Food Plants. fi7 



upon their boots aud any scraps of leather they could find ; and the 

 Lapps would be unable to keep their reindeer, were it not for the 

 abundance of cladonia rangiferina, or reindeer moss, on which these 

 animals chiefly sustain themselves. Iceland moss (cetraria islandica) 

 is a nutritious food for man, and much valued as a mild mucila- 

 ginous tonic in catarrh, consumption, and other diseases. Two 

 species of Lecanora form important articles of food in Persia, 

 Armenia, and the adjacent countries. They appear in some seasons 

 in such enormous quantities that in certain districts they cover 

 the ground to the depth of se-veral inches, and the natives believe 

 they fall from heaven. In 1829, during the war between Eussia 

 and Persia, there was a great famine in Oroomiah, on the south- 

 west of the Caspian ; and one day, during a violent Avind, the 

 whole face of the country was covered with one of these lichens, 

 which fell in showers. In 184G, in the Russian province of Wilna, 

 the ground was covered several inches deep by a fall of one of chem. 

 Other similar falls have been recorded. It has been attempted to 

 identify these lichens with the manna on which the Israelites were 

 fed during their wanderings in the Arabian desert. They pro- 

 bably grow with a very slight attachment, or none, to the ground, 

 and, driven by the Avind, fall like rain. One of the species is also 

 eaten by the Kirghiz Tartars under the name of earth bread, and 

 another both by men and animals in Algeria. But of all cryptogam- 

 ous plants the most available as food are the fungi. The flesh of 

 fungi resembles in many respects that of animals, and in 

 some cases it is similarly flavoured. During the civil war 

 in the United States, when food, and especially meat, was scarce 

 and dear, an American mycologist says their value was much appre- 

 ciated by those able to discriminate them There are at least from 

 40 to 50 species in this country which are harmless, but many of 

 the others are virulent poisons; so that nobody should meddle 

 with them unless he is able with certainty to distinguish the whole- 

 some from the poisonous. What adds to the danger is that the 

 symptoms do not appear until the venom has been absoi-bed into 

 the system, when remedies are too late. In all cases it is well to 

 infuse the mushrooms, even those commonly used, in a strong 

 brine of vinegar and salt before cooking ; it is possibly owing to 

 this method of preparation as much as to difference of soil and 

 climate that the Eussians and other foreigners are able to eat 

 species that are deadly poisons Avith us. Agaricus campestris is 



