FUNGI. 283 
spring and summer reduced to chaos, springs up 
a new creation of organic life; and thus nature is 
not a mere continuous cycle of birth, maturity, 
and decay, but rather a constant appearance of 
old elements in new forms. 
This new tribe of plants comes in at a peculiarly 
seasonable time, when the more aristocratic mem- 
bers of the vegetable kingdom have departed, 
leaving the favourite haunts of the botanist bare 
and destitute of interest. The collection of them 
in the field, and the study of their peculiarities in 
the closet, will furnish ample occupation of a most 
fascinating nature during the whole season, as new 
facts always connect themselves with new forms. 
To those who enjoy mysteries and paradoxes 
there can be no lack of such enjoyment among 
the fungi. In many respects they are the most 
mysterious and paradoxical of all plants. In 
their origin, their shapes, their composition, their 
rapidity of growth, the brevity of their existence, 
their modes of reproduction, their inconceivable 
number and apparent ubiquity, they are widely 
different from every other kind of vegetation with 
which we are acquainted. In studying their his- 
tory we walk amid surprises ; and as we lift each 
corner of the veil, more and more marvellous are 
the vistas that reveal themselves. 
The first thing that suggests remark in regard 
