Page 6 Advertisements Column 6

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18508, 20 March 1922, Page 6

There are many plants, rooted in the earth, that will grow quite happily under and in a covering of enow, but that snow itself should be the soil for any form of life sounds impossiblp. Yet in many parts of the world where it falls, it supports different forms of plant life or certain curr ous fungi, that are microscopic kinds of mouldiness. known snow- moulds. In Northern Europe and in Germany* when a deep snow sets in a kind of snow mould starts to grow under the snow, if there has been no frost previously, and sometimes tins Lanosa nivalis destroys entire crops of autumn-sown corn. This is eo well known to the farmers, that when such happens, it is usual in certain regions to plough up the hard frozen surface of the snow occasionally during the winter. This snow plant, or parasite, is of a very eimpj = nature, consisting merely of jointed threads, the last joints of the small side branches of which take on a yellow tinge in time, and the fungus separates at the joints, producing oblong spores or reproductive germs. It forms white patches a foot or so in diameter, made up of a number of smaller round patches; and when the snow melts as spring comes these become red here and there, a» if dusted with red powder, in consequence of the ripening’ ot the spores. Hardly has the snow melted when the snow mould disappears, leaving behind it a withered piece of ground, .f there was grass beneath. The ground, according to the greater or less strength ot the fungus, remains entirely barren or slowly becomes green again. There ta another form of snow mould, which orows on the snow in clear weather, when the sunshine is warm enough to melt the outer surface of the snow without bringing about a general thaw. 'lbis parasite spreads over the surface of the snow in shining fleecy patches, dotted with red or green. Whei the snow melts it is left behind on the grass in the form of a delicate cobweb. Mother: “ Yes. I confess Fm dying to get ray daughter married.” He: ‘‘And what other inducements do sou offarf’