Copy 1, Volume 1
An arrangement of British plants; according to the latest improvements of the Linnaean system, to which is prefixed, an easy introduction to the study of botany ... / By William Withering.
- William Withering
- Date:
- 1796
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An arrangement of British plants; according to the latest improvements of the Linnaean system, to which is prefixed, an easy introduction to the study of botany ... / By William Withering. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![crustaceous kinds fix upon the barest rocks, and are nou- - .rished by such slender supplies as the air and the rains afferd them. When these die, they are converted into a very fine earth,-in which the tiled Licuens find nourish ment, and ‘when these. putrefy, and fall to dust, various Mofses, as the Biyum, Hypnum, &c. occupy their place ; and in length of time, when these perish in their turn, there is a sufficiency of soil, in which trees and other plants take root. This procefs of nature is sufficiently apparent upon the smooth and barren rocks upon the sea shore. ' Many of the Licnens. are a corateFul food to goats ; and the rein-deer, which constitutes the whole ceconomy of the Laplanders, and supports many thousand inhabitants, lives upon one of the species. Many of the species afford colours for dying. .One of them, brought from the Canary Islands, viz. the Orchel, or Argol, makes a very considera~ ble article of traffic. It is not improbable, that some of the species growing in our own island, may afford very beautiful and useful colours; but this matter has not been sufficiently examined. Mr. Hellot gives us the following procefs, for discovering whether any of these plants will yield a red or purple colour.:.‘* Put about a quarter of an ounce of the plant in question into a smal] glafs; moisten it well with equal parts of strong lime, water, and spirit of Sal Ammoniac; or the spirit of Sal Ammoniae made with quick lime, will do, without lime water. ‘Tye a wet blad- der close over the top of the vefsel, and let it stand three or four days. If any colour is likely to be obtained, the small quantity of liquor you will find in the glafs will be _ of a deep crimson red; and the plant will retain the same colour whén the liquor is all dried up. If neither the liquor nor the plant have taken any colour, it is needlets to make any further trials.” Safer PUNGI. This Order consists of plants aes of a cork-like texture, of short duration; bearing their seeds either i in wills orstubes, or attached to fibres, or to a spongy sub- stance. As we know but little of their Fechiuation, the Generic characters are taken from their external form, or from the disposition of their seeds. An Agaric is repre~_](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33086114_0001_0424.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
