SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN 117 
On the other hand, those growing on “ steeples and 
moss-grown towers” (1 Henry IV., III. i. 33) are 
almost entirely crustaceous, and chiefly of the genera 
Lecidea, Lecanora, Variolaria, etc. 
These lowly plants are more useful to man than 
even their green allies, the mosses. For, apart from 
dyes, they are useful as food. We need but mention 
Iceland moss ( Cetraria Islandica , L.) which, with C. 
Nivalis, Sticta pulmonacea, and Alectoria asneoides, 
are used, not only as food, but as a tonic. The 
most interesting from a popular point of view are the 
pretty little “ chalice moss” and the reindeer moss. 
The algae, whether the glorious pink-green or 
olive-coloured species of the sea, or the many 
denizens of our stagnant water, plants which to the 
casual observer seem mere masses of odoriferous green 
or yellow slime, are not mentioned by the poet; but 
under the microscope the arrangement of their cell 
contents are as beautiful and instructive as any other 
portion of the vegetable kingdom. Fungi, under 
the term " mushroom ” and "toadstool,” are, however, 
noticed. We get first a pleasant reference in the 
Tempest to the fairy rings of our meadows, the dark 
circles of grass, due for the greater part to the annual 
concentric growth of an edible fungus. The Maras - 
mius oreades of botanists, the Champignon of the 
French. The dark hue is due to the manuring pro¬ 
perties of last year’s decayed growths : 
You demi-puppets that 
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make, 
Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime 
Is to make midnight mushrooms. 
Tempest , V. i. 36. 
Or, again, how pretty are the lines : 
I do wander everywhere, 
Swifter than the moon’s sphere ; 
