DISPERSION OF SEEDS. 



31 



copious growth of the mould with the slender stems 

 and globular heads figured by Spallanzaui. Mould 

 upon an apple is not indeed wonderful; but the one 

 in question was not only large, but apparently sound 

 throughout. Whence, then, came the seeds of this 

 mould in the very core of the apple ? We have also 

 met with mould of a different species, resembling the 

 green mould on the rind of oranges [Ac'rosporiumfas- 

 ciculatum, Greville), even on the kernels of nuts, 

 when there was no opening save the minute pores in 

 the shell. Through these pores, then, after being 

 stripped of the husk that covered them, the seed of 

 this nut-mould must have entered. This, however, 

 will not account for the mould in the apple ; the seed 

 of which, we think, must have been introduced while 

 it was in embryo, in some such way as the seeds of 

 the subcortical fungi so abundant on dead leaves 

 and branches of trees. This again may be illustrated 

 by the curious facts respecting substances found in the 

 interior wood of trees. Sir John Clark, for example, 

 tells us that the horns of a large deer were discovered 

 in the heart of an oak in Whinfield Park, Cumber- 

 land, fixed in the timber with large iron cramps, with 

 which, of course, it had at first been fastened on the 

 outside.* The eminent naturalist, Adanson, on visit- 

 ing Cape Verd, was struck with the venerable aspect 

 of a tree fifty feet in circumference; and recollecting 

 having read in some old voyages that an inscription 

 had been made upon such a tree, he was induced to 

 search for this by cutting into the wood, and, marvel- 

 lous to say, he actually found it under 300 layers of 

 wood!* De Candolle, one of the greatest living bota- 

 nists, remarked ' a frost-bitten part in the wood of a 

 tree, cut down, in 1800, in the forest of Fontainebleau. 

 This being covered with 91 layers of wood, indicated 



* Phil. Trans., vol. xli, p. 448. 

 t Adanson, Voyages a Senegal. 



