The Corn Sow-thistle (Sonchus arvensis).

We were nearly remarking that the Sow-thistle is one of the most beautiful of our native flowers, but remembering that we have already applied that observation to several species, we will alter the formula and say it is among the most handsome. Certainly no one who sees it growing is likely to pass it by without plucking some of the flowers, though they will be disappointed in these flagging and losing their beauty before home is reached. We have three native species, of which this is undoubtedly the finest, the stem growing to a height of three or four (or, as we have found it in Surrey, over five) feet. It is a perennial, with a large creeping rootstock, which sends off runners. The stem is hollow, milky, and clasped by the bases of the finely cut leaves. These are deeply lobed, and edged with sharp teeth; the lower leaves have stalks, the upper have not. The unopened involucre—for this again is a Composite—will strike the finder as being singularly square; it is covered all over—as are the stems also-with short hairs with glandular tops of a golden yellow. The expanded flower-head is about two inches across, and is composed entirely of ray-florets. The plant will be found flowering in or around cultivated fields in August and September. The other British species are:—

I. Marsh Sow-thistle (S. palustris), now all but extinct, and found only rarely in the Eastern counties of England and Kent. It is taller-growing than arvensis, the stem sometimes reaching nine feet, but the flowers are only half the size of that species.

II. Common Sow-thistle (S. oleraceus). A common annual in every field and waste. General character of plant very similar to arvensis, but smaller. Stem, two to three feet in height, without (or rarely with) the glandular hairs. Flower-heads many, not exceeding an inch in diameter. June to September.

Name supposed to be derived from the Greek, sonthos, hollow, in reference to the fistular stems.

Grass of Parnassus (Parnassia palustris).

It is a singular thing that some of our most beautiful plants grow in the most unpleasant places. We remember a backwater of the River Thames that used to receive the waste waters from a large soap-works, and in the evening, when this waste was poured out, the stench arising from the ditch was unbearable. Yet, with its feet in this vile liquid, the Meadow-sweet grew luxuriantly, but truth compels us to add that its sweetness was thrown away; it could not overcome the other smell. Black bogs and mossy swamps are the particular haunts of floral beauties, such as the marsh violet, the bog buckbean, the marsh marigold, the bog pimpernel, the sundew, the bog asphodel; and it is in such resorts we must look for the Grass of Parnassus, a plant so pretty and elegant of form that it must first have grown upon Mount Parnassus. At any rate, the English name is a mere translation of that given to it by Dioscorides, among the six or seven hundred plants mentioned by him.

It is a perennial, with a stout rootstock. With few exceptions the leaves are radical; they are heart-shaped, smooth, with untoothed edges, and on long stalks. The flowering stems are long, angular, with a stalkless leaf nearly half-way up. At the summit is the solitary large flower. The fine thick sepals are slightly conjoined at their bases, the petals white, veined and leathery. The ovary is large, and on its summit, without the intervention of a style, are the four rayed stigmas. Around the ovary are five stamens—there should be ten, but five have been transformed into scales, which alternate with the perfect stamens, and are fringed with white hairs, each ending in a yellow knob; on the face nearest the ovary each scale bears two small honey-secreting glands. The perfect stamens ripen in succession, and as each becomes mature, it raises itself until the anther comes on top of the stigma, but with its back to it. The front opens and discharges the pollen away from the stigma; but it falls where insects seeking the honeyed glands (using the ovary as a perch) will get it upon their forelegs, and so attach it to the stigmas of the next flower they visit.

It flowers in August and September. This is the only British species.

Oat-grass (Avena sativa).

We have three British species of Wild Oat, but a knowledge of their structure and differences may be best obtained perhaps by a consideration of the cultivated Oat of our fields. It is indeed probable that the cereal oat is but a cultivated form of our Common Wild Oat (A. fatua), for Professor Buckman succeeded years ago in obtaining as the ninth generation from seeds of A. fatua good crops of the farmers’ varieties called White Tartarian and Potato Oats. It is known that oats shed in harvesting often degenerate into the wild forms. As a cereal the Oat does not appear to be nearly so ancient as wheat and barley, for it was not cultivated by the Hebrews, the Egyptians, Greeks or Romans.

The genus is distinguished by having its flowers in a lax-panicle, the spikelets borne principally upon long, slender stalks. Each spikelet contains two or more flowers, of which the upper one is usually imperfect, and each is armed with a long twisted and bent awn. There are two outer glumes, each flowering glume deeply notched, the awn arising from the bottom of the notch. The pale is two-nerved, the scales two-toothed, the stamens three. The ovary has a hairy top and two short styles with feathery stigmas. The fruit adheres to the glume.

I. Wild Oat (Avena fatua). An annual with two- or three-flowered spikelets which droop at length. The empty glumes with nine nerves, flowering glumes covered with stiff hairs. Brown awn much bent, the lower half twisted. Leaves flat and roughish; sheaths smooth. Cornfields. June to August.

II. Narrow-leaved Oat (A. pratensis). Perennial; not to be sought in the place indicated by pratensis, as it is a plant of the moor and dry pasture. Spikelets half erect, six flowered. Leaves flat, or edges rolled inwards, smooth, hard and rigid. Lower sheaths rough. Flowering glume, rough. Awn only slightly bent. June and July.

III. Downy Oat (A. pubescens). Perennial. Spikelets half erect, two-flowered. Leaves flatter than A. pratensis, downy; sheaths very downy. Awns wider apart. Dry pastures. June and July.

The name is the old Latin term for oats and reeds.

Mountain Ash or Rowan (Pyrus aucuparia).

We have considered many members of the beautiful Rose family already, but we have now a representative of another branch of it—the Wild-Apple section. The fruit of the Mountain Ash is really a little apple. It has no relationship with the Ash (Fraxinus, see page 135), but the mere resemblance of its pinnate leaves has won the name. It is a low tree, growing from twenty to forty feet in height. It flowers in May, the creamy white blossoms being grouped in a cyme. The leaf is divided pinnately into six, seven, or eight pairs of leaflets and a terminal odd one; each leaflet toothed, the mid-rib and nerves hairy. The calyx also is hairy. The flowers are succeeded by a cluster of bright scarlet tiny apples, with yellow flesh and a three-celled hard “core” or endocarp. These are ripe in September, and are eagerly sought after by birds—a fact of which advantage has been taken by bird-catchers of all times and places where the tree grows. It is used for the purpose of baiting their horse-hair springes, whence it has got the name of Fowler’s Service-tree, and in the principal European countries it bears a name of like import. Its folk-names in this country alone make a long list:—Quicken-tree, Quick-Beam, Wiggen, Whichen, or Witcher, Wild Ash, Wild Service, Rowan, Roan, or Roddan, Mountain Service, and other variations. Some of these names are reminders of its supposed protective powers against the machinations of witches and warlocks. “Witches have no power where there is Rowan-tree wood.”

Pyrus is the old Latin name for a pear-tree.

Buckwheat (Polygonum fagopyrum).

In the neighbourhood of manure-heaps and on the borders of cultivated ground one may come across this plant, which was formerly included in the British Flora, but is now known to be a mere waif of cultivation. Its home is in Central Asia, but it has been so long cultivated as a food-plant in Europe and in the United States that it has become naturalized in most places. In this country it is chiefly grown as a food for pheasants. It is an annual, with a tall, slender, branched, reddish stem, and heart-shaped, almost arrow-headed leaves with entire margins. Flowers in panicles. The individual blossoms consist of five pale reddish sepals, no petals, eight stamens, and three styles. The flowers are of two forms, one with long stamens and short styles; the other with short stamens and long styles. The fruit is large, three-sided, solitary in a nut, very like beech-mast, whence its folk-name buch- or buck-wheat. It will be noted that at the base of the leaf-stalk is a pair of thin stipules, which sheathe the stem and mark the swollen nodes that give the knotted appearance so characteristic of the genus, and which has given it the name of many knees or joints (Greek polus and gonu). Buckwheat flowers during July and August. It is a valuable honey-plant, esteemed of bee-masters. There are a dozen British species; among them:—

I. Bistort or Snake-root (P. bistorta). Perennial, with large twisted rootstock. Radical leaves long, egg-shaped, the upper part of the leaf-stalk winged. Stem-leaves almost stalkless, broader near the stem. Flowers pink or white, producing honey; moist meadows. June to September.

II. Amphibious Buckwheat (P. amphibium). Perennial, rootstock sometimes creeping in the ground, at others floating in the water. If the plant is floating the leaves have long stalks; if growing on land they are almost stalkless. Stipules tubular, large, smooth in water, bristly on land. Stamens five, styles two. Flowers, rosy-red. July and August; margins of pools and in other wet places.

III. Spotted Knotweed (P. persicaria). Annual. Stem erect; leaves long, narrowly lance-shaped, with a black heart-shaped patch in the centre, downy beneath; the stipules fringed with a few long hairs. Flowers flesh-coloured; stamens six, styles two. July to October, in moist places.

IV. Knotgrass (P. aviculare). Annual. Stems branching from the root, very slender and straggling, smooth. The leaves small and grassy, stipules small, white, torn-looking, red at the base. Flowers very small in the axils, pink. Stamens eight, styles three. Waste places and neglected gardens. May till October. The seeds are much esteemed by birds, and to the entomologist the fresh plant is invaluable as an almost universal food for the caterpillars of geometers.

V. Black Bindweed (P. convolvulus). Annual, with twining stems. The leaves are very similar to those of the true Convolvulus, the lobes more pointed; stipules short. Sepals green, with paler margins. Fields and wastes. July to September.

Fool’s Parsley (Æthusa cynapium).

Fool’s Parsley is fond of cultivated ground, and it is no unusual thing for it to make its appearance in the very garden beds that have been set apart for rearing that pot-herb for which fools are said to mistake it. It is an annual, with a spindle-shaped, fleshy root, round, hollow stem, branched, and marked with fine longitudinal lines. The leaves are smooth, compound, and bluish green in tint. The wedge-shaped leaflets are themselves pinnate, and the pinnæ are lobed. The flowers are small and irregular, white, grouped in small umbels, which are again gathered into large umbels of umbels.

The reader is invited to turn back to page 55, where the structure of umbelliferous flowers and fruits is more intimately described. The small umbels in Æthusa are provided with an involucre consisting of three or five little bracts, very narrow and hanging vertically. This feature will serve to distinguish Æthusa from all other umbellifers. The entire plant is evil-smelling, and said to be poisonous. It flowers during July and August, and is the only species. It gets its generic name from the Greek aitho, to burn, from its acrid character, and its specific name is a combination of Kynos, dog, and apion, parsley, which is a further note of its worthless character.

Fine-leaved Heath (Erica cinerea).

This is the common Purple Heath of our elevated heaths and commons, distinguished from its relatives by its smooth stems and leaves; the latter exceedingly narrow, their edges curled under, and arranged around the stems in whorls of three leaves, with clusters of minute leaves in their axils. The flowers also are in whorls, and either horizontal or drooping. The sepals are four in number, green; the corolla in one, egg-shaped, with four short lobes around the mouth. The stamens are eight, bearing two-celled crested anthers, each cell opening at the side to discharge its pollen, and having a toothed process at its base; the cell-openings of one anther being pressed against those of neighbouring anthers. The style is dilated at the top, and its surface is the stigma. Flowers July to September.

Another common species is

The Cross-leaved Heath (E. tetralix), with downy stems and leaves; the leaves in whorls of four, and fringed with hairs, margins rolled under as in cinerea. Flowers pale-rosy, drooping, gathered into a dense head at the summit of the stem. The corollas are pale, almost white, on their under-sides. The anthers like those of cinerea, but with two longer processes from the base of each. Bees visit the Heath plants for their plentiful honey, and in pushing their long tongues into the flower in search of it touch their heads against the stigma, which partially blocks the mouth of the corolla. The tongue has to press against one or more of the anther processes, which has the effect of dislocating the series of anther-cells, and allowing the pollen to fall through the opening upon the bee’s head, which is thus ready to fertilize the next flower it visits. This species may be found growing with E. cinerea, but usually selects the dampest, boggy spots on the heath. Flowers July to September.

There are two other species, E. vagans and E. ciliaris, but they are confined almost entirely to the county of Cornwall; the former distinguished by its bell-shaped, not egg-shaped, corolla, and anthers and pistil hanging outside; ciliaris marked by its leaves being fringed with hairs, each hair tipped with a gland.

The name is from Ereikh, the ancient Greek name for heath or heather.

Heather or Ling (Calluna vulgaris).

The Ling is distinguished from the Heaths by the botanist because its bell-shaped corolla is concealed by the longer, equally coloured calyx leaves, and below these are four bracts which resemble a calyx. Its leaves are triangular, very minute and densely packed, overlapping each other. Like the Heaths its flowers are persistent, and are to be found bleached but preserving much of their original form, nine or ten months after they opened. The anthers are short, and contained within the corolla, but the style is long, and protrudes. The tough wiry stems attain considerable size in the highlands of Scotland, where they serve many useful purposes. It flowers from July till September. C. vulgaris is the only species. The genus gets its name from the Greek Kalluno, to beautify or adorn, an epithet which all who have visited the moorlands in its flowering season will admit is well-bestowed.

Mistleto (Viscum album).

Is there a person in these islands above the age of infancy who does not know the Mistleto by sight? Why, then, let it occupy space here? Because it is one of those very well-known things that we only partially know. What percentage of those who took advantage last Yule-tide of the mystic sanctions of the plant, and who consequently think they know it so well, have seen its flowers? or know that it has flowers? True, those of our British Mistleto are not very striking in point of size or showiness; but there are tropical species with flowers both large and brilliant.

In V. album the flowers are of two kinds, male and female, each (with rare exceptions) being borne on separate plants, so that cross-fertilization is imperative. They are both green, and consist of a four-lobed perianth, the male with four anthers attached to the perianth, such anthers opening by a large number of pores. The female flower has the perianth adhering to the ovary, to which the stigma is directly attached, there being no style. The ovary, as all know, develops into the globose white berry, containing the large seed with its viscid coat. These occur usually in twos or threes. The flowers may be found any time between March and May.

This leathery parasite is not very particular as to its host. Quite a large number of trees of different species harbour it, notably the apple; next in favour are poplars, hawthorns, lime, maple, mountain-ash, and very rarely the oak. It has been suggested that the very fact of its extreme rarity upon oak gave oak-grown mistleto its sacred character among the ancient Britons.

Meadow-Saffron (Colchicum autumnale).

The Meadow-Saffron is more frequently known as the Autumnal Crocus, but we object to the name as conveying a wrong idea of the botanical characters of two distinct genera. Further, there is a true autumnal crocus (Crocus nudiflorus), though its claim to be considered British is open to doubt. Like Crocus, Meadow-Saffron has an underground solid stem (corm), resembling a bulb, and from this arise the flowers in succession from August to October. These flowers are of a pale purplish colour, and consist of a long slender tubular perianth, enlarging at its upper part into a bell-shape, and this portion is divided into six segments, to each of which a stamen is attached (Crocus has but three). The ovary lies deep within the calyx-tube, and from it arise three long thread-like styles, which are bent over near the tip, the inner side of which is the stigma.

The fruit develops during the winter, and by the spring is ripe. Then when the long, flat leaves make their appearance, the flower-stalk lengthens and brings the ripe capsule above the ground. Sometimes the flowers mistake the seasons and put in an appearance with the leaves in spring, but they are imperfect, and the perianth is greenish-white.

The name is from Colchis, where it is said to have grown abundantly.

Hart’s-tongue Fern (Scolopendrium vulgare).

Hitherto we have dealt only with flowering plants. In these sexual organs are borne in more or less conspicuous blossoms, and, as the result of fertilization of the ovules by the pollen, seeds are produced which give rise to plants exactly like that which bore them. Ferns produce an enormous number of minute bodies, called spores, which are incapable of developing directly into a plant similar to that by which they were produced; but on germination they give rise to a minute green scale, like a liverwort, upon the under surface of which sexual organs appear, and by the mingling of their cell-contents a true bud is formed, from which a true fern-plant is evolved. There are other important points upon which ferns differ from flowering plants, but it is not within the author’s province to deal with them here. Let it suffice to add that as a fruit-bearing organ the leafy portion of a fern differs greatly from the leaves of other plants. To prevent confusion it is termed a frond.

The Hart’s-tongue has a frond of very simple character—strap-shaped—consisting of a stout mid-rib (rachis), with a leathery green expansion on either side, the upper end tapering off to a point, the lower divided into two lobes. A large number of thick red-brown parallel ridges on the under surface will attract immediate attention. These are heaps of delicate capsules (sporangia), which contain the spores. The Hart’s-tongue is a plant of sandy or rocky hedgerows.

Maidenhair Spleenwort (Asplenium trichomanes).

A common plant locally on rocks and walls, having a slender dark-brown polished rachis and a large number of roundish-oblong leaflets (pinnæ), arranged pinnately on each side. The capsules will be found in short thick lines on the under surface. There is a similar species, the Green Spleenwort (A. viride), with a green, softer rachis and the pinnæ distinctly stalked, shorter and paler; growing on wet rocks in mountainous districts.

Male Fern (Nephrodium filix-mas).

In the Male-fern—so-called by our fathers owing to its robust habit as compared with the tender grace of one they called Lady-fern (Asplenium filix-fœmina)—we have an advance in the intricacy of frond-division. Our page is not sufficiently large to represent the whole of the frond, but the portion we give shows that the pinnæ are themselves again divided into pinnules. This fern grows to a great size, its rootstock very thick and woody, its fronds erect and three or four feet high. As a rule the rachis and its continuation below the leafy portion (stipes) are shaggy with loose golden-brown scales. The spore-capsules are in little round heaps in rows along the pinnæ, and each heap is covered by a thin kidney-shaped involucre. Note in the unrolling of a young frond how beautifully the whole is packed up. The lateral divisions of the pinnæ are rolled each on itself, then the pinnæ are rolled up from their tips toward the rachis, and finally the whole frond is coiled up from the tip downwards. This is the characteristic vernation of ferns, and differs greatly from the packing of undeveloped leaves in the leaf-buds of flowering-plants.

The genus Nephrodium (named from nephros, the kidneys, in allusion to the involucre) contains half-a-dozen other British species, of which the most frequent is the Broad Buckler Fern (N. spinulosum), with arching fronds, broad at the base, the stipes sparingly clothed with dark-brown scales. Pinnules toothed, the teeth ending in long soft points. Damp woods.

Mountain fern (N. oreopteris), with habit of Male fern, but stiffer, and of a yellow-green hue. Spore-heaps near the margins of the pinnæ. High hills and mountain pastures.

Field Horsetail (Equisetum arvense).

The Horsetails are a small group of flowerless plants, quite distinct from the ferns, though there are certain points in which some resemblance may be traced. We have eight British species out of twenty-five that are known to inhabit the earth. The most widely distributed of these is the Field Horsetail (E. arvense), which farmers regard as a pest. In common with the whole tribe it has a creeping underground rootstock, from which more or less erect jointed stems arise. If we break off one of these joints at its natural articulation we shall observe that the ends are solid, and that the upper extremity is crowned by a sheath ending in long pointed teeth, into which the lower end of the next joint fitted. This leaf-sheath, as it is called, is composed of a number of aborted leaves—the only vestiges of leaves the plant possesses. Just below the leaf-sheath a whorl of jointed branches is given off, each constructed in a manner similar to the upright stem. If now we cut our main joint across its middle with a sharp knife we shall find that it is tubular, a central cavity occupying about one-third of its diameter. Between this cavity and the exterior wall is a series of small tubes, somewhat egg-shaped in outline, the smaller end towards the central cavity; alternating with these and nearer the centre are a number of smaller circular tubes. This section should always be made when in doubt as to the species, for the shape and arrangement of these cavities differs in each, as do the external ridges. The accompanying cuts represent half-sections through the stems of the principal British species. In this species there are about a dozen blunt ridges on the stem, extending right to the points of the leaf-sheath. The branches are four-angled, solid, and jointed and sheathed like the main stem. The cells of the cuticle secrete silica in such quantity that the whole of the vegetable matter may be got rid of by maceration, yet the form of the stem will remain in this transparent skeleton of silica. Certain species are used for polishing metal, under the name of Dutch Rushes.

So far we have been describing what is known as the barren stem, because it ends in several unbranched joints, without any fructification. Before these barren stems appeared there arose from the rootstock a stem differing greatly in appearance, usually without branches, and lacking the green colouring matter (chlorophyll). It is pale brown in colour, of stouter build, but much shorter, for whereas the barren stem is about two feet in length, the fertile is only a few inches, or at most less than a foot. The leaf-sheath is longer, and the teeth frequently adhere two or three together. The stem terminates in a kind of cone, consisting of many whorls of flat scales, each supported by a central stalk, on the underside of which are arranged from six to nine capsules containing spores. These spores are very curious: they are globular in form, and invested with several coats, the outermost of which splits into four narrow strips, which are highly hygroscopic, and which remain attached to the spore at one point only. These elaters, as they are termed, are very sensitive to changes in the humidity of the atmosphere, as may be proved by breathing upon them, however slightly, when they will be seen (through the microscope) to be in active movement. In many ferns the spores require months to elapse before germination takes place; those of Horsetails will germinate in a few hours. Owing to its possession of chlorophyll the spore, if not placed in a situation suitable for germination, perishes in the course of a few days.

The name of the genus is from the Latin, equus, a horse, and seta, a bristle. The fertile stems appear in March and April, the barren ones at intervals later.

Lichens (Lichenes). Plate 126.

The rambler will meet with specimens of the Lichen tribes at every turn, when he has got fairly away from the smoke of towns. He will find them on the tree-trunks or rocks and walls, old posts and palings, on thatch and on the ground. Wherever they are found they may be accepted as certificates of the purity of the air. Formerly considered as a distinct type, they are now held by the advanced school of cryptogamic botanists as commensals, or partnerships formed between a fungus and an alga. They are usually thin crusts, consisting of an upper and a lower epidermis, formed of closely crowded cells, and to the lower layer rootlike filaments are attached. Between these layers are two differing elements; a loose stratum of green cells (gonidia), which are said to be algæ, and below these a layer of fungoid threads. The contention of the new school is that these algæ have been captured by a fungus and held in bondage, being forced to elaborate starch by means of their chlorophyll from the inorganic material obtained by the rootlike filaments, which starch the fungus is able to feed upon. Some of the green cells are pushed out from time to time invested with a few wisps of fungus-threads, and so reproduce the partnership. It is but right to add that some good authorities on this branch of botany decline to accept these views, and still regard lichens as independent organisms and not partnerships.

The species are very numerous, but their identification is not easy, and requires serious application. The two figured are exceedingly common in some districts. Various species of Cup-moss (Cladonia) will be met on heaths, sandy hedge-banks, etc. They have a flat crust-like base, from which arise pale grey tubes or cups, bearing at their tips the bright scarlet, pinky-brown, or even black fruits. A more common form in woods and on banks is Cladonia pyxidata, with the tube greatly increasing in width upwards. Cladonia rangiferina is the well-known Reindeer-moss, of inestimable value in extreme Northern latitudes as the food of the useful animal whose name it bears; it may be found in abundance in this country on heaths and hillsides covering the ground beneath the heather.

The other species figured in our plate, the Wall-lichen (Physcia parietina), is also very common, forming the familiar orange stains upon walls and maritime rocks. A closely allied species, the grey Parmelia saxatilis, is common on tree-trunks: it has been used time out of mind in the production of a brownish-red dye for wools. Several others of the same genus are valuable in a similar direction: our own Parmelia perlata, which grows on tree trunks, is largely imported from the Canaries as a dye-weed, and has been sold at as high a rate as £200 per ton.

Lichens are generally of slow growth and long life. Mr. Berkeley kept watch upon a patch of Lecidia geographica for twenty-five years, and found little change in it all that time. The Rev. Hugh Macmillan recounts how he found on the top of Schiehallion a species of lichen encrusting quartz rocks, which exhibited beneath the lichen the marks of glacial action as distinct and unchanged by atmospheric effects as though the glacier had only passed over them yesterday. He suggests that the lichen may reckon its days back very nearly if not quite to the glacial period in Britain!

There are upwards of a thousand British species, and the best list of them will be found in “Crombie’s British Museum Catalogue of Lichens,” of which the first part was published in 1894.

Mosses (Musci). Plate 127.

Another important tribe of flowerless plants, to which we must be content with merely giving the general characters, for in a volume primarily intended as a guide to wild-flowers we must not occupy too much space with plants that do not produce flowers. At the same time, we believe the non-botanical among our readers will be glad to have a slight introduction, upon the strength of which they may cultivate the closer acquaintance of a most beautiful and interesting group of plants.

A. Three-cornered Hypnum (Hypnum triquetrum) is a common species on woodland banks, growing in branching tufts. The stems are well clothed with leaves, which consist of a single layer of cells; there is therefore no necessity for the breathing pores (stomates) found on the leaves of flowering plants and giving access to the tissues beneath the cuticle. The leaves of mosses are not provided with stomates; neither are they stalked, but attached directly to the stem by their base. From the sides of the stem at intervals a number of brown, hair-like threads are given off, and each of these ends in a brown, pear-shaped nodding organ, the spore capsule. These capsules are each closed with a lid (operculum), beneath which is a double row of teeth, their tips directed towards the centre of the mouth. When the spores are ripe the operculum is cast off, and these teeth erect themselves to allow the minute spores to escape. The teeth (forming the peristome) of mosses are always some multiple of four; in Hypnum each row contains sixteen.

B. Beautiful Hair-moss (Polytrichum formosum) represents another division of mosses in which the fruits are borne on the termination of the stem or principal branches. In an earlier condition than that figured the capsule is covered with a conical densely-hairy cap (calyptra); this is thrown off when the spores are ripe, the operculum follows and the spores are cast.

Mushrooms and Toadstools (Fungi). Plate 128.

We cannot pretend to do other than call the rambler’s attention to the interesting plants that are variously called mushrooms or toadstools, according to whether they are of the two or three species commonly eaten, or of the multitude concerning which the British public knows nothing, and therefore dismisses them as worthless toadstools.

A. The Fly-Agaric (Agaricus muscarius), though in general structure it closely resembles the common mushroom (Ag. campestris), is to be avoided as a poisonous species. Its large orange or crimson cap, more or less thickly dotted with whitish flakes, is a very striking feature in woods in late summer and autumn. An examination of the underside of the cap (pileus) will reveal a great number of thin yellowish plates set on edge and radiating from the stem to the circumference. Over these plates or gills is stretched a membrane, called the hymenium, on which the spores are borne. From this characteristic of the bulk of our mushrooms and toadstools the tribe containing them is dubbed the Hymenomycetes.

B. Edible Boletus (Boletus edulis). In this group (Polyporei) the hymenium, instead of investing gills, lines minute pores or tubes, with which the under surface of the pileus is packed, and in which the spores are produced. Many of the Boleti are edible, but their good qualities are known only to the few in this country. Edulis may be distinguished from other species by a delicate network of raised white lines covering the stem.

C. Jewelled Puff-ball (Lycoperdon gemmatum). This species represents a tribe in which the spore-bearing surface is contained within the fungus. In a young state Puff-balls of many kinds are filled with a white creamy substance, and so long as this remains white and does not change colour on being cut the fungus is good to eat, after being cut in slices and fried. When the spores are ripe the Puff-ball splits open at the top, and discloses a hollow filled with brown dust—the spores. Certain species of Lycoperdon attain very large proportions: L. giganteum is abundant in some localities in grassy places, usually measuring nine or ten inches in diameter, but occasionally it exceeds twenty inches, and weighs as many pounds. Slices may be cut from one side of it for several days in succession, but so long as the rooting portion is not interfered with it will continue to grow. L. gemmatum is common on downs or pastures. Readers should be cautioned against eating these small species in a raw state, as such a course has been known to have serious effects.

D. Chanterelle (Cantharellus cibarius). This belongs to the same section as the Fly-Agaric, in which the spore-bearing membrane is spread over gills; but in Cantharellus the gills are reduced to thick ribs that run from the edge of the pileus partly down the stem. The whole fungus is coloured with orange-yellow, internally as well as the outside. It is often abundant in woods in summer and early autumn. It is much esteemed for its esculent qualities; but it requires much cooking, and should first be thrown into hot water for a few minutes, then dried on a cloth, and fried or stewed gently.

Small-leaved Lime (Tilia parvifolia).

Several species of Lime may be met in woods and plantations, but respecting the right of each to be called indigenous there is a good deal of difference of opinion among authorities. Some say the present species is a native and the Large-leaved Lime (T. platyphyllos) not; others reverse this verdict and say that platyphyllos is certainly native, but that parvifolia is doubtfully so. There is little difference, other than the size of the leaves, between the two. Both are trees of sixty feet and upwards. The leaves are alternate, heart-shaped and toothed, lop-sided at the base, and about two and a half inches across in parvifolia, compared with four inches in platyphyllos. In July and August the Small-leaved Lime puts forth her yellowy-green blossoms arranged in cymes, the long stalk of which is furnished with a long pale-coloured bract. The flowers consist of five sepals, five petals, a great number of stamens, a five celled globular ovary with simple style and a five-toothed stigma. Only one of the cells matures its two ovules, so that the fruit is two-seeded. The flowers are sweet-scented, and very rich in honey.

The generic name, Tilia, is that by which the Romans knew the tree.

Tree of the Gods (Ailantus glandulosa).

This elegant shade-tree was introduced from North China in 1751, and brought its name with it—Ailanto, or Tree of the Gods. It has, however, been better appreciated in France and Italy than in this country. It grows to a height of fifty or sixty feet. The leaves are compound, pinnate, a fact that might easily be overlooked, for the whole leaf is so large—sometimes as much as six feet in length—that its stalk and mid-rib might well be mistaken for a branch clothed with opposite leaves. The leaflets are toothed, and the teeth bear glands on the lower side, whence the specific name. Its flowers, which open in August, are borne in clusters at the end of the branches. They are small, greenish-white in colour, and give off an evil odour. There are two forms of flowers, the one consisting of a five-parted calyx, five petals, and ten stamens; the other with calyx and petals the same, but fewer stamens and three, four, or five ovaries. The flowers are not represented in our illustration, the drawing having been made when the tree was in fruit. These will be seen to look like small imitations of ash-keys. It is a rapid grower in almost any soil, though it succeeds best in a light humid earth, and appreciates a little shelter. Its leaves are the favourite food of one of the large silk-producing moths (Attacus cynthia), but most other insects disapprove of it.

Maples (Acer).

Our English Maple is the Common or Small-leaved or Field Maple (Acer campestre) that grows wild in hedge-rows and thickets in England and Wales, but is only naturalized in Scotland. It is a small spreading tree, scarcely exceeding twenty feet in height, with leaves five-lobed, the lobes again lobed or toothed. The flowers are small, green, in corymbs, with narrow sepals and narrower petals, succeeded by two-winged two-seeded fruits called samaras; the wings being horizontal. Flowers May and June.

The Great Maple or Sycamore (A. pseudo-platanus) is a tree commonly grown in the streets, squares, and parks of London and other great cities on account of its smoke-enduring qualities. It has been so long established here that it is generally but erroneously regarded as a native. It is a tree of very rapid growth, and attains a height of about eighty feet; living upwards of two hundred years. Leaves large, five-lobed, unequally toothed. Flowers, greenish-yellow, May and June. Samaras large, wings diverging. Native of Mid-Europe and Western Asia.