36 HISTORY OF BRITISH FERNS. 



sustained being a kind of navel ; it turns about and bends 

 to the herbage, which serves for its food, and when the grass 

 fails it dries up, and pines away. The real facts are, that 

 the rhizome of tin's plant, as already stated, does present a 

 rude appearance of an animal ; it is covered with silky down, 

 and, if cut into, is seen to have a soft inside, with a reddish 

 flesh-coloured appearance. And no doubt when the herbage 

 of its native plains fails, its leaves, too, dry up, both perish- 

 ing from the same cause, but having no dependence the one 

 on the other. Thus it is that simple people have been per- 

 suaded, that in the deserts of Scythia there existed creatures 

 which were half animal, half plant. 



