LICHENS AS PIONEERS. 151 



I lay my head back on the moss-covered boul- 

 der, stretch my body out to a more recumbent 

 position and in three minutes have left earth 

 and all its belongings for the forgetfulness of 

 slumber. Nature here, too, triumphs, for what 

 more natural and restful than a midsummer nap 

 on the bosom of mother earth with a boulder for 

 a pillow. For twenty minutes I am lost to my 

 ego. Then the drawling, rattling, continuous 

 call of a cicada, breaks in upon my dreams. I 

 throw back my blanket of air and assume once 

 more a sitting posture. 



On the boulder below me on the slope, 

 patches of lichen alternate with patches of sun- 

 shine, when the latter oozes through the foliage 

 of the o'er shadowing ironwood. Islands of yel- 

 low amidst splotches of gray, with here and 

 there a little patch of dark green moss. The 

 lichens are the pioneers, which break up the 

 rock crystals into moss sustaining food. In half 

 a century or more the surface of that boulder, 

 now mostly bare, will sustain as much moss as 

 do these, my intimates, on whose cushion my 

 head has just been pillowed. 



