discs of the Fungus that appear on the 

 surface are lined with vivid colors, and 

 have delicate little bags or sacs, with 

 seed-like spores inside. The Fungus sup- 

 plies a shelter from extreme cold, and 

 also holds water in which the Algae finds 

 raw material. It is like a man and wife 

 housekeeping, the man providing the 

 house and the raw stuff — flour, eggs, 

 sugar, etc. — and the wife makes these 

 materials into food. Plants, by aid of 

 their green stuff, work over the carbon 

 and other materials they get from air 

 and water and make sugar and starch, 

 or organized food. This is their manu- 

 facture and they must have an abun- 

 dance of light to do it well, so when the 

 sea Algae grow to be immense kelps or 

 seaweed, hundreds of feet long, they are 

 kept afloat by their air bladders. Now, 

 it is true the Fungus in our Lichen 

 could not live at all without its busy 

 Alga, which it holds in its transparent 

 filaments, but it is not a useless partner, 

 so we will not call it evil names. I think 

 you will be surprised to hear, after all 

 the warning given by these dependent 

 and generally worthless idlers in the 

 plant world, some of the beautiful and 

 blooming flowers have fallen into their 

 bad habits and are regular underground 

 thieves. 



For the Gerardia or false foxglove 

 has established no partnership ; it is plain 



stealing. It still works, so it has not lost 

 its green of the leaf, or the purple and 

 gold of its flower, but it steals the ma- 

 terials for its work. When it becomes 

 utterly idle and useless it will lose all its 

 color and be like the ghostly white In- 

 dian pipes that grow in the shadowy 

 pine woods. 



It is interesting to know how it steals. 

 In the dark basement chambers under- 

 ground the root servants of the plant 

 move slowly in a certain circle that cor- 

 responds to the circle of light that the 

 branches describe overhead. Within this 

 space they gather chemicals from the soil 

 and store up moisture, sending these by 

 the sap up their elevators to the well- 

 lighted leaves, where the manufacturing 

 of starch and sugar goes busily on. Now, 

 the Gerardia, being too trifling to collect 

 its own stuff, sends suckers into the roots 

 of other plants and greedily absorbs their 

 contents. That is the reason it is so hard 

 to transplant the Gerardia — its roots are 

 enmeshed and entangled so in other 

 roots below ground. A very odd thing 

 sometimes happens to it. In the dark 

 the roots occasionally blunder and tap 

 other roots of the same Gerardia, just as 

 if a pickpocket in the dark were by mis- 

 take to put his hand slyly into his own 

 pocket and steal his own purse. 



Ella F. Mosby. 



O violets tender, 



Your shy tribute render! 

 Tie round your wet faces your soft hoods of blue; 



And carry your sweetness, 



Your dainty completeness, 

 To some tired hand that is longing for you. 



—May Riley Smith. 



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