DISPERSION OF SEEDS. 31- 



copious growth of the mould with the slender stems 

 and globular heads figured by Spallanzani. 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 ditferent species, resembling the 

 green mould on the rind of oranges (Acrosporiu?n 

 fasciculatmn, 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 intro- 

 duced while it was in embryo, in some such way as 

 the seeds of the subcortical fungi so abun«]ant on 

 dead leaves and branches of trees. Th^s 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, Cumberland, 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 visiting Cape Verd, 

 was struck with the venerabie 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, marvellous to 

 say, he actually found it under 300 layers of wood t ! 

 De CandoUe, one of the greatest living botanists, 

 remarked " a frost-bitten part in the wood of a tree, 

 cut down in l^OO hi the forest Of 'Fontainebleau. 



* Phi'l. Trans., vol. xli. p. 448. 

 t Adansou, Voyages Senegal. 



