Veil (fungus)

“ Flesh thin, convexo-campanulate, umbonate, somewhat cinnamon color, silky squamulose with yellowish innate fibrils, becoming almost glabrous. Gills adnate, broad, crowded, shining, yellowish, then tawny-yellow. Stem 2–4 in. long, equal, yellow, as is also the flesh and the veil, hollow. Spores 7–8×4–5μ.
A very common species, especially in mossy places in pine woods, occurring under many well defined forms, which can not be separated as species. Essential points common to all. (1) Stem everywhere equal, stuffed, then hollow, yellowish, fibrillose from the similarly colored veil. ”

“ The universal veil forming a volva, persistent. Stem dilated at the apex into a plane round disk, even on both sides, to the margin of which are adfixed the gills which are free, not joined by any membrane, radiating, razor-shaped, persistent, obtuse at the edge. Trama cellulose. Spores oblong, even, black fuscous. Fries. ”

“ The species are to be distinguished from other ochre-spored agarics with a cobwebby veil by the fact that the veil in Cortinarius is superficial and the gills powdery. The number of species is very large, and they are difficult to determine. They mostly occur in northern countries and in the autumn or late summer; some species, however, occur during early summer. ”

“ I am afraid it has been rather a difficult history to follow step by step, and yet it is perfectly clear when once we master the succession of growths. Starting from a spore, the thread-mass or protonema gives rise to the moss-stems forming the dense green carpet, then the green flowers on some of the leaf-stems give rise to a plant-egg, which roots itself in the stem, and grows into a perfect plant without leaves, bearing merely the urn in which fresh spores are formed, and so the round goes on from year to year. ”

“ The form of the gills, their mode of attachment to the stem, their colour, and more especially the colour of the spores, are all very important features to be attended to in the discrimination of species, since they vary in different species. ”

“ The wilting of a plant is due to the loss of water from the cells. The cell walls are soft, and collapse. A toy balloon will not stand alone until it is inflated with air or liquid. In the woody parts of the plant the cell walls may be stiff enough to support themselves, even though the cell is empty. Measure the contraction due to wilting and drying by tracing a fresh leaf on page of notebook, and then tracing the same leaf after it has been dried between papers. The softer the leaf, the greater will be the contraction. ”

“ Pileus fleshy, convex, expanded, even, viscid, azure-blue, flesh soft, not changing color when bruised.
The gills are attached to the stem, slightly rounded behind, crowded, quite entire, at first of a pure dark blue, then rusty from the spores.
The stem is solid, attenuated upward, firm, bright violet, becoming pale, [Pg 293] whitish, bulb growing less with age, fibrillose from vein. Spores elliptical. Neither the flesh nor the gills change color when bruised. ”

“ They decay at the root, and are afterwards nourished by the plants which support them. As soon as the shoots have twined about an adjacent plant, they put forth from their inner surface several vesicles, or papillæ, which attach themselves to the rind or bark of the plant. By degrees, the longitudinal vessels of the stalk, which appear to have accompanied the vesicles, shoot from their extremities, and penetrate the softer plant, by dividing the vessels, and insinuating themselves into the tenderest parts of the stalk ”

“ The spore fruit now enlarges rapidly, and the outer cells become first yellow and then dark brown, the walls becoming thicker and harder as they change color. Sometimes special filaments or appendages grow out from their outer surfaces, and these are also dark-colored. Shortly before the fruit is ripe, the upper cell of the archicarp, which has increased many times in size, shows a division of its contents into eight parts, each of which develops a wall and becomes an oval spore. ”

“ By simply breathing upon them they suddenly fly open, and are endowed with motion, that is, if they contain spores. The spores on germination produce a green confervoid-like mass of threads, from which the young plant arises. ”

“ It feeds upon the buds of the vine, or on the young shoots of that plant which still remain herbaceous, which it cuts in two and causes entirely to perish. It feeds also upon grapes. The great injuries inflicted by this insect upon the vine is an additional reason for considering it as the Ips of the ancients. ”

“ The green cells provide the food, the fungus cells form a surface over which the green cells can spread to find sunlight and moisture, and protection from extremes of heat or cold. With the mosses the secret lies in their standing on the borderland between two classes of plant life. On the one hand, they are still tender-celled plants, each cell being able to live its own life and make its own food; on the other hand, they have risen into shapely plants with the beginnings of feeble roots, and having stems along which their leaves are arranged so that they are spread to the light and air. ”

“ He will notice its peculiar honey-combed depression, and then cutting it open will find both the head and the stem hollow. Where are the spores? There are no gills as in the Agarics, nor are they concealed in a covering (peridium) , as in the Puff-balls, but they are contained in delicate sacs on the cap. ”

“ The bud disappears when the blossom breaks through, and we might say that the former is refuted by the latter; in the same way when the fruit comes, the blossom may be explained to be a false form of the plant's existence, for the fruit appears as its true nature in place of the blossom. These stages are not merely differentiated; they supplant one another as being incompatible with one another. ”

“ Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed—a, to me, equally mysterious origin for it. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders. ”

“ A sensitive plant in a garden grew,
And the young winds fed it with silver dew,
And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light,
And closed them beneath the kisses of night. ”

“ Look at a plant in the midst of its range! Why does it not double or quadruple its numbers? We know that it can perfectly well withstand a little more heat or cold, dampness or dryness, for elsewhere it ranges into slightly hotter or colder, damper or drier districts. In this case we can clearly see that if we wish in imagination to give the plant the power of increasing in numbers, we should have to give it some advantage over its competitors, or over the animals which prey on it. ”

“ The moss is soft on the little roads, so narrow and so without end, winding round the land; the nettle cocks him right braggardly over the old home of bush and flower, poisoning the air. Where the lady dozed in her shady seat below the alder-tree, looking out between half-shut eyes at the proud Highlands—loch, glen, and mountain—is but a root rotten, and hacked by the woodman's whittle. A tangle of wild wood, bracken, and weed smothers the rich gardens of Castle Dark.
“It is so, it is so, Paruig Dali, blind man, prince among splendid pipers and storied men!” ”

“ He once called her his basil plant; and when she asked for an explanation, said that basil was a plant which had flourished wonderfully on a murdered man’s brains. ”

“ The plants which stand next to dwarf trees in importance with the Chinese are certainty chrysanthemums, which they manage extremely well, perhaps better than they do any other plant. ”

“ and on every stem, on every leaf, and both sides of it, and at the root of everything that dew, was a professional specialist in the shape of grub, caterpillar, aphis, or other expert, whose business it was to devour that particular part, and help order the whole attempt at vegetation. ”

“ Why were the flowers born so beautiful and yet so hapless? Insects can sting, and even the meekest of beasts will fight when brought to bay. The bird whose plumage is sought to deck some bonnet can fly from its pursuer, the furred animal whose coat you covet for your own may hide at your approach. Alas! The only flower known to have wings is the butterfly; all others stand helpless before the destroyer. If they shriek in their death agony their cry never reaches our hardened ears. ”

“ The trees bathed their great heads in the waves of the morning, while their roots were planted deep in gloom; save where on the borders the sunshine broke against their stems, or swept in long streams through their avenues, washing with brighter hue all the leaves over which it flowed; revealing the rich brown of the decayed leaves and fallen pine-cones, and the delicate greens of the long grasses and tiny forests of moss that covered the channel over which it passed in motionless rivers of light. ”

“ I have seen the hunter in them and the shepherd too, coarse men in life and occupation, come sudden among the blowing rush and whispering reed, among the bog-flower and the cannoch, unheeding the moor-hen and the cailzie-cock rising, or the stag of ten at pause, while they stood, passionate adventurers in a rapture of the mind, held as it were by the spirit of such places as they lay in a sloeberry bloom of haze, the spirit of old good songs, the baffling surmise of the piper and the bard. ”

“ It lay in the clear, grey forenoon like a garden of fairydom to the view—the whin-bushes at a distant glance floating on billows of snow, touched at their lee by a cheering green, hung to the windward with the silver of the snow, and some of them even prinked off with the gold flower that gives rise to the proverb about kissing being out of fashion when the whin wants bloom. ”

“ Nothing great, said Epictetus, is produced suddenly, since not even the grape or the fig is. If you say to me now that you want a fig, I will answer to you that it requires time: let it flower first, then put forth fruit, and then ripen. ”

“ The shadows of leaves fall upon their arms, as they spread the branches apart, but their shoulders are in the sun. The skin of their arms is like a blue mist, but their shoulders are white and glowing, as if the light fell not from above, but rose from under their skin. We watch the leaf which has fallen upon their shoulder, and it lies at the curve of their neck, and a drop of dew glistens upon it like a jewel. ”

“ I suppose in reality not a leaf goes yellow in autumn without ceasing to care about its sap and making the parent tree very uncomfortable by long growling and grumbling—but surely nature might find some less irritating way of carrying on business if she would give her mind to it. Why should the generations overlap one another at all? ”

“ of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. ”

“ TALL NETTLES TALL nettles cover up, as they have done
These many springs, the rusty harrow, the plough
Long worn out, and the roller made of stone:
Only the elm butt tops the nettles now.
This corner of the farmyard I like most:
As well as any bloom upon a flower
I like the dust on the nettles, never lost
Except to prove the sweetness of a shower. ”

“ A phantom town, with phantom citizens doubtless prying through the staring eyes of those closed shutters. A phantom town—town of fairy tale, with grotesque roofs, odd corbeau-stepped gables, smokeless chimneys, all white with snow, and wild birds on its terrace, preening in the blessed light of the sun. ”

“ The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree. I believe this simile largely speaks the truth. The green and budding twigs may represent existing species; and those produced during former years may represent the long succession of extinct species. At each period of growth all the growing twigs have tried to branch out on all sides, and to overtop and kill the surrounding twigs and branches, in the same manner as species and groups of species have at all times overmastered other species in the great battle for life. ”

“ There is the hollow hearty hoof-beat on the causey stones; in the halls the tables gleam with silver and gold; the round red apples roll over the platter among the slim-stemmed wine-beakers. It is the time of soft talk and the head full of gallant thoughts. Then there are the nights warm and soft, when the open doors let out the laughing and the gliding of silk-shooned feet, and the airs come in heavy with the scent of breckan and tree!”
“On my word,” said Marseli, “but it's like a girl's dream!” ”

“ His fingers unexpectedly touched her warm skin beneath the kerchief-souffle. The feeling ran to his heart, and struck him there like an earthquake. Down went his head, more firm his hold upon the lady’s waist; she might have been a flower to crush, but yet he must be rude and strong; he bent her back and kissed her. Her lips parted as if she would cry out against this outrage, and he felt her breath upon his cheek, an air, a perfume maddening. “Nan, Nan, you are mine, you are mine!” ”

“ All green was vanish’d, save of pine and yew, 430 That still display’d their melancholy hue; Save the green holly with its berries red, And the green moss that o’er the gravel spread. ”

“ Botanically speaking, tomatoes are the fruit of a vine, just as are cucumbers, squashes, beans, and peas. ”