THE PAGE OF NATURE. 189 



ary of summer is not yet past, and the air is still balmy 

 and sunny, and the robe of nature is yet fadelessly green. 



Fungi are intimately associated with autumn ; unrobed 

 prophets that see no sad visions themselves, but that 

 bring to us thoughts of change and decay. Indeed, so 

 close is this association that they may be called autumn's 

 peculiar plants. The blue-bell still lingers in the sod, 

 and in the woods a few bright but evanescent and scent- 

 less flowers appear, but fungi and fruits form the wreath 

 that encircles the sober and melancholy brow of autumn : 

 fruits the death of flower-life ; fungi the resurrection of 

 plant-death. The seasonal conditions which arrest the 

 further progress of all other vegetation, which cause the 

 leaf to fall, and the flower to wither, and the robe of 

 nature everywhere to change and fade, give birth to new 

 forms of plant-life which flourish and luxuriate amid de- 

 cay and death. From the relics of the former creations 

 of spring and summer, reduced to chaos, springs up a 

 new creation of organic life, and thus nature is not a 

 mere continuous cycle of birth, maturity, and decay, but 

 rather a constant appearance of old elements in new 

 forms. 



This new tribe of plants comes in at a peculiarly season- 

 able time, when the more aristocratic members of the vege- 

 table kingdom have departed, leaving the favourite haunts 

 of the botanist bare and destitute of interest. Their col- 

 lection in the field, and the study of their peculiarities in 

 the closet, will furnish ample occupation of a most ab- 

 sorbing and fascinating nature during the whole season, 

 as new facts always connect themselves with new forms. 

 To those who enjoy mysteries and paradoxes there can 



