Ch;ip. 13.] AGARIC. 353 



CHAP. 12. THE KEEHES BEERY. 



The holm oak, however, by its scarlet berry 83 alone chal- 

 lenges competition with all these manifold productions. This 

 grain appears at first sight to be a roughness on the surface of 

 the tree, as it were, a small kind of the aquifolia 84 variety 

 of holm oak, known as the cusculium. 85 To the poor in Spain 

 it furnishes 56 the means of paying one half of their tribute. 

 We have already, when speaking 87 of the purple of the murex, 

 mentioned the best methods adopted for using it. It is pro- 

 duced also in Galatia, Africa, Pisidia, and Cilicia : the most 

 inferior kind is that of Sardinia. 



CHAP. 13. AGAE1C 



It is in the Gallic provinces more particularly that the glan- 

 diferous trees produce agaric ; 88 such being the name given to 

 a white fungus which has a strong odour, and is very useful as 

 an antidote. It grows upon the top of the tree, and gives 

 out a brilliant light 69 at night : this, indeed, is the sign by 

 Which its presence is known, and by the aid of this light it 

 may be gathered during the night. The segilops is the only 

 one among the glandiferous trees that bears a kind of dry 

 cloth, 90 covered with a white mossy shag, and this, not only 

 attached to the bark, but hanging down from the branches as 

 well, a cubit even in length : this substance has a strong 



in the modern sense, but the sub-carbonate of potash ; while the ashes of 

 trees growing on the shores of the sea produce a sub-carbonate of soda. 



83 " Coccus." This is not a gall, but the distended body of an insect, tbe 

 kermes, which grows on a peculiar oak, the " Quercus coccifera," found in 

 the south of Europe. 



84 We have previously mentioned, that he seems to have confounded the 

 holly with the holm oak. 



85 Poinsinet, rather absurdly, as it would appear, finds in this word the 

 origin of our word "cochineal." 



86 The kermes berry is but little used in Spain, or, indeed, anywhere else, 

 since the discovery of the cochineal of America. 



87 B. ix. c. 65. 



88 Not the white agaric, Fee says, of modern pharmacy ; but, as no kind 

 of agaric is found in the oak, it does not seem possible to identify it. See 

 B. xxv. c. 57. 



89 It is evident that no fungus would give out phosphoric light ; but -it 

 may have resulted from old wood in a state of decomposition. 



90 It is pretty clear that one of the lichens of the genus usnea is here 

 referred to. Amadue, or German tinder, seems somewhat similar. 



VOL. III. A A 



