218 STUDIES IN THE FIELD AND EOEEST. 



give place to its more noble successor, until a sufficient 

 quantity of soil is accumulated for the growth of a 

 forest of trees. In such order may the whole earth 

 have been gradually covered with plants, by the perish- 

 ing of one tribe after another, leaving its substance for 

 the support of a superior tribe, until the work of crea- 

 tion is completed. 



Among the grotesque productions of nature, the 

 fungi, or mushroom ti-ibe, ought undoubtedly to be 

 named as the most remarkable, attaining the whole of 

 their growth in the space of a few days, and sometimes 

 of a few hours. They are simple in their parts, like 

 what may be supposed to have been the earliest pro- 

 ductions of nature. They have no leaves, or flowers, 

 or branches. They will grow and continue in health 

 without light, requiring nothing but air and moisture 

 above their roots. Though so low in the scale of vege- 

 tation, Ihey are not without elegance of forms and 

 beauty of colors, and are remembered in connection 

 with dark pine woods, where, forming a sort of com- 

 panionship with the monotropas, they are particularly 

 luxuriant. Neither are they deficient in poetical inter- 

 est, as these plants are the cause of those fairy rings 

 that attract attention by their mysterious growth in 

 circles, on the greensward in the pastures. 



The mushrooms vary extremely in their forms and 

 sizes. Some are as slender as the finest mosses, tinted 

 with gold and scarlet, and almost transparent. Others 

 resemble a parasol, with their upper surface of a bril- 

 liant straw-color, dotted with purple, and their under 

 surface of rose or lilac. They seem to riot in all sorts 

 of beautiful and peculiar shapes and combinations. 

 But the greater number are remarkable only for their 

 grotesque forms, as if intended as a burlesque upon the 



