76 HANDY BOOK OF 



CHAPTER IX. 



"We now pass on to a class of marine plants which botanists 

 in former days thought unworthy of the least attention. 

 True it is that, with few exceptions, they have little to 

 attract attention when compared with their beauteous rela- 

 tives, the family of Rhodospermeee ; yet with them are 

 associated powers of locomotion, that occur about the time 

 of sunrise, and cease at a later period — a natural phenome- 

 non, pertaining to plants of a simple structure and organi- 

 zation, which baffles the researches of scientific inquirers, 

 and often leaves the naturalist in doubt whether he is 

 observing the motions of an animalcule, or those of a plant. 



" Proud reasoning man, thy soaring wing 



Would hurry towards infinity ; 

 And yet the meanest, feeblest thing, 



Is too sublime, too vast for thee : 

 And all thy vain imagining we see 

 Lost in the smallest speck." 



And how vividly is the observation of the poet brought to 

 mind when considering the curious formation and probable 

 use of the Codium tomentosum, or "Woolly Codium, which 

 rather resembles a sponge than Algae, and which clings so 

 firmly to its native rock as scarcely to be detached ! This 

 small plant is the home of a rare and lovely mollusc, which 

 has some important purpose to fulfil in its unobtrusive 

 sphere ; and hence the power of adhesion possessed by the 

 Codium in its domicile, lest the rushing of fierce waves 

 should frustrate that destined purpose. 



" Order is Heaven's first law;" manifested equally in the 

 motions of the planets as in the arrangement of vegetable 

 tribes. Four members only pertain to the small division 

 Codium, and yet the growing-place of each one is different : 

 the adherens, a perennial plant, adheres, as its name im- 



