2G6 The Scottish Naturalist* 



m nature a more picturesque object to the painter, of a more 

 interesting subject to the botanist, than the old decaying stump 

 of a tree in some lonely haunt of an ancestral wood, where the 

 soil, enriched by the organic contributions of centuries, is bursting 

 into life through every crevice. Such a stump, as Wordsworth 

 says of the mountain, is familiar with forgotten years ; and on 

 every inch of it there, are growing ferns and curious structures 

 belonging to lichen, moss, fungus, and alga. It is peopled with 

 all the fantastic tenantry of Shakespeare's fairyland. 

 . Add to all these recommendations the important advantage that 

 most Cryptogamic plants can he observed and collected 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 and when illumined by the sunshine 

 of June. When the flowers and ferns have vanished, when the 

 lights are fled and the garlands are dend, the deserted banquet-hall of 

 Flora is still relieved by the presence of humble]* retainers, whose 

 fidelity is proof against every change of circumstance, and whose 

 better qualities are displayed when the storm is wildest and the 

 desolation most complete. They are no summer friends. As 

 Ruskin has beautifully observed : " Unfading as motionless," 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 entrusted the weaving of the 

 eternal 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 

 blossom like drifted snow, and summer dims in the parched 

 meadow the drooping of its cowslip gold, far above among the 

 mountains, the silver lichen-spots rest, star-like on the stone, and 

 the.gathering orange stain upon the edge of yonder western peak 

 reflects the sunsets of a thousand years." 



May I be permitted to close these desultory remarks with one 

 reflection, which the invisiblity of many of the plants compre- 

 hended within the scope of this society's researches suggests. If 

 there is. one half-truth more than another, whose fallacy science 

 has shown in these days, it is the old proverb, "seeing is believr 

 ing." : ._The evidence of sight, which we are accustomed to regard 

 as the surest of. all evidence, goes but a little way in many of the 



