THE PAGE OF NATURE. 195 



temperature produced by any plant, with the exception 

 of the curious cuckoo-pint of our woods, was generated 

 by a species of toadstool called Boletus ceneus. Such 

 being the curious properties exhibited by these plants, it 

 is not surprising that at one period they should have been 

 suspected to be animal productions, formed by insects for 

 their habitations, somewhat like the coral structures of 

 zoophytes and sponges. Though this view has long been 

 felt to be utterly untenable, inasmuch as they have the 

 growth and texture of plants, and it is well ascertained 

 that they produce, and are produced from seeds like 

 other plants, yet they are evidently one of the links in 

 the chain of nature which unite the vegetable to the 

 animal kingdom, and show how arbitrary and unfounded 

 were the old definitions which served to distinguish 

 them from each other. 



Fungi, unlike most plants, are to a great extent in- 

 sensible to the influence of light. They commonly prefer 

 damp, close, ill-ventilated places, where the light if any, 

 is of a pale, cold, and sickly character. Within the 

 sheltering darkness of dense leafy woods 



" Some lone Egerian grove, 

 Where sacred and o'ergreeting branches shed 

 Perpetual eve, and all the cheated hours sing vespers ' 



they are to be found crowding together, and are only 

 accidentally found elsewhere. This propensity to avoid 

 the exposed glare of sunlight, and to grow in the darkest 

 shade, seems very paradoxical, when we consider the 

 essential importance of light among the vital agencies. 

 Even the humblest lichen, moss, or conferva, will not 

 develop itself in the same degree of darkness which is 



