THE PAGE OF NATURE. 209 



genera, Sphseria and Peziza whose ideal forms, in the 

 former case a simple round ball furnished at the apex 

 with a minute orifice, and filled internally with minute 

 flask-shaped seed-vessels ; and in the latter case, a shal- 

 low cup or plane disk of gelatinous matter, surrounded 

 with a margin are so diversified, that in Great Britain 

 there are no less than 200 species of the one, and 106 

 species of the other. Some of the other genera are also 

 unusually large, showing how rigidly nature's laws of 

 uniformity and variety are adhered to in this class of 

 plants. 



The following instances may be brought forward, as 

 illustrations of the remarkable shapes which many of 

 the fungi exhibit. On the trunk of the oak, the ash, 

 the beech, and the chestnut, may occasionally be seen a 

 fungus, so remarkably like a piece of bullock's liver that 

 it may be known from that circumstance alone. This is 

 the Fistulina hepatica or liver fungus. Its substance is 

 thick, fleshy, and juicy, of a dark modena red, tinged 

 with vermilion. It is marbled like beet-root, and con- 

 sists of fibres springing from the base, from which a red 

 pellucid juice like blood slowly exudes. Of all vegetable 

 substances this exhibits the closest resemblance to animal 

 tissue. Even in the minutest particular it seems to be 

 a caricature of nature, a sportive imitation on an unfeel- 

 ing oak-tree of the largest gland of the animal body. 

 Tennyson might, with more truthfulness, personify an oak 

 thus furnished with a substitute for the seat of passion, 

 than the garrulous individual which adorned the woods 

 of Sumner Chase ! As already mentioned, it sometimes 

 attains an enormous size, hanging down from the trunk 

 o 



