THE FUNGUS FOREST.--ENCHANTMENT.
Along the chamber through which we now passed I saw by the mellow light
great pillars, capped with umbrella-like covers, some of them reminding
me of the common toadstool of upper earth, on a magnificent scale.
Instead, however, of the gray or somber shades to which I had been
accustomed, these objects were of various hues and combined the
brilliancy of the primary prismatic colors, with the purity of clean
snow. Now they would stand solitary, like gigantic sentinels; again they
would be arranged in rows, the alignment as true as if established by
the hair of a transit, forming columnar avenues, and in other situations
they were wedged together so as to produce masses, acres in extent, in
which the stems became hexagonal by compression. The columnar stems,
larger than my body, were often spiral; again they were marked with
diamond-shaped figures, or other regular geometrical forms in relief,
beautifully exact, drawn as by a master's hand in rich and delicately
blended colors, on pillars of pure alabaster. Not a few of the stems
showed deep crimson, blue, or green, together with other rich colors
combined; over which, as delicate as the rarest of lace, would be
thrown, in white, an enamel-like intricate tracery, far surpassing in
beauty of execution the most exquisite needle-work I had ever seen.
There could be no doubt that I was in a forest of colossal fungi, the
species of which are more numerous than those of upper earth cryptomatic
vegetation. The expanded heads of these great thallogens were as varied
as the stems I have described, and more so. Far above our path they
spread like beautiful umbrellas, decorated as if by masters from whom
the great painters of upper earth might humbly learn the art of mixing
colors. Their under surfaces were of many different designs, and were of
as many shapes as it is conceivable could be made of combinations of the
circle and hyperbola. Stately and picturesque, silent and immovable as
the sphinx, they studded the great cavern singly or in groups, reminding
me of a grown child's wild imagination of fairy land. I stopped beside a
group that was of unusual conspicuity and gazed in admiration on the
huge and yet graceful, beautiful spectacle. I placed my hand on the stem
of one plant, and found it soft and impressible; but instead of being
moist, cold, and clammy as the repulsive toadstool of upper earth, I
discovered, to my surprise, that it was pleasantly warm, and soft as
velvet.
"Smell your hand," said my guide.
I did so, and breathed in an aroma like that of fresh strawberries. My
guide observed (I had learned to judge of his emotions by his facial
expressions) my surprised countenance with indifference.
"Try the next one," he said.
This being of a different species, when rubbed by my hand exhaled the
odor of the pineapple.
"Extraordinary," I mused.
"Not at all. Should productions of surface earth have a monopoly of
nature's methods, all the flavors, all the perfumes? You may with equal
consistency express astonishment at the odors of the fruits of upper
earth if you do so at the fragrance of these vegetables, for they are
also created of odorless elements."
"But toadstools are foul structures of low organization.[3] They are
neither animals nor true vegetables, but occupy a station below that of
plants proper," I said.
[3] The fungus Polyporus graveolens was neglected by the guide.
This fungus exhales a delicate odor, and is used in Kentucky to
perfume a room. Being quite large, it is employed to hold a door
open, thus being useful as well as fragrant.--J. U. L.
"You are acquainted with this order of vegetation under the most
unfavorable conditions; out of their native elements these plants
degenerate and become then abnormal, often evolving into the poisonous
earth fungi known to your woods and fields. Here they grow to
perfection. This is their chosen habitat. They absorb from a pure
atmosphere the combined foods of plants and animals, and during their
existence meet no scorching sunrise. They flourish in a region of
perfect tranquillity, and without a tremor, without experiencing the
change of a fraction of a degree in temperature, exist for ages. Many of
these specimens are probably thousands of years old, and are still
growing; why should they ever die? They have never been disturbed by a
breath of moving air, and, balanced exactly on their succulent,
pedestal-like stems, surrounded by an atmosphere of dead nitrogen,
vapor, and other gases, with their roots imbedded in carbonates and
minerals, they have food at command, nutrition inexhaustible."
"Still I do not see why they grow to such mammoth proportions."
"Plants adapt themselves to surrounding conditions," he remarked. "The
oak tree in its proper latitude is tall and stately; trace it toward the
Arctic circle, and it becomes knotted, gnarled, rheumatic, and dwindles
to a shrub. The castor plant in the tropics is twenty or thirty feet in
height, in the temperate zone it is an herbaceous plant, farther north
it has no existence. Indian corn in Kentucky is luxuriant, tall, and
graceful, and each stalk is supplied with roots to the second and third
joint, while in the northland it scarcely reaches to the shoulder of a
man, and, in order to escape the early northern frost, arrives at
maturity before the more southern variety begins to tassel. The common
jimson weed (datura stramonium) planted in early spring, in rich soil,
grows luxuriantly, covers a broad expanse and bears an abundance of
fruit; planted in midsummer it blossoms when but a few inches in height,
and between two terminal leaves hastens to produce a single capsule on
the apex of the short stem, in order to ripen its seed before the frost
appears. These and other familiar examples might be cited concerning the
difference some species of vegetation of your former lands undergo under
climatic conditions less marked than between those that govern the
growth of fungi here and on surface earth. Such specimens of fungi as
grow in your former home have escaped from these underground regions,
and are as much out of place as are the tropical plants transplanted to
the edge of eternal snow. Indeed, more so, for on the earth the ordinary
fungus, as a rule, germinates after sunset, and often dies when the sun
rises, while here they may grow in peace eternally. These meandering
caverns comprise thousands of miles of surface covered by these growths
which shall yet fulfill a grand purpose in the economy of nature, for
they are destined to feed tramping multitudes when the day appears in
which the nations of men will desert the surface of the earth and pass
as a single people through these caverns on their way to the immaculate
existence to be found in the inner sphere."
"I can not disprove your statement," I again repeated; "neither do I
accept it. However, it still seems to me unnatural to find such
delicious flavors and delicate odors connected with objects associated
in memory with things insipid, or so disagreeable as toadstools and the
rank forest fungi which I abhorred on earth."