236 Ghosts of the Earth [SECOND WEEK 



film which coats the water of the pond's edge? Or the 

 gray lichens painting the rocks and logs, toning down the 

 shingles; the toadstools which, like pale vegetable ghosts, 

 spring up in a night from the turf; or the sombre puff-balls 

 which seem dead from their birth? 



The moulds which cover bread and cheese with a 

 delicate tracery of filaments and raise on high their tiny 

 balls of spores are as worthy to be called a plant growth 

 as are the great oaks which shade our houses. The rusts 

 and mildews and blights which destroy our fruit all have 

 their beauty of growth and fruition when we examine 

 them through a lens, and the yeast by which flour and 

 water is made to rise into the porous, spongy dough is just 

 as truly a plant as is the geranium blossoming at the 

 kitchen window. 



If we wonder at the fierce struggle for existence which 

 allows only a few out of the many seeds of a maple or 

 thistle to germinate and grow up, how can we realise the 

 obstacles with which these lowly plants have to contend? 

 A weed in the garden may produce from one to ten thou- 

 sand seeds, and one of our rarest ferns scatters in a single 

 season over fifty million spores; while from the larger 

 puff-balls come clouds of unnumbered millions of spores, 

 blowing to the ends of the earth; yet we may search for 

 days without finding one full-grown individual. 



All the assemblage of mushrooms and toadstools, 

 although the most deadly may flaunt bright hues of scarlet 

 and yellow, yet lack the healthy green of ordinary plants. 

 This is due to the fact that they have become brown 

 parasites or scavengers, and instead of transmuting heat 



