o 



lO 



Marvels of the Universe 



away to show the interior packed with the parasite chrysahs. One cannot help speculating upon 

 the probable feelings of the industrious Leaf-cutting Bee could she take a peep into such a cocoon. 

 Happily she is spared all such distractions. Her work over, she perishes. Her offspring she never 

 sees, nor can she, in the nature of things, be prescient of the dangers which beset their adolescence. 



VEGETABLE HORSEHAIR 



Peculiar to Tropical America and the adjacent West Indies there is a family of aloe-like plants, 

 many of them with beautiful flowers, which grow in crowded rows upon the branches of forest 



trees. These plants, named 

 after Tillands, the Swedish 

 botanist, are often grown in 

 our hothouses for the sake of 

 their flowers and ornamental 

 foliage. But among the great 

 number that have this up- 

 right, somewhat stiff habit, 

 which reminds one of their 

 relation to the pineapple, 

 there is one of entirely differ- 

 ent appearance, and known as 

 Spanish Moss. It attaches 

 itself, as they do, to the 

 branches by means of suckers 

 rather than roots, and hangs 

 down in dense tufts, so that 

 it largely hides the foliage 

 of the trees upon which it 

 grows and produces the 

 effects illustrated by our 

 photographs of a grove in 

 Florida. These swaying tufts 

 are often many feet in length, 

 and appear to be clad in 

 silvery scales. The slender 

 stems and branches of which 

 the tufts consist bear two 

 rows of thread-hke leaves, 

 two or three inches long, and rounded sheaths almost as long, which clasp the stems. 



The name is quite a misnomer, for the plant bears tiny green flowers ; but it has no doubt been 

 designated a moss because the effect produced by its hanging stems is very similar to that of the long 

 silvery grej' lichen that hangs freely from the oak and pine trees in some of our forests, and is known 

 as Beard-moss. In both cases the hanging plant gives its host a weathered and venerable, hoary 

 appearance. 



So far we have not given any indication of the reason for the title of this note ; but if a long 

 string of the Spanish Moss be pulled from the tuft and peeled, it will be found that it has a tough 

 fibrous interior or core. It may be presumed that the Spanish conquerors of America discovered 

 this fact and turned it to account, if any value attaches to the name of Spanish Moss. At the 



r,pi,ri,,lll blj] 



[//. C. ll'liHr Co 



"SPANISH MOSS." 



Though a true flowering plant, allied to the Pineapple, this " moss " is so called 

 from its resemblance to the Beard-moss lichen which is plentiful in some oak and 

 pine woods in this country. 



