FUNGI. 281 
scure tribes have some peculiar functions adapted 
to each period of the year. Though most of them 
are perennial, yet they are more luxuriant in some 
seasons than in others, and are particularly exact 
and exclusive as to their periods of reproduction. 
The hard and apparently lifeless lichen remains 
unchanged upon the rock for years, perhaps as 
long as the rock itself continues uncrumbled, but 
every year at the approach of winter, when the 
moist, stormy weather in which it delights pre- 
vails, its dormant suspended life revives, and when 
higher plants are hybernating, it begins to exer- 
cise the various functions of vitality. The bright 
silken tufts of the moss continue throughout the 
whole year to soften the rough harsh aspect of the 
wall and ruin, and to form velvet pads on the 
woodland walks to hush the fall of fairy feet, but 
in spring when ‘a fuller crimson comes upon the 
robin’s breast, and a young man’s fancy lightly 
turns to thoughts of love,’ it awakens under the 
ethereal influence of the universal feeling, clothes 
itself in its fairest robes, and puts forth its crimson 
urns, that burn like fairy love-jewels among its 
emerald leaves. The naiad-like conferve vanish 
from the waters, for nine months in the year, and 
return to luxuriate in their cool, clear haunts, as 
duly as the warm breath of April melts away the 
