120 Vni.T) FLOWERS. 



powerful as to enable the bystander to read by 

 it, issues from the common potato, when in a 

 state of pvxtrefaction ; and professor Lindley 

 mentions that an officer who was on guard at a 

 barrack near Strasburg, during night, thought 

 that the building was on fire, and, upon exami- 

 nation, found that the vivid light which had 

 alarmed him proceeded from a heap of potatoes 

 contained in a cellar. The vast coal-mines of 

 Dresden are said almost to reahze, by their lus- 

 trous illumination, the appearances described in 

 the fairy tales of the east. In those spots, into 

 which the sun's rays never penetrate, some spe- 

 cies of fungus of the genus Rhizomorpha, grow- 

 ing ov^r the roofs, pillars, and other parts of 

 these subterraneous places, emit a light so 

 brilliant and powerful as almost to dazzle the 

 eye of the beholder ; though it is sometimes so 

 soft and subdued as to resemble a faint moon- 

 light. This fungus is found in many other 

 caverns besides those of Dresden, and adds 

 greatly to the interest which such scenes excite 

 in the traveller. 



Among the flowers which, during this month, 

 annoy the farmer, though they please the 

 botanist, the corn cockle {Agrostemma githago) 

 is very frequent in the field ; the corn cockle is 

 named in the book of Job ; thus the patriarch 

 says, " Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and 

 cockle instead of barley;"* but as the word 

 which our translators have rendered cockle is 

 expressive of an unpleasant odour, the poppy 



• Job xxxi. 40. 



