74 HANDY BOOK OF 



Slates fall and fade — but Nature does not die. 

 Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear, 

 The pleasant place of all festivity, 

 The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy." 



In England, Plymouth is recorded as the favourite habi- 

 tat of this commemorative species, of which the hue and 

 form is little in accordance with the mud-covered banks or 

 rocks, in bogs or estuaries, whereon it flourishes. No small 

 degree of intrepidity is required to venture ofttimes in places 

 which seem unlikely to reward the exertions of the marine 

 botanist ; and yet many a beauteous specimen grows best 

 on sites which have nought of outward beauty wherewith to 

 allure the passer -by. 



The wandering scarlet-robed Dasya finds its home on the 

 wide waters, or else is borne from out the depths of ocean, 

 for nowhere has its habitat been discovered. The arrival 

 of this plant upon our shores announces that either summer 

 or autumn is begun ; for punctual as the rising of their 

 constellation, or the departure of migratory birds, first one, 

 and then another, is deposited by the receding billows. 

 Marine botanists hail them with great pleasure, for Dasyas 

 are somewhat rare ; and happy are those who may number 

 these children of the deep among their specimens. 



This feathery-looking plant, the loveliest of ocean tribes, 

 seems in unison with cloudless skies and summer tides, 

 when scarcely a breath of wind is stirring, and ocean gently 

 swells and ripples, and spreads its gifts upon the sand. But 

 equally in autumn comes the fairy-formed Dasya, with its 

 brightness and its beauty, riding on those vexed and chafed 

 surges, which the equinoctial gales have lashed into fury. 

 To this there is no parallel among terrestrial vegetation. 

 Such plants as grow on windy heights are generally pro- 

 cumbent, or cling tenaciously to their bleak habitats, or 

 else they hasten under ground at the approach of winter. 

 Forest trees have roots with which to grapple the strong 

 rocks whereon they grow, but the delicate Dasya has no 



