FLOWERLESS PLANTS. 351 
zinc, antimony and other minerals have no effect; all per- 
fumes stop it. 
Passing in this flying review some of the lower forms of 
flowerless plants of forests and fields, with a few parasites 
on man and animals, only touching here and there an inter- 
esting and suggestive fact, we finally offer a word on tbose 
found upon our farm fixtures, houses, and especially all 
timber structures, although not confined to them alone, for 
even the wall, in the pride of its strength, erumblingly bows 
beneath their stealthy tread. 
Builders have a woful knowledge of numerous fungi found 
on wood, e. g. the Polyporus destructor, truly as its specific 
name signifies, a destroyer ; also P. thelephora, from a Greek 
word, meaning nipple, by reason of its teated surface; and 
P. sporothricum, from the little pore-tubes having hairy fila- 
ments hanging out; the one, however, most familiar to me 
from my Sarti recollection is the Weeping Morel (Meru- 
lius lachrymans), a crying evil. Both this and the M. vas- 
tator are sufficiently devastating to all timbers in warm, moist 
situations where there is no free circulation of air, as 
in hollow trees, cellars, wainscoting, timbers of ships, sills, 
sleepers, etc. These invaders, little less than legion, all 
pass under one common designation, the dry rot. 
eeping morels at first appear in a white spot, or point, 
spreading their filaments flat over the surface of the timber 
in rounded white cottony patches from one to eight inches 
broad, and so onwards; near maturity it forms folds of yel- 
low, orange or brown, weeping Madeira wine colored tears ; 
they soon after mature myriads of dirty, rusty-colored spor- 
ules which spread destruction far and wide ; wood, books and 
walls. crumble in its consuming path ; buildings often, though 
taken down and the stones scraped and fired, scarcely suffice 
to stay the scourge. Is this the leprosy of the wall spoken 
of in Leviticus? Heat applied to dry wood only hastens the 
malady. It can be forestalled by cutting the timber in win- 
ter when the sap is out; and, better still, by immersion in 
