GHOSTS OF THE EARTH 221 



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 thousand seeds, and 

 one of our rarest ferns scatters in a single season 

 over fifty millions 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 toad- 

 stools, 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 and 

 moisture and the salts of the earth into tissue by 

 means of the pleasant-hued chlorophyll, these 

 sylvan ghosts subsist upon the sap of roots or 

 the tissues of decaying wood. Emancipated from 

 the normal life of the higher plants, even flowers 

 have been denied them and their fruit is but a 

 cloud of brown dust, each mote a simple cell. 



But what of the delicate Indian pipe which 

 gleams out from the darkest aisles of the forest? 

 If we lift up its hanging head we will find a per- 

 fect flower, and its secret is discovered. Traitor 

 to its kind, it has dropped from the ranks of the 

 laurels, the heather, and the jolly little winter- 



