36 STARLIGHT AND SUNSHINE. 



Goethe also discerned a similar luminous aureole around the 

 poppy, but explained it as a " spectral image in complementary 

 color " ; an instance, it seems to me, of where the poet's vision 

 was more keen and philosophic than that of the scientist. This 

 spectral image can be evoked by any one in a simple philosophic 

 experiment. A moment's steady gaze at the left side of a blos- 

 som cluster, the eyes being then instantly turned to the opposite 

 side, will reveal the colored aureole around this portion of the 

 cluster, and always in the complementary hue a halo which 

 plays incessantly around the petals as the eyes are shifted. Thus 

 the spectre of the poppy is a ghostly green -white; that of the 

 primrose is purple. 



Whether or not the primrose is thus endowed may be simi- 

 larly demonstrated by any one, and I think it will be found, as in 

 the writer's experience, that the brightest cluster, however luminous 

 it may appear in its haunt as a condensing mirror of the midnight 

 sky, will be invisible in a perfectly dark closet conditions under 

 which true phosphorescence would glow with added brilliancy. 



I have observed this same luminous deception prettily illus- 

 trated in the instance of the pondweed (Utricularia), with its 

 floating candlestick dancing on the ripples, the faint light from 

 its yellow petals attended by numerous circling moths. 



But we are not without numerous examples of true phospho- 

 rescence among our vegetation, for the "fox-fire" of the midnight 

 forest is a true plant. How it gleams in the dank nocturnal 

 woods! most brilliant in the deepest recesses, as though feeding 

 its fire from the very darkness. There is a whole tribe of these 

 phosphorescent fungi luminous moulds, mushrooms, and toad- 

 stools. They shine through crevices in the bark of trees or 

 among the leafy loam. They glare at you with true feline sug- 

 gestiveness from the deep hole in decayed tree or shadowy den 

 amid the rocks. Following the hint of a peeping speck of fire, 

 I have torn the bark from a decayed prostrate trunk in the 

 woods, and liberated a flood of brilliant light covering several 

 square feet in area. 



Hawthorne, among his reminiscent sketches, relates a similar 



