166 NEW ZEALAND PLANTS. 



while at the same time the scale-insect lives warm and snug under 

 the protection of its sooty covering. Antennaria can also exist 

 without its animal lodger and the rent which it pays in kind, but 

 in this case I have been informed that the fungus changes its 

 habit of growth somewhat in accordance with its altered circum- 

 stances. 



After the fungi come the algae, salt water and fresh. Macrocystis, 

 a brown seaweed, attains an enormous size, and lengths of many 

 hundreds of feet are not unknown ; indeed, this plant may be the 

 famous "sea-serpent." 



Then we have the bacteria the " microbes " of the newspapers all 

 innnitesimally minute plants ; some the greatest of benefactors, and 

 others the deadly enemies of mankind. And finally come the slime- 

 fungi (Myxomycetes), which may be seen as masses of jelly on rotten 

 wood, and which, moreover, are at one period of their existence animals, 

 and at another plants ! 



