the 
 potato is commonly attacked after the tubers have been 
 formed, and have attained a considerable size. The 
 leaves are usually the first parts affected, becoming 
 tinged with a bluish -brown spot on the under side ; and 
 from thence it spreads rapidly down the stem, till in a 
 very short time the whole of the plant above ground is
 
 274 
 
 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 destroyed and rotten. The disease still spreads its 
 ravages, until ultimately it reaches the tubers, the sub- 
 stance of which, when affected, speedily turns brown, 
 emits a very peculiar and unpleasant odour, and soon 
 decays to a fetid watery matter. The filaments of the 
 fungus are frequently seen ramifying through their cel- 
 lular tissue. No certain preventive of this destructive 
 murrain has yet been discovered, notwithstanding the 
 many plans proposed, which fail as often as they succeed. 
 The cause, though still in operation, however, seems of 
 
 FIG. 40. OIDIUM TCCKERI. 
 (a) Natural size. (l>) Magnified. 
 
 late years to have somewhat abated in virulence, so that 
 there is yet some chance of again rearing successfully 
 this most useful and important esculent. A somewhat 
 similar disease, it may be added, affects beet-root, spinach, 
 peas, and other garden vegetables. 
 
 There is a peculiar disease which has of late years 
 proved most destructive to the vine on the Continent, 
 produced by the attack of a minute fungus, called the 
 grape oidium (Oidium Tuckeri, Fig. 40). It affects the 
 leaves and stem indiscriminately ; but its favourite
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 275 
 
 growing-places appear to be the grapes, whose succulent 
 saccharine juices supply it with abundant nutriment. It 
 shows itself principally upon the young grape when about 
 the size of a pea. The slightest injury from a touch or 
 an insect, affords it a basis of propagation, and once 
 established, it increases with amazing rapidity, frequently 
 blasting the hopes of the grape-harvest over many dis- 
 tricts. Its effect upon the grape is to absorb the juices 
 of the superficial cells of the cuticle, which consequently 
 cease to expand with the pulp of the fruit ; it then 
 bursts, dries up, and is finally destroyed. To the naked 
 eye the plant appears a mere effused, indefinite, white 
 patch ; inider the microscope it resolves itself into a 
 collection of little, downy heaps, with egg-like sporidia 
 arising from the necklace joints of the threads. 
 
 The following report of its devastating effects may be 
 interesting: "In 1847, the spores of this oidium 
 reached France, and were found in the forcing-houses of 
 Versailles, and other places near Paris. The disease soon 
 reached the trellised vines, and destroyed the grapes out 
 of doors in the neighbourhood, and continued to extend 
 from place to place ; but, until 1850, it was chiefly ob- 
 served in vineries, which lost from this cause, season after 
 season, the whole of their crops. Unhappily in 1851, 
 it was found to have extended to the south and south- 
 west of France and Italy, and the grapes were so affected 
 that they either decayed, or the wine made from them 
 was detestable. In 1 852, iheOidium Tuckeri re-appeared 
 in France with increased and fatal energy ; it crossed 
 the Mediterranean to Algeria, has shown itself in Syria 
 and Asia Minor, attacked the muscat grapes at Malaga,
 
 276 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 injured the vines in the Balearic Islands, utterly de- 
 stroyed the vintage in Madeira, greatly injured it in the 
 Greek Islands, and destroyed the ciirrants in Zaute and 
 Cephalonia, rendering them almost unfit for use, and so 
 diminished the supply that 500 gatherers did the ordin- 
 ary work of 8000 ! But it is in France that its fright- 
 ful ravages are chiefly to be regarded as a national 
 calamity, where the produce of the soil in wine is said 
 to exceed 500 millions of hectolitres ; two -fifths of the 
 usual quantity of wine made there has been destroyed, 
 and what has been made is bad. The vineyards of the 
 Me'doc, in 1851, were untouched, and the cultivators 
 laughed at the existence of the oidium ; but last year 
 the disease showed itself everywhere in the Gironde, 
 even to the borders of the Me'doc, with serious injury. 
 The eastern Pyrenees were all deplorably affected, and at 
 Frontignan and Lunel the vineyards were abandoned in 
 despair. Thousands of labourers were thrown out of 
 employ, and the distress was awful. Wine, in France, 
 is the common drink of the peasant ; upon this, his 
 bread, and some legumes, he labours ; but the wine, bad 
 as it is, has risen to double, and, in the countries most 
 injured, treble its ordinary price." Strange to say, 
 " the vine mildew does not occur in the United States 
 on native vines, but only on those which are imported ; 
 and the American varieties cultivated in Switzerland and 
 elsewhere are uniformly exempt." 
 
 A very familiar example of an oidium occurs on decay- 
 ing oranges, commencing at first in minute, distinct, pul- 
 verulent spots, which speedily become confluent, and of 
 a deep greenish-grey tinge. This genus of fungi is
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 277 
 
 very destructive to fruits of all kinds ; and one species 
 commits great ravages on peach-trees, peas, and cabbages. 
 The Mane de rosier, which infests rose-bushes, is also an 
 ally of this, destructive corps. The year 1854 proved 
 most disastrous to the hop-growers in many districts, 
 owing to the ravages of an oidium. The lover of fruit 
 may have often noticed thin concentric, cream-coloured, 
 or fawn-coloured patches on the skin of apples, pears, 
 and plums, producing very rapid decay. These patches 
 are caused by Oidium fructigenum, which, when it has 
 once obtained possession of a tree, spreads with fatal 
 rapidity, destroying the fruit while still hanging on the 
 branches. 
 
 All the mildews and blights hitherto described are 
 light-coloured ; but there is another class of fungi equally 
 destructive, called black mildews. They are caused 
 principally by species of Antennaria and allied genera, 
 which form thick, black, felt-like patches on leaves, dis- 
 figuring trees, and injuring them fatally, by closing up 
 their pores, and preventing the free admission of the air ; 
 as also by depriving them of the full, direct light of the 
 sun. They are principally developed on those leaves 
 which had previously been covered with the honey-dew 
 of the aphides or plant-lice ; and as these little creatures 
 cluster together and impair the vitality of whole trees 
 and forests, it may easily be seen how extensive are the 
 ravages of the fungi, which are thus developed. In the 
 Azores the orange-groves have suffered dreadfully from 
 this cause ; while in Ceylon the coffee-plantations, and 
 in the south of Europe the olive-trees, have sustained of 
 late years immense damage from an unusual development
 
 278 
 
 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 of black mildews. Few objects, it may be remarked, are 
 more beautiful under the microscope than the wheel- 
 shaped, ray-like processes which radiate from the seed- 
 bearing organs. These sporiferous bodies, sometimes 
 contain a perfect miniature plant or embryo, similar to 
 that of flowering plants, which waits only circumstances 
 favourable for its expansion. Another allied species, 
 called Fusarium mori, is produced in such abundance on 
 the leaves of the mulberry, in Syria and China, as 
 materially to diminish the supply of food provided for 
 the silk-worm. 
 
 But it is not only in food and luxuries that man 
 
 FIG. 41. MERULIUS LACHRYMANS. 
 
 suffers from the ravages of fungi ; he also suffers in his 
 property. Builders have painful knowledge of one or 
 two species, known under the common name of dry-rot. 
 This most destructive plague is usually caused in this 
 country by the Mendius lachrymans (Fig. 41). It oc- 
 curs on the inside of wainscoting, in the hollow trunks 
 of trees, in the timber of ships, and in the floors and
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 279 
 
 beams of buildings in moist, warm situations, where 
 there is not a free circulation of air. It appears at first 
 in round, white, cottony patches, from one to eight 
 inches broad, which afterwards develop over their whole 
 surface a number of fine, yellow, orange, or reddish- 
 brown irregular folds, most frequently so arranged as to 
 have the appearance of pores, and distilling drops of 
 moisture when perfect ; whence its specific name. In the 
 mature state it produces an immense number of minute, 
 rusty sporales, which alight and speedily vegetate in the 
 circumjacent timber, however sound and dry it may ap- 
 pear, destroying its elasticity and toughness, and render- 
 ing it incapable of resisting any pressure, until gradually 
 it crumbles into dry, brown dust. This insidious disease, 
 once established, spreads with amazing rapidity, destroy- 
 ing some of the best and most solid-looking houses in a 
 few years. The ships in the Crimea suffered more from 
 this cause than from the ravages of fire, or the shot and 
 shells of the enemy. So virulent is its nature, that it 
 extends from the woodwork of a house even to the walls 
 themselves, and by penetrating their interstices, crumbles 
 them into pieces. " I knew," says Professor Burnett, 
 " a house into which the rot gained admittance, and 
 which, during the four years we rented it, had the par- 
 lours twice wainscoted, and a new flight of stairs, the 
 dry-rot having rendered it unsafe to go from the ground 
 floor to the bed-rooms. Every precaution was taken to 
 remove the decaying timbers when the new work was 
 done ; yet the dry-rot so rapidly gained strength that 
 the house was ultimately pulled down. Some of my 
 books which suffered least, and which I still retain, bear
 
 280 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 mournful impressions of its ruthless hand ; others were 
 so much affected that the leaves resemble tinder, and 
 when the volumes were opened, fell out in dust or frag- 
 ments." There are no means of restoring to a sound 
 state timber thus decayed ; and the dry-rot can only be 
 cured or prevented from spreading by removing the 
 affected parts, clearing away all the fungi, and destroying 
 by a strong solution of iron, copper, or zinc the 
 vegetative sporules with which the stones upon which 
 the timbers rest may have been impregnated. Many 
 practical persons have written upon this disease ; and 
 the remedies proposed are as numerous as their authors. 
 But the only certain preventives of the evil seem to be 
 the removal of the decaying and contagious matter, the 
 impregnation of the surrounding wood with a strong 
 solution of corrosive sublimate, or the white of an egg, 
 and the admission of a free current of air. Much also 
 may be done by cutting timber, destined for building 
 purposes, in winter, when fungi are usually dormant or 
 dead, and properly seasoning it by steeping it in water 
 for some time, and then thoroughly drying it before it is 
 used. Houses, in order to be free from this plague, 
 should be built in dry, open, and airy situations, and 
 efficiently ventilated throughout every part, especially of 
 the wood-work ; when these conditions are observed, this 
 evil will disappear. 
 
 In concluding this notice of the destructive fungi, 
 mention may be made of a peculiar form of Penicillium 
 or mould, which is almost invariably present in the solu- 
 tion of copper employed in the process of electrotyping. 
 It proves an intolerable nuisance, inasmuch as it is often
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 281 
 
 invested with a silver coat, and injures the beauty and 
 the finish of the articles which are subjected to the pro- 
 cess. It is extraordinary that the poisonous nature of 
 the solution does not destroy it ; but it has been often 
 observed that various species of mould luxuriate in solu- 
 tions of arsenic, opium, and other poisonous chemical 
 substances, which would prove instantly fatal to all other 
 plants. 
 
 It is worthy of remark that the destructive effects of 
 all these parasitic fungi may, in most circumstances, be 
 easily neutralized or prevented by a little intelligent 
 forethought, care, and industry ; and providing incentives 
 as they do to the exercise of these qualities, they com- 
 pensate morally in some measure for the physical evils 
 they occasion. Certain conditions are necessary for their 
 development, and it is to obviating and removing these, 
 that the builder and the farmer must look for ex- 
 emption from the destructive vegetable diseases that 
 affect their properties. It has been ascertained, for 
 instance, that rust and blight arise from the over-manur- 
 ing of fields ; the grain gorged with too copious a supply 
 of nutritious juices, being brought into a favourable con- 
 dition for the development of the dormant seeds of fungi 
 which the wind may have wafted to it. The tendency in 
 corn to form these diseases therefore may be destroyed by 
 steeping the seed before sowing in a corrosive solution 
 or in brine ; but the same end may be secured in a dry 
 season, and on a favourable soil, by moderate manuring, 
 or by a free use of saline manures. 
 
 With regard to the mildew in wheat, it has been 
 suggested by Mr. Tycho Wing, as a remedy, to allow no
 
 282 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 reeds or loose grass to remain in the ditches, but to clear 
 everything away, and to consume it at once. " As the 
 species which attacks reeds and grass is to all appearance 
 the same with that of the wheat, the disease may be pro- 
 pagated in the spring from such outliers. For the same 
 reason, it is desirable that the stubble should not be left 
 on the land too long, and, indeed, long mowing must be 
 better than reaping." The various mildews that appear 
 on the grape and other fruits and useful plants, may 
 easily be prevented from developing themselves by the 
 application, at an early stage, of powdered sulphur, 
 which, combining as it does with the oxygen of the atmos- 
 phere, forms sulphuric acid, the only chemical poison de- 
 structive to moulds and mildews. 
 
 Fungi, owing to their cellular and perishable nature, 
 do not usually occur in a fossil state. Some slight 
 traces of them, however, now and then occur among the 
 relics of a former state of things. Species of mould 
 have occasionally been found in the amber beds of 
 the tertiary formation having been deposited and de- 
 veloped on the resinous juices of the amber pines, just 
 as filaments of mould are often seen at the present day 
 adhering to the gum of apricot and cherry trees. These 
 tiny plants, identical as they are with the common green 
 and blue moulds that infest our cupboards, leave us no 
 room to doubt that fungi were as prevalent and destruc- 
 tive in former epochs as they are now. M. Goeppert, who 
 has examined minutely the amber of various lands, has 
 detected in it, besides moulds, fragments of mosses, 
 hepaticse, and lichens, perfectly preserved, as in a 
 mummy case, the sole insignificant relics of that vast
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 28.3 
 
 array of cryptogamic plants, which preserved the balance 
 between the animal and the vegetable kingdoms of the 
 ancient world. Nature, by this curious process of em- 
 balming, has perpetuated that which a breath of wind 
 was sufficient to destroy, and moulded into a geologic 
 specimen what a finger's touch would fade. While rocks 
 and forests have been destroyed, without leaving a recog- 
 nisable trace of their existence behind, the most delicate 
 and fugacious organisms have been handed down to us 
 in the most beautiful preservation from the remote post-, 
 pliocene period the temporal and fragile thus trans- 
 formed into the eternal. 
 
 There is a curious association connected with one of 
 the lowest species of fungi, which shows in a very strik- 
 ing manner the importance of the smallest objects, and 
 their claim to a closer attention than we are accustomed 
 to give them. During the voyage of Captain Penny in 
 search of Sir John Franklin, two pieces of floating drift- 
 wood were picked up in the Arctic regions, beyond the 
 utmost wanderings of the Esquimaux, which, from 
 several unusual appearances presented by them, excited 
 more interest than such a trivial incident in ordinary 
 circumstances would deserve. The one was found in 
 Robert's Bay, off Hamilton's Island, lat. 76 2' north, 
 long. 76 west, in the supposed route of the Erebus and 
 Terror through "Wellington Channel, and was evidently 
 a fragment of wrought elm plank which had formed 
 part of a ship's timbers. It exhibited three kinds of 
 surface ; one that had been planed and painted with 
 pitch, one merely roughly sawn, and the third split with 
 an axe. The other piece of drift-wood was picked up
 
 284 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 by Mr. Goodsir, on the north side of Cornwall!.? Island, 
 in lat. 75 36' north, and long. 96 west. It was a 
 branch of white spruce, very much bleached in some 
 places, and in others charred and blackened as if it had 
 been used for firewood. On both these fragments of 
 wood traces of minute microscopic vegetation were ob- 
 served, which, it was hoped, if properly investigated, 
 Avould throw some indirect light upon the mysterious fate 
 of the missing expedition, by indicating the probable course 
 pursued, and the approximate date. For this purpose 
 they were submitted to the Rev. Mr. Berkeley, who ex- 
 amined them microscopically with the most minute atten- 
 tion, and sent a report to the Admiralty upon the subject, 
 which is published in detail in " Sutherland's Journal of 
 a Voyage in Baffin's Bay in 1850-1851." This accom- 
 plished naturalist found the vegetation in both cases to 
 be very similar to the mottled patches of a dark-olive 
 colour, with which rails and wooden structures in this 
 country, exposed to atmospheric changes, are speedily 
 covered, and which form the incipient or the mature 
 stages of the simplest cryptogamic plants. The bleached 
 cells and fibres of the fragment of elm were gorged and 
 interwoven with slender mycelia, while on its different 
 surfaces appeared several dark-coloured specks, referred 
 to the genus Phoma, one of the simplest and minutest 
 fungi. They consisted merely of a grumous nucleus, 
 containing sporidia in a mature state, and included in a 
 naked tubercle, examples of which may be seen about 
 the end of autumn on withered willow-leaves, decaying 
 stems of dahlias, and very frequently on fallen oak- 
 leaves. As it was exceedingly improbable that these
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 285 
 
 minute plants could have retained, throughout the intense 
 cold of an Arctic winter, their delicate naked spores in 
 the state of perfection in which they were found, it was 
 inferred that they must have been developed during that 
 same summer ; while from four to five years, or even 
 less, in such high latitudes, amid all the severities of 
 stormy ice-covered seas, would suffice to produce the 
 bleached appearance which the wood exhibited. All the 
 circumstances of comparison between similar bleaching 
 processes and similar vegetable growths in this country, 
 are in favour of a recent exposure of the Arctic plank. 
 
 As regards the vegetation on the other piece of drift- 
 wood, Mr. Berkeley found on its bleached surfaces a few 
 deeply imbedded minute black spots, very similar to those 
 of the Lepraria niyra, which in a confluent state fre- 
 quently forms wide inky or sooty patches on the squared 
 tops of rails and gate-posts, and especially on the roots of 
 felled oaks smoothed with the axe, in moist situations. On 
 account of this resemblance, this obscure and anomalous 
 production has been called Sporodermium lepmria. A 
 closer relation than, usual must subsist between it and 
 its matrix, for it is always found to accompany the white 
 spruce, as far as its branches are drifted by the waves. 
 Unlike the Phomas on the Arctic elm, which are very 
 ephemeral, this plant, with its lichen-like habit and 
 appearance, shares the longevity characteristic of that 
 tribe the same patches lasting for years unchanged on 
 the same piece of wood, and leaving behind traces of 
 their existence for a long time, even when the surround- 
 ing tissues are abraded by the elements, and the surfaces 
 worn away. The state in which the specks of it existed
 
 286 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 on the drifted wood, would seem to indicate that they 
 had not been recently formed, at least during the summer 
 in which they were found, but, on the contrary, that 
 they were the remains of the species which existed on 
 the drift-wood when used for fuel by the crews of the 
 Erebus and Terror. There can be no doubt whatever, 
 considering the circumstances in which they were found, 
 and the peculiar appearances they presented, that both 
 these fragments of wood were connected with the ill- 
 fated ships ; and the curious information regarding the 
 course they pursued at a particular time, afforded by such 
 extraordinary and unlikely witnesses as a few tiny, dark 
 specks of cryptogamic vegetation on floating drift-wood, 
 was wonderfully confirmed by the recent discovery of the 
 first authentic account ever obtained of the melancholy 
 history of the lost expedition. 
 
 Having thus given a somewhat lengthened and de- 
 tailed account of the structure, properties, uses, and other 
 peculiarities of this curious and interesting tribe of plants, 
 it may be proper, in conclusion, to glance at the place 
 which they occupy as aesthetic objects iu this fair crea- 
 tion. The careful observer will find the universal spirit 
 of beauty sometimes as aptly and richly represented in 
 these productions of corruption and decay, as in the more 
 admired products of the vegetable kingdom. The very 
 commonest fungi, which grow in the darkest and dreariest 
 spots, are invested with a beauty, not absolutely essen- 
 tial to the part which they perform in the operations of 
 nature, or to the efficiency of the organs, whether of ab- 
 sorption or reproduction, with which they are furnished. 
 The fructification of one is a most graceful umbrella,
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 287 
 
 adorned with varied, delicately-shaded hues, and with 
 exquisitely carved veils, ' fringes, and gills ; that of 
 another presents the most beautifully sculptured ivory 
 pores and sinuosities, or richly-coloured tubes or spikes. 
 One species looks like a ruby cup ; another is embossed 
 with stars ; while the leaves and the grasses of the woods 
 and fields often form niduses for some of the loveliest and 
 strangest forms, which our great Creator has scattered 
 over the earth with lavish hand to delight the intelligent 
 and observant eye. There is not in nature a more pic- 
 turesque object to the painter, or a more interesting study 
 to the botanist, than the old decaying stump of a tree in 
 some lonely unvisited haunt of a shady ancestral wood, 
 where the soil, enriched by the organic contributions of 
 centuries, is bursting into life through every crevice and 
 in every inch. Such a stump, as Wordsworth beautifully 
 says of the mountain, is " familiar with forgotten years." 
 It is long since the tall massive oak which it supported has 
 been removed by the axe, leaving a gap which the encroach- 
 ing trees around strive in vain to conceal ; and nature 
 has kindly smoothed away the traces of man's harsh treat- 
 ment, and brought it back to perish on its own bosom. 
 Every sunbeam and rain-drop that descended upon it, 
 while crumbling it more, increased its picturesqueness, 
 and while depriving it of its o/vvn life, helped to develop 
 upon it other forms of life lower in the scale, until now, 
 it not only adds to the air of antique mystery which 
 pervades the scene, but peoples it with all the fantastic 
 tenantry of Shakspere's fairy land. In one corner may be 
 observed a cluster of elegant pearl-like mushrooms, wee 
 elfin-looking things with long, black stalks, and white
 
 288 FOOTNOTES FROM 
 
 wheel-like heads; in another, the corky leaves of a Thele- 
 phora closely pressed to the wood, with shell-like patterns, 
 and colours as beautifully and dimly shaded on its surface 
 as in a misty rainbow ; here the soft, viscid, flesh-like 
 knobs of the Tremella sarcoides, resembling tiny teats, 
 or the wrinkled, quaking, gelatinous mass of the witches' 
 butter, looking more like a frothy exudation from the 
 stump itself than a plant ; there a Spathularia pro- 
 truded from a wide mouth-like gap, like an old woman's 
 tongue, frightening away every young rustic, full of the 
 adventures and transformations of the seven champions 
 of Christendom, from plucking it off, lest the owner, a 
 metamorphosed witch perhaps, should return in proper 
 person to demand her unruly member, and inflict a pro- 
 portionate punishment ; in the middle of the squared top, 
 covered with the minute scurf-like germs of unknown 
 plants, are clustered the beautiful round vermilion balls of 
 the Lycogala, or wolf's milk, which, when bruised, exude 
 a dark, grumous liquor like clotted blood; while spring- 
 ing from the crevices of the bark, near the ground, the 
 Agaricus necator overtops the rest, with its zoned and 
 olive -coloured cap and dusky stem, distilling, when broken 
 or injured, a blood-like fluid, as though it were a sensi- 
 tive creature, thus reminding one of Dante's terrific pic- 
 ture of the living forest in the infernal regions. All 
 these, with a score of other curious microscopic plants, 
 hiding themselves from the superficial observer, but re- 
 vealing themselves openly to a close and minute scrutiny, 
 cup-lichens and trailing green mosses, and slimy green 
 dustlike confervse, surrounded perhaps with a border of 
 dock- leaves, or a fringe of palmy ferns, invest the aged
 
 THE PAGE OF NATURE. 289 
 
 stump with a nameless charm in the estimation of all 
 true lovers of the picturesque. And returning from the 
 woods and the fields to the retirement of our own homes, 
 we find that there are forms and living things to be seen 
 there as beautiful, interesting, and suggestive of curious 
 thought, as any we have seen in the wider field of nature 
 out of doors. If we examine under the microscope the 
 green or grey covering which spreads over damp walls, or 
 envelopes a stale piece of bread or fruit in a cupboard, or 
 creams over the surface of preserves, what a wonderful 
 scene of beauty suddenly unfolds itself like a miracle to 
 our view ! Thousands of plumy trees and feathery fern- 
 like plants rear themselves up in every conceivable atti- 
 tude, and all so delicate and transparent that the minute 
 seeds are seen lodged in the interior of their stems ; 
 luxuriant forests draperied with pendent parasites, and 
 milk-white mosses enveloping the ground, and clothing 
 old, rotten-looking stumps with beauty, all busy in the 
 fulfilment of their offices, lengthening and swelling, and 
 falling, and scattering their minute seeds in little white 
 clouds up and down upon the surrounding air. He who 
 is privileged to feast his eyes on such a beautiful and 
 instructive spectacle as this, must deeply feel with the 
 eloquent Ruskin, that " the Spirit of God works every- 
 where alike, covering all lonely places with an equal glory, 
 using the same pencil, and outpouring the same splen- 
 dour in the obscurest nooks, in spots foolishly deemed 
 waste, and amongst the simplest and humblest organ- 
 isms, as well as in the star-strewn spaces of heaven, and 
 amongst the capable witnesses of His working."
 
 INDEX OF SCIENTIFIC NAMES. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Achlya prolifera, . . . 234 
 
 Cladophora mirabilis, 
 
 PAGB 
 
 165 
 
 JEthnliiiin 
 
 227 
 
 Chionyphe, . 
 
 229 
 
 Agaricus cnmpestris, 
 
 263 
 
 Clavaria coralloides, 
 
 263 
 
 deliciosus, . 255, 
 
 257 
 
 Coleoporium pingue, . 
 
 266 
 
 eburnous, 
 
 2-iS 
 
 Conferva rivularis, 
 
 128 
 
 esculentus, 
 
 26S 
 
 melagonium, . 
 
 165 
 
 Georgii, . 
 
 263 
 
 Conioraycetea, 
 
 217 
 
 fusipes, . 
 
 2 -.5 
 
 Cornictilaria aculeata, . 
 
 118 
 
 heteroiihyllus, . 
 
 255 
 
 Cyttaria Darwinii, . 
 
 266 
 
 mus^ariua, 
 
 250 
 
 
 
 eineiiccis, 
 
 246 
 
 Diatomaceae, . . . 
 
 174 
 
 necator, . 
 
 288 
 
 Dicranum bryoides, , ... 
 
 40 
 
 olenrius, . 
 
 193 
 
 Didymium, . 
 
 227 
 
 oreade, . 
 
 256 
 
 
 
 i>roceru*. . 212, 
 
 263 
 
 xidium auricula Judaa, 
 
 210 
 
 prunulus, 
 
 263 
 
 Enteromorpha intestinalis, 
 
 163 
 
 persotiatus, 
 
 256 
 
 Evernia, 
 
 102, 110 
 
 ruber, . . . 
 
 257 
 
 
 
 rubescens, 
 
 263 
 
 Favularia, . ... 
 
 60 
 
 - virescens, 
 
 263 
 
 Ftstulina hepatica, . 
 
 205, 209 
 
 Antennariii, .... 
 
 277 
 
 Funaria hvgrometrica, . 
 
 44 
 
 Alectoria juhata, . 
 
 97 
 
 Fusarium Mori, 
 
 278 
 
 Ac talularia. .... 
 
 1C5 
 
 
 
 Aacomvceten 
 
 218 
 
 Gallorrheus, . 
 
 216 
 
 Aspergillus glaucus, 
 
 235 
 
 Giisterotnycetes, 
 
 216 
 
 
 
 Gyinnostxjmum truncatulum, 
 
 43 
 
 Bartrarnia fontana, 
 
 42 
 
 Gyrophora cylindrica, . 
 
 99 
 
 Biitrachosperumm moniliforme, 
 
 162 
 
 
 
 Baeornyces, .... 
 
 66 
 
 Halimeda, 
 
 165 
 
 Boletus edul a, . 255, 258, 
 
 263 
 
 Helvella crispa, 
 
 260 
 
 bovinus, 
 
 263 
 
 Hepatica officinarum, . 
 
 53 
 
 asneus, 
 
 195 
 
 Hydrodictyon utriculatum, 
 
 132 
 
 Botryiis infeatans, . 
 
 272 
 
 Hyurocrocia, . 
 
 140 
 
 hai-siiina, . 
 
 233 
 
 H.vmenomycetes, . 
 
 216 
 
 Borrera flavicans, . 
 
 110 
 
 Hyphomycetes, 
 
 217 
 
 Bovista f>igantea. 
 
 119 
 
 Hydnum, . 
 
 255 
 
 Botrjdium granulatum, 
 
 164 
 
 Hypochnus rubro-cinctus, 
 
 91 
 
 Bryum serpens. 
 
 29 
 
 
 
 
 
 Ileodictyon, . 
 
 264 
 
 Calicium, .... 
 
 66 
 
 Isaria, .... 
 
 230 
 
 Caulerpa, .... 
 
 165 
 
 
 
 Cetraria fslandica. 
 
 96 
 
 Jungermannia complanata, 
 
 48 
 
 Chroolepus aureus, 
 
 104 
 
 
 
 ebeneus, 
 
 141 
 
 Lecanora esculenta, . 
 
 102 
 
 Clartonia rangilerina, 
 
 80 
 
 tartarea, . 
 
 116 
 
 Clathrus, 
 
 206 
 
 parella, . 
 
 118
 
 292 
 
 INDEX OF SCIENTIFIC NAMES. 
 
 Lecidea, . . . 
 
 FA OB 
 
 78 
 
 PAC 
 
 Polyporus fomentarius. . 2 
 
 Lemania fluviatilis, . 
 
 131 
 
 Protococcus nivalis, . . 1 
 
 Lycopodium clavatum, . 
 
 64 
 
 viridis, . . 1 
 
 selago. 
 
 54 
 
 Phycomyces, .... 2 
 
 alpinum, . 
 
 54 
 
 Puccinia graminis, . . 2 
 
 cernum. 
 
 55 
 
 
 denticulatum, 
 
 57 
 
 Riccia, 
 
 catharticum, 
 
 58 
 
 Riella, 
 
 Lepidodendron, 
 
 59 
 
 Racodium cellare, ... 2 
 
 Lecidea geograpbica, 
 
 80 
 
 Rivuluria angulosa, . . 1 
 
 Lepraria Jolithus, . 
 
 66 
 
 
 Kermesina, 
 
 . 146 
 
 Sarcina ventriculi, . . 1 
 
 nigra, 
 
 285 
 
 Selagiuella convoluta, . 
 
 Lanosa nivalis. 
 
 230 
 
 mirabilis, . . 
 
 Lysurus Jlokusin, . 
 
 247 
 
 Sigillaria, .... 
 
 Lycogala, 
 
 288 
 
 Solorina crocea, 
 
 
 
 Sphagnum, .... 42, 
 
 Uarchantia polymorpha, 
 
 51 
 
 Sphaeria Robertsii, . . 2 
 
 Jlerulins lachrymans, . 
 
 278 
 
 P phaerobolus stellatus, . . 2 
 
 Morchella esculenta, 
 
 259 
 
 Spathularia, .... 2 
 
 Mucor Mucedo, . , 
 
 236 
 
 Splacbnum 42. 
 
 Mycodermata, 
 
 236 
 
 Sporodesmium lepraria, . : 
 
 Jlylitta Australia, . 
 
 264 
 
 Sticta pulmonaria, . . 1 
 
 
 
 Stigmaria 
 
 Neckera crispa, 
 
 44 
 
 Spermoedia clavus, . . 2 
 
 Nostoc commune, . 
 
 159 
 
 
 
 
 Tetraspora lubrica, . . 1 
 
 Oidium Tuckeri. . 
 
 274 
 
 Tmesipteris, .... 
 
 fruciigenum, 
 
 277 
 
 Torula cervisiaa, * 
 
 Opegrapha scripta, 
 
 67 
 
 Tremella cerebrina, . . ' 
 
 Oscillatoria nigra, . 
 
 135 
 
 mesenterica, . . ' 
 
 rubescens, . 
 
 153 
 
 sarcoides, . . 2 
 
 
 
 Trichostomum lanuginosum, 
 
 Parmelia parietina, 
 
 IIS 
 
 Trichodesmium Erythrseum, . 1 
 
 Palmella cruenta, 
 
 147 
 
 Tuber cibarium, ... 2 
 
 prodigiosa, . 
 
 151 
 
 
 m on tana, 
 
 161 
 
 TTlodendron, .... 
 
 Peltidea apthosa, . 
 
 105 
 
 Ulva crispa, . . . " . 1 
 
 canina, 
 
 105 
 
 bulbosa, . . . ' 3 
 
 Peziza vesiculosa, . 
 
 216 
 
 Uredo rubigo, . . ' \ 
 
 
 284 
 
 caries, ... 4 
 
 Plica Polonica, 
 
 238 
 
 segelnm, ... 2 
 
 Phallus impudicus. 
 
 199 
 
 TTsnea florida, . . . 95, 1 
 
 foetidus, 
 
 206 
 
 fasciata. 
 
 Polvtrichum commune, 
 
 41 
 
 melaxantha, 
 
 Polyporus tuberaster. 
 
 265 
 
 
 sanguineus, . 
 
 226 
 
 Vaucheria dichotoma, . . ] 
 
 xanthopus. 
 
 226 
 
 
 vesiculosus, . 
 
 216 
 
 Zygnema deciminum, . . 1 
 
 squamosus, . 
 
 205 

 
 INDEX OF POPULAR NAMES. 
 
 Amadou, 
 
 PAGB 
 
 247 
 
 Herpette des Tincturiers, 
 Hop Disease, . 
 Hyssop, .... 
 
 PAGE 
 
 118 
 
 277 
 43 
 
 Apple Mildew, 
 
 Blewitts, 
 Black Mildew, 
 Blue Mould, . 
 Boule de Neige, 
 
 277 
 
 256 
 277 
 235 
 256 
 . 42-46 
 
 Iceland Moss, 
 Jew's Ears, . 
 
 La Charbonniere, . 
 Liverwort, 
 Liver Fungus, 
 Lungwort, 
 
 Manna, .... 
 
 96 
 210 
 
 44 
 
 106 
 209 
 106 
 
 102 
 
 Bunt 
 
 268 
 
 Brittieworts, . 
 
 170 
 176 
 
 Cellar-tunaus, 
 
 228 
 
 Chantarelle, . 
 Champignon, . . 
 
 255 
 256 
 53 
 
 Marsh Club-moss, . 
 Mentagra, 
 
 64 
 238 
 
 Crow-silk, 
 
 166 
 
 Meteoric Paper, 
 Mildew, 
 Mountain Meal, 
 Mountain Dulse, . 
 Mountain Cup-moss, 
 Morel), .... 
 Moorbitll, 
 
 166 
 269 
 175 
 161 
 83 
 258 
 133 
 
 Cudbear, 
 
 116 
 
 Cup-moss, 
 
 Dog-lichen, . 
 Dry-rot, .... 
 Dust brand, . 
 
 Edible-earth, . 
 Electrotype Mould, 
 Ergot, .... 
 
 Fairy-rings, . 
 Fly-Disease, . 
 F!or-de-coco, . 
 Fountain Apple Moss, . 
 
 67 
 
 105 
 278 
 268 
 
 176 
 280 
 246-269 
 
 256 
 231 
 194 
 42 
 45 
 
 Mungo Park Moss, 
 Mulberry Blight, . 
 Muscardine, . 
 
 Native Bread, 
 Nostoc, .... 
 
 43 
 278 
 233 
 
 264 
 159 
 
 Orange Blight, 
 Orcella, .... 
 
 276 
 255 
 
 Fossil-flour, . 
 Fungus-stone, 
 
 Geographical Lichen, 
 Giant Puff-ball, 
 Gold-fih Disease, . 
 Gory Dew, 
 
 176 
 
 265 
 
 81 
 199 
 234 
 147 
 
 Perelle-d'Auvergne, 
 Potato Disease, 
 Puff-ball, 
 
 118 
 272 
 248 
 
 
 141 
 
 Grape Disease, 
 Green Mould, 
 Green Snow, . 
 
 Hair-moss, 
 
 274 
 235 
 146 
 
 41 
 
 Reindeer Moss, 
 Rock Hair, . 
 
 93 
 
 94 
 
 Rock Byssus, . 
 Rose-rust, 
 
 148 
 266 
 269
 
 294 
 
 INDEX OF POPULAR NAMES. 
 
 Siberian Fungus, . 
 Sladk, . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 250 
 127 
 
 Usnech, 
 
 Scotch Bonnets, 
 Sordes of Teeth, . 
 Snow Mould, . 
 Smut, 
 
 256 
 233 
 229 
 268 
 
 Vinegar Plant, 
 Violet Stones, 
 
 Water Flannel, 
 
 SpanUh Moss, 
 
 57 
 118 
 
 White Caps. . 
 Witch's Butter, 
 
 Stinkhorn, 
 St. John's Bread, . 
 
 Thrush, 
 Thyme Mos?, . 
 Tinea or Scaldhead, 
 Tripe de Roche, 
 " Truffle, 
 
 199 
 270 
 
 238 
 44 
 238 
 99 
 260 
 
 Woolly Fringe Moss, 
 Wolfs Milk, . . ' 
 Written Lichen, 
 
 Yeast, 
 Yellow Mould. 
 Yellow Wall Lichen, 
 
 PACK 
 
 108 
 
 239 
 
 66 
 
 132 
 256 
 288 
 
 41 
 288 
 
 67 
 
 242 
 236 
 118 
 
 CORRIGENDA. 
 
 Page 1, line 16, for is all, read are all. 
 
 48, title of Illustration, for Jungermanniae read Jungermannia. 
 55, line 19, delete a. 
 129, line 7, for less, read else. 
 164, line 13, for plane-leaf-like, read plain leaf-like. 
 204, line I, for in its structure, is, read as its structure is. 
 
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 7
 
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 9
 
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 11
 
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 12
 
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