FUNGI. 307 
flask-shaped seed-vessels ; and in the latter case, 
a shallow cup or plane disk of gelatinous matter, 
surrounded with a margin—are so diversified, that 
in Great Britain there are no less than 200 species 
of the one, and 166 species of the other. Some of 
the other genera are also unusually large, showing 
how rigidly nature’s laws of uniformity and variety 
are adhered to in this class of plants. 
The following instances may be brought for- 
ward, as illustrations of the remarkable shapes 
which many of the fungi exhibit. On the trunk 
of the oak, the ash, the beech, and the chestnut, 
may occasionally be seen a fungus, so remarkably 
like a piece of bullock’s liver that it may be known 
from that circumstance alone. This is the F7s- 
tulina hepatica or liver fungus. Its substance is 
thick, fleshy, and juicy, of a dark Modena red, 
tinged with vermilion. It is marbled like beet- 
root, and consists of fibres springing from the 
base, from which a red pellucid juice like blood 
slowly exudes. Of all vegetable substances this 
exhibits the closest resemblance to animal tissue. 
Even in the minutest particular it seems to be a 
caricature of nature, a sportive imitation on an un- 
feeling oak-tree of the largest gland of the animal 
body. Tennyson might, with more truthfulness, 
personify an oak thus furnished with a substitute 
for the seat of passion, than the garrulous indi- 
