Cornucopia

“ A flower-pot broken in two lengthwise or a leaden cornucopia is hung on the tree, and the branch to be rooted is placed lengthwise in the pot or cornucopia. The pot is then filled with mold or moss kept damp by frequent watering, and the result, sooner or later, is the growth of adventitious roots. When these are suitably developed, gradual weaning is next in order; that is to say, underneath the pot a slight cut is made, and this is deepened day by day. The end here in view is to accustom the layer little by little to do without the mother stem and support itself. ”

“ This atrium is evidently that part of the central cavity which I have called the handle of the cornucopia in the European lamprey, and the very fact that it is separated from the rest of the central cavity is evidence that we are dealing here with a later stage in the history of the pineal eyes than in the case of the Ammocœtes of Petromyzon Planeri. ”

“ Hyalonema, the glass-rope sponge, plunges its long threads down into the mud, and then spreads them out like a brush. These threads have a ringed structure, so that each one has an individual hold, or purchase, like that of a screw. Venus's Flower-Basket has the small end of the cornucopia plunged deeply into the sea-ooze, and from its extreme end threads go out with an upward and outward curve. ”

“ The beings which compose this group have the fleshy polypidom always adherent, without axis or solid interior stem. They are divided into four families or tribes. One of these, the Cornularia, are zoophytes, and live in isolation, or gathered together in small numbers on the surface of a common membraniform expansion. The Cornularia cornucopia live on the coast of Naples, C. crassa on the Algerian coast. Other genera make their appearance on the coast of Scotland, of Norway, in the Red Sea, and in the Indian Ocean they appear in great numbers. ”

“ Among household curios are drinking horns elaborately etched, and frequently turned in a lathe. They were popular in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and the turned patterns then so common were copied by the silversmiths, who made silver tankards and drinking cups on the same models. The cornucopia or horn of abundance figures frequently in sculpture, paintings, and works of art. The horn is one of the early instruments of music (see Chapter XV) , and has long been associated with sports. ”

“ He says the people there boil and eat the stem, which is first of a mouse-colour, and afterwards becomes red like our prawns. There are many heads, that arise out of one stem, each of which consists of two shells, in which are the same parts of the animal as in the other species. This I have called the Cornucopia Barnacle. Some of the shells of this Barnacle were drawn from a specimen in the British Museum. This Lepas is the Mitella of Linnæus. ”

“ Distribution--Nebraska and Manitoba, eastward to Virginia and Nova Scotia. Europe and Asia.
An immigrant from Europe, this plebeian perennial, meekly content with waste places, is rapidly inheriting the earth. Its beautiful spikes of butter-colored cornucopias, apparently holding the yolk of a diminutive egg, emit a cheesy odor, suggesting a close dairy. Perhaps half the charm of the plant--and its charms increase greatly when it is grown in a garden--consists in the pale bluish-green grass-like leaves with a bloom on the surface, which are put forth so abundantly from the sterile shoots. ”

“ Euplectella is chiefly got from the Philippine Islands. The natives have their own notions, it seems, about this marvellous object. They will tell you that this beautiful sponge is found in pairs, and that they are the work of little crabs, who, they believe, build these houses while living inside them. It is a remarkable fact that generally in these glass cornucopias, as if they were cages, a pair of little crabs dwell together. How they ever got inside nobody knows. Can it be that they are silly enough to wall themselves up in this limbo of silica? ”

“ Such are the visions which proffer great cornucopias full of fruit to the solitary traveller, or murmur in his ear like sirens lolloping away on the green sea waves, or are dashed in his face like bunches of roses, or rise to the surface like pale faces which fishermen flounder through floods to embrace. ”

“ I can imagine the small boys of Boonville fishing for catfish from the piers of the bridge or bathing down by the steamboat dock (if there is one) , and yearning for the day when they, too, will be grown up and old enough to smoke corncobs.
What is the subtle magic of a corncob pipe? It is never as sweet or as mellow as a well-seasoned briar, and yet it has a fascination all its own. It is equally dear to those who work hard and those who loaf with intensity. When you put your nose to the blackened mouth of the hot cob its odor is quite different from that fragrance of the crusted wooden bowl. ”

“ In a discoid shell the spire is depressed; when held up, the whorls turn from right to left, and the aperture is left-handed. The largest species is P. cornu-arietis, [B] which is a native of Brazil. P. corneus is common in ponds and ditches. Empty shells are to be found at the edge of the water. (Plate 9.) If you take the animal to examine, and study its habits, remember that you have no right to injure it, and that you have already promised me that no kind of cruelty shall take place. ”

“ To their inner surfaces the thyrohyoid membrane is attached, while their knob-like ends are connected with the superior cornua of the thyroid cartilage by the lateral thyrohyoid ligaments.
The small cornua (ceratohyals) are conical structures about a quarter of an inch long attached to the upper part of the body at its junction with the great cornua. It is only in late life that they become united with the body by bony union, if they ever do so. ”

“ In some genera certain of the anterior dorsal and ventral scales of the trunk fuse into a continuous plate. Internally to the postero-lateral cornua the middle layer of the shield is prolonged backwards into a pair of singular flap-like lobes, which have been variously interpreted as corresponding to the lateral lobes of the Coelolepidae, to pectoral fins, or to opercula. The scales of the trunk and tail are rhombic and imbricated; on the sides of the body they are remarkably high and narrow. ”

“ The shorter cornua are stronger than in the horse, or even the ox and dog; the central one is less developed, and the longer cornua is thin and insignificant. There is also considerably less ligament interposed between this bone and the thyroid cartilage, which it almost closely embraces. ”

“ The fruits of Cornus mas are edible; the wood is very hard; gum is found in some. Several species of Cornus and Aucuba japonica (Japan) are cultivated as ornamental shrubs.
Order 2. Araliaceæ (Ivies) . Principally trees or shrubs with solid stems. The leaves are scattered, simple or compound, with a sheath more or less developed. The flowers are most frequently situated in umbels or capitula which are either borne singly or in racemes, or in paniculate inflorescences. The small, most frequently yellowish-green flowers are 5-merous, in the calyx, corolla, and andrœcium ”

“ The hyoid has its basilar part generally somewhat more convex and enlarged than in man; but in howlers it becomes greatly enlarged and deeply excavated, so as to form a great bony bladder-like structure (fig. 3) . The cornua of the hyoid are never entirely absent, but the anterior or lesser cornua may be so, as in the howlers. The anterior cornua never exceed the posterior cornua in length; but they may be (Cercopithecus) more developed relatively than in man, and may even be jointed, as in Lagothrix.
Fig. 7.—An Immature Chimpanzee (Anthropopithecus troglodytes) . ”

“ Cornus, Benthamia, and some other genera, among which Dr. Lindley places Aucuba, are now formed into a separate order, under the name of Cornaceæ. The different species of Dogwood (Cornus) are known by the smooth bark of their stems and branches, which is frequently red, or reddish brown; by their white flowers, which are produced either in heads, or umbels, or in corymbose panicles; by their red or blackish berries; and by their coarse feather-nerved leaves. The principal species of Cornus are the wild or female Cornel (C. sanguinea) ”

“ The stamens themselves are as remarkable as the other parts of the flower; the filaments grow together into a thin kind of leaf, and each anther has but one cell, and opens by a pore at the apex. The pistil is also very curiously formed, as the style and stigma have the appearance of a gaping monopetalous corolla. The fruit is a flat two-celled capsule, which, when ripe, opens by two lips, separating from each other, and showing a seed within each cell. Even the seeds are not like other seeds, for each has a large white protuberance at one end, called a corancula. ”

“ Lines of climbing plants are tied so as to go along from pole to pole, and the maize-cobs are suspended to these by their own hooked fruit-stalk. As the corncob is forming, the hook is turned round so that the fruit-leaves of it hang down and form a thatch for the grain beneath or inside of it. This upright granary forms a solid looking wall round the village. The people are not stingy, but take down maize and hand it to the men freely. Plantains, cassava, and maize are the chief food.
“The hoeing of the Manyuema is very superficial, being little better than the scraping of the soil. ”

“ And yet the Corncrake is not quite such a skulking bird as some would make him. When all is quiet he not unfrequently wanders out of the hay-meadow through the hedge into the barer pasture beyond, sometimes running a score of yards into the open field ”

“ Several French versions may be found in the Romania, No. 22, p. 244, and Mélusine, p. 424. There is a Spanish version in Caballero's Cuentos, etc., Leipzig, 1878, p. 3, "La Hormiguita" ("The Little Ant") . There is a curious version in Hahn's Griechische und Albanesische Märchen, Leipzig, 1864, No. 56, "Pepper-Corn." The story is from Smyrna, and is as follows:—
PEPPER-CORN.
Once upon a time there was an old man and an old woman who had no children; and one day the old woman went into the fields and picked a basket of beans. ”

“ It is the pipe that a man keeps in the drawer of his desk for savage hours of extra toil after the stenographer has powdered her nose and gone home.
A corncob pipe is a humble badge of philosophy, an evidence of tolerance and even humor. It requires patience and good cheer, for it is slow to "break in." Those who meditate bestial and brutal designs against the weak and innocent do not smoke it. Probably Hindenburg never saw one. Missouri's reputation for incredulity may be due to the corncob habit. ”

“ Thus obtained, it is an orange-red, viscid, deliquescent substance, which, dried over sulphuric acid, becomes brittle and of a fine ruby colour. It has a sweetish taste, but is devoid of odour, readily soluble in spirit of wine or water, and sparingly in absolute alcohol. By dilute acids, it is decomposed into Crocin, sugar, and an aromatic volatile oil having the smell of saffron. Weiss gives the following formula for this decomposition:—
Crocin is a red powder, insoluble in ether, easily soluble in alcohol, and precipitable from this solution on addition of ether. ”

“ The Smeared cortinarius is much more common than the Violet cortinarius and has a much wider range. Both the cap and stem are covered with a viscid substance or gluten which makes it unpleasant to handle. The cap varies in color from yellow to golden or tawny-yellow and when the gluten on it has dried it is very smooth and shining. The flesh is white or whitish. The young gills have a peculiar bluish-white or dingy-white color which might be called grayish or clay color, but when mature they assume the color of the spores. They are sometimes minutely uneven on the edge. ”

“ In the particular flowers now alluded to the tubular form seems due to a dilatation, and not to a cohesion of the margins. (See Cohesion, p. 23.) These tubular petals resemble in form and colour almost precisely the normal corolla in miniature, but are not surrounded by a calyx, nor do they contain stamens, while the less perfect forms show clearly their origin from a single tube-like organ.
Fig. 168.—Corolla of Primula sinensis turned back to show a tubular petal springing from it. One only is shown for the sake of clearness; they are generally numerous. ”

“ Inside this cork-forming layer is a mass of soft, thin-walled "juicy" cells, pa, which are all living, and most of which contain granules of chlorophyl, and thus give the green color to the young cortex—a color which becomes toned down to various shades of olive, gray, brown, etc., as the layers of cork increase with the age of the part. It is because the corky layers are becoming thicker that the twig passes from green to gray or brown as it grows older. ”

“ Readers of the 'Western Cornucophir' came from all parts of Cornwall; serious men, with heavy brows, big jaws, and firm lipless mouths. Women also—married women, likewise serious, (unmarried women, speaking broadly, are flighty,) in rich but sober dresses, arrived in chaises, wearing spectacles and false fronts, and having bibles in their pockets, and vinegary attendants carrying shawls, and guardians of their virtue. ”

“ Corolla gamopetalous, epigynous, rotate or funnel-shaped or tubular; limb often irregular or 2-lipped; lobes 4–5, imbricate, rarely valvate. Stamens 4–5, inserted on the tube of the corolla and alternating with its lobes, equal or unequal. Ovary inferior, 2–5-celled (rarely 1-celled) , usually crowned with an epigynous disc; style long with a capitate stigma, or short and 2–5-lobed; ovules 1 or more in each cell, pendulous, anatropous. Fruit usually a berry or drupe, rarely a capsule, 1- or many-seeded. ”