118 DECOMPOSITION OF PLANTS. 



both pleasure and gratification in contemplating the 

 beauty, the mechanism, the forms, the attitudes, of 

 the whole order of fungi. 



As far as we can observe, it appears to be an 

 established ordinance of nature, that all created 

 things must have a final period. This mandate is 

 effected by various means, slow, and nearly imper- 

 ceptible in some cases, but operative in all. As in 

 the animal world, after disease or violence has ex- 

 tinguished life, the dispersion is accomplished by 

 the agency principally of other animals, or ani- 

 mated creatures ; so, in the vegetable world, vege- 

 tating substances usually effect the entire decom- 

 position : for though, in the larger kinds, the high 

 and lofty ones of the forest, insects are often the 

 primary agents, yet other minute substances are 

 commonly found to accelerate or complete the dis- 

 solution. Fungi in general, particularly those ar- 

 ranged as sphasria, trichia, peziza, and boletus, ap- 

 pear as the principal and most numerous agents, 

 and we find them almost universally on substances 

 in a certain state of decay, or approximation to it ; 

 though there are a few genera of this class which 

 are attached to, and flourish on, living vegetation. 

 The primary decline is possibly occasioned by pu- 

 trescence of the sap, or defective circulation, and 

 this unhealthy state of the plant affording the suit- 

 able soil for the germination of the parasitic fun- 

 gus ; for there must be an original though inert 

 seed, till these circumstances vivify its principle. 

 By what means the parasite finishes the dissolution 



