GHOSTS OF THE EARTH 



WE may know the name of every tree near 

 our home ; we may recognise each blossom 

 in the field, every weed by the wayside; yet we 

 should be astonished to be told that there are 

 hundreds of plants — many of them of exquisite 

 beauty — which we have overlooked in very sight 

 of our doorstep. What of the green film which 

 is drawn over every moist tree-trunk or shaded 

 wall, or of the emerald 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 



020 



