64 ROMANCE OF LOW LIFE AMONGST PLANTS. 



is poured over it ; it is then mixed with straw, and a 

 little salt sprinkled over the mixture. Cattle so fed are 

 said to produce delicious milk and butter, while their 

 flesh becomes fat and sweet. The stag, deer, roebuck, 

 and other wild animals also feed on it abundantly 

 during winter. 



Dr. Clarke and his companions, during his travels 

 in Lapland, were tempted to eat some of this lichen. 

 " To our surprise," he says, " we found that we might 

 eat of it with as much ease as of the heart of a fine 

 lettuce. It tasted like sweet bran. But after 

 swallowing it there remained in the throat, and upon 

 the palate, a gentle heat or sense of burning, as if a 

 small quantity of pepper had been mixed with the 

 lichen. We had no doubt that if we could have 

 procured oil and vinegar it would have made a 

 grateful meal. Cooling and juicy as it was to the 

 palate, it nevertheless warmed the stomach when 

 swallowed, and cannot fail of proving a gratifying 

 article of food to man or beast during the dry winter 

 of the frigid zone. Yet neither Laplanders nor Swedes 

 eat of this lichen." It is elsewhere stated, but not by 

 what nationality, that it is sometimes powdered, 

 mixed with flour, and baked into bread, or it is boiled 

 in milk or broth. 



On the authority of Dr. Clarke, it is related that 

 "when Gustavus III. succeeded to the throne, an 

 edict was published, and sent all over Sweden, recom- 

 mending the use of this lichen to the peasants in 

 time of dearth, and they were advised to boil it in 

 milk." The starchy component of this, and such 

 similar lichens as the Iceland Moss, is Hcheuin, or 



