240 FOOTNOTES FROM 



ago aroused the attention of domestic circles and scien- 

 tific bodies, and was extensively diffused as a useful 

 article in the manufacture of vinegar in private families. 

 The report, circulated at the time, of its being an impor- 

 tation from India or South America, has thus been found 

 destitute of foundation, for whatever may have been the 

 history of the first or individual specimens, and though 

 the growth of the plant might go on more rapidly in a 

 warm than in a temperate climate, yet it is evidently a 

 genuine native production, capable of being originated 

 and multiplied indefinitely in this country. This extra- 

 ordinary substance, familiar, no doubt, to many of my 

 readers, may be described as a tough, gelatinous mass 

 of a pale brownish colour, bearing a close resemblance 

 to a piece of boiled tripe. It is usually placed in a 

 small jar containing a solution of sugar or treacle ; 

 and after being allowed to remain in a warm situa- 

 tion for a month or six weeks, the solution is found to 

 be converted into vinegar, this change being due to a 

 kind of fermentation caused by the plant. The solution 

 necessarily causes the vinegar to be of a syrupy nature, 

 but not to such an extent as to communicate a flavour 

 to it ; when evaporated to dryness, a large quantity of 

 saccharine matter is left. Dr. Lindley, and most other 

 botanists, are strongly of opinion that this so-called vine- 

 gar-plant is an abnormal form of the common Penicillium 

 glaucum or blue mould. In fact, it is merely the spawn or 

 mycelium of that plant, increased to an extraordinary extent 

 and closely interlaced together, owing to the absence of the 

 usual spore-bearing stalks, which, as already remarked, 

 are never formed in fungi growing in fluids. Whenever 



