190 FOOTNOTES FROM 



be no lack of such enjoyment among the fungi. In many 

 respects they are the most mysterious and paradoxical of 

 all plants. In their origin, their shapes, their composi- 

 tion, their rapidity of growth, the brevity of their exist- 

 ence, their modes of reproduction, their inconceivable 

 number and apparent ubiquity, they are widely different 

 from every other kind of vegetation with which we are 

 acquainted. In studying their history we walk amid 

 surprises ; and as we lift each corner of the veil, more 

 and more marvellous are the vistas which reveal them- 

 selves. 



The first thing that strikes us with wonder, in regard 

 to these anomalous organisms, is their origin. Incapable 

 of deriving the elements of growth from the crude un- 

 organized crust of the earth, they are parasitical upon 

 organic bodies, and are sustained by animal and vege- 

 table substances in a state of decomposition. That living 

 and often nutritious objects should spring from festering 

 masses of corruption and decay; that plants, endowed 

 with all the organs and capacities of life, should start 

 into existence from the dead tree that crumbles into dust 

 at the slightest touch, or draw their nourishment from 

 dried and exhausted animal excretions, which have lain 

 for months under the influence of drenching rains and 

 scorching sunbeams, is indeed a profound mystery of 

 nature. No sooner does the majestic oak yield to the 

 universal law of death, than several minute existences, 

 which had been previously bound up and hid within its 

 own, reveal themselves, seize upon the body with their 

 tiny fangs, fatten and revel upon its decaying tissues, 

 and in a short space of time reduce the patriarch and 



