282 FIRST FORMS OF VEGETATION. 
icy fetters from the rejoicing streams, and once 
more, 
‘ Inverted in the tide, 
Stand the grey rocks, and trembling shadows throw, 
And the fair trees look over side by side, 
And see themselves below.’ 
While the approach of autumn is unmistakably 
indicated by the springing up of mushrooms in 
the moist dark recesses of the woods, even when 
the viewless boundary of summer is not yet 
crossed, and the air is still balmy and sunny, and 
the robe of nature fadelessly green. 
Fungi are intimately associated with autumn ; 
unrobed prophets that see no sad visions them- 
selves, but that bring to us thoughts of change 
and decay. Indeed, so close is this association 
that they may be called autumn’s peculiar plants. 
The blue-bell still lingers on the wayside bank, 
and in the woods a few bright but evanescent and 
scentless flowers appear, but fungi and fruits form 
the wreath that encircles the sober and melancholy 
brow of autumn: fruits the death of flower-life ; 
fungi the resurrection of plant-death. The sea- 
sonal conditions which arrest the further progress 
of all other vegetation, which cause the leaf to fall, 
and the flower to wither, and the robe of nature 
everywhere to change and fade, give birth to new 
forms of plant-life which flourish amid decay and 
death. From the relics of the former creations of 
