Identifier: picturesqueameri01brya (find matches)
Title: Picturesque America; or, The land we live in. A delineation by pen and pencil of the mountains, rivers, lakes, forests, water-falls, shores, cañons, valleys, cities, and other picturesque features of our country
Year: 1872 (1870s)
Authors: Bryant, William Cullen, 1794-1878, editor Bunce, Oliver Bell, 1828-1890
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton
Contributing Library: University Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Digitizing Sponsor: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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ns, when floating disconsolate andheart-broken toward the Gulf, looked upon this strange vegetable production as mourn-ing drapery for the losses and disappointments of the expedition, and in sorrow for thedeath of their departed chieftain. This moss is a parasite that lives by inserting itsdelicate suckers under the bark, and draws its sustenance from the flowing sap. It isrepelled by trees in perfect vigor, but in one enfeebled by age or accident the mossgains foothold, and goes on with its quiet work of destruction until, vampire-like, itconsumes the hearts-blood of its helpless victim, and then enwraps it in a weird wind- 270 PICTURESQUE AMERICA. ing-sheet. Except from practical observation, it is difficult to comprehend the quantityof this parasite which will sometimes gather on even one tree ; and, startling as may bethe assertion, we have seen great streamers, sixty feet in length, gracefully descendingfrom the topmost branches to the ground. We have known many trees apparently
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Magnolia Swamp. Stricken with age, which, artificially relieved of this burden, have revived and assumedalmost their natural vigor In the great order of Nature, the moss has its purposes. Itconsumes the hard and iron-like woods which would otherwise for long years, a centuryperhaps, be a vegetable wreck, and thus quietly and surely makes way for a new growth. THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI. 271 This Spanish moss has been, with some truth, hkened to the shattered sails of a shiptorn into shreds by the storm, but still hanging to the rigging. To Chateaubriand itsuggested ghosts, but no perfect idea can be obtained by comparison ; it is essentiallypeculiar in its aspect. Comparatively within a few years, the Spanish moss has become important as anarticle of commerce, for, when plucked from the trees, from which it is easily separated,and then thoroughly cured and threshed of its delicate integuments of bark andleaves, it is found that through the long, thready moss is a delicate fibre as black as

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