[Footnote: As A
Matter Of Fact, The Mushroom-Stone Is A Well-Known Commodity, Being
Still Collected And Eaten, For
Example, at Santo Stefano in Aspramente.
Older travellers tell us that it used to be exported to Naples and kept
In the cellars of the best houses for the enjoyment of its
fruit - sometimes in lumps measuring two feet in diameter which, being
soaked in water, produced these edible fungi. A stone yielding food - a
miracle! It is a porous tufa adapted, presumably, for sheltering and
fecundating vegetable spores. A little pamphlet by Professor A. Trotter
("Flora Montana della Calabria") gives some idea of the local plants and
contains a useful bibliography. A curious feature is the relative
abundance of boreal and Balkan-Oriental forms; another, the rapid spread
of Genista anglica, which is probably an importation.]
Well, I am glad my path to-day did not lead me to Gariglione, and so
destroy old memories of the place. For the domain, they tell me, has
been sold for 350,000 francs to a German company; its primeval silence
is now invaded by an army of 260 workmen, who have been cutting down the
timber as fast as they can. So vanishes another fair spot from earth!
And what is left of the Sila, once these forests are gone? Not even the
charm, such as it is, of Caithness. . . .
After Circilla comes the watershed that separates the Sila Grande from
the westerly regions of Sila Piccola. Thenceforward it was downhill
walking, at first through forest lands, then across verdant stretches,
bereft of timber and simmering in the sunshine.
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