THE WOOD. 75 



moist banks, among Moss and other small plants, 

 and will elude your search, probably, until you 

 have acquired a good knowledge of most of the 

 larger plants. I am inclined to think that few but 

 botanists have ever seen it, and of them those 

 only who have turned their attention to the 

 more minute plants. The botanist takes note 

 not merely of trees and shrubs, and plants with 

 conspicuous flowers, but examines the structure 

 of the smallest vegetable that grows, well content, 

 if he cannot discover its use and the end for which 

 it is created, to contemplate it as an atom attest- 

 ing God's omnipotence. 



From the summit of a stem barely an inch in 

 length, but bearing from twenty to thirty perfect 

 leaves, which, under the microscope, resemble the 

 most exquisite lace-work, runs a delicate white 

 thread, clear as glass, and so fragile that the slightest 

 touch will destroy it. On the summit of this is 

 a shining black globe, not half the size of a pin's 

 head, but containing, notwithstanding, some hun- 

 dreds, perhaps I might say several thousands, of 

 perfect, organised bodies. During wet weather 

 it retains this globular form ; but, after a short ex- 

 posure to a dry atmosphere, and especially to the 

 direct rays of the sun, it opens with four valves, 

 the partitions of which reach from its summit to 

 its base, and disclose a mass of ripe seeds ready to 

 be sown and to spring up into new plants. With 

 them are intermixed a vast number of infinitely 

 minute threads, thicker in the middle than at the 

 extremities, and containing within them a spiral 

 vessel, which as soon as the thread is exposed to 

 the dry air, or the rays of the sun, suddenly con- 

 tracts, and by its motion scatters the seeds with 



