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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of Personality of plants, by Royal Dixon
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
-using this eBook.
-
-Title: Personality of plants
-
-Authors: Royal Dixon
-         Franklyn E. Fitch
-
-Release Date: June 4, 2022 [eBook #68239]
-
-Language: English
-
-Produced by: The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
-             https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
-             generously made available by The Internet Archive)
-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERSONALITY OF PLANTS ***
-
-
-
-
-
-_PERSONALITY OF PLANTS_
-
-[Illustration: The Fuchsia has a Distinctive and Esthetic Manner.]
-
-
-
-
-  PERSONALITY
-  OF PLANTS
-
-  _By_ ROYAL DIXON _and_
-  FRANKLYN E. FITCH
-
-  [Illustration]
-
-  New York
-  BOULLION-BIGGS
-  1923
-
-
-
-
-  Copyright, 1923, by
-  BOULLION-BIGGS, Inc.
-
-  _All Rights Reserved_
-
-
-  PRINTED IN U. S. A.
-
-
-
-
-  CONTENTS
-
-
-                                  Page
-
-  INTRODUCTION                      11
-
-  ORIGIN OF PLANTS                  17
-
-  LIFE OF A PLANT                   27
-
-  MIGRATIONS OF PLANTS              39
-
-  COMRADES OF THE PLANT WORLD       57
-
-  ALLIES OF THE PLANT WORLD         69
-
-  MARRIAGE CUSTOMS OF PLANTS        83
-
-  ART IN THE PLANT WORLD            95
-
-  MUSIC IN THE PLANT WORLD         110
-
-  SCIENCE IN THE PLANT WORLD       122
-
-  RELIGION IN THE PLANT WORLD      141
-
-  PLANT MYTHOLOGY                  154
-
-  MYSTICISM IN THE PLANT WORLD     167
-
-  PLANT INTELLIGENCE               186
-
-  THE HIGHER LIFE OF PLANTS        204
-
-  PLANTS & MEN                     215
-
-
-
-
-  To
-
-  EDWIN MARKHAM
-
-  and
-
-  ANNA CATHERINE MARKHAM
-
-  who live their poetry.
-
-
-
-
-  “That nothing walks with aimless feet;
-    That not one life shall be destroyed;
-    Or cast as rubbish to the void,
-  When God hath made the pile complete;
-
-  “That not one worm is cloven in vain;
-    That not a moth with vain desire
-    Is shrivel’d in a fruitless fire,
-  Or but subserves another’s gain.”
-
-  --_Tennyson._
-
-
-
-
-INTRODUCTION
-
-
-“The natural world, so to speak, is the raw material of the spiritual.
-Therefore, ere man can understand the spiritual, he must understand the
-natural,” writes Thomas Gentry.
-
-The authors of this book would go a step further and say that the
-natural world _is_ the spiritual. Soul and body, ephemeral and
-material, on this plane of existence are ineffably bound together.
-If you would climb to sublime heights of ghostly exaltation, study
-first the grass at your feet. If you would unravel the mysteries of
-the universe, desert the cloistered hearth for the wonders of woods
-and meadows. Slow-thinking man will never understand the secret of his
-own existence, until he thoroughly understands the plants outside his
-window.
-
-For one to examine dead, withered specimens and hope to understand
-Nature is as if a person should analyze hundreds of Egyptian mummies
-in order to acquaint himself with the human race. You must seek the
-flowers on their native heath and treat them as friends and equals.
-Too often is the human creature inclined to look upon members of the
-vegetable kingdom as things apart from the world of life--insensate
-beings which can be cut down and trampled without offense--mere
-“growths,” more akin to earth and stone than to himself.
-
-As a matter of fact, among the many forms of matter which exist on this
-earth of ours, the only clear-cut division is between the organic and
-the inorganic. The primary characteristic which distinguishes a living
-creature from inanimate objects about it is, in the words of Arthur
-Dendy, its power of “reacting toward its environment in such a manner
-as to conduce to its own well-being; of controlling not only its own
-behaviour but also the behaviour alike of its fellow creatures and of
-inanimate objects, in its own interests, thereby maintaining its own
-position in the universal struggle for existence.”
-
-If this, then, is the one characteristic which distinguishes all
-terrestrial life, it follows that all creatures from the unicellular
-protoza to man himself are intimately related, are all part and
-parcel of the same system, are recognizable by differences in degree
-but not in kind, and are all interesting manifestations of that
-mysterious thing we call life. No creature lives or dies to itself. The
-correlation of organisms in Nature is similiar to the correlation of
-organs in individual plants and animals.
-
-If the reader will but face this fact, he will approach the study of
-Nature with a new reverence. He will recognize the oneness and kinship
-of all life.
-
-It is largely the object of this book to explore the inner recesses of
-breathing and thinking plantdom--to take the reader beyond the limits
-of text-book botany into regions of sympathetic insight--to show how
-even human arts and sciences are unchangeably bound up with the lives
-and hopes of the grasses and flowers.
-
-To do this comprehensively, it has been thought wise not only to
-indicate how plants think and act but to incorporate a broad general
-history of their race stretching back to their first appearance on
-the planet and carried forward to the Burbank creations. With this
-knowledge in hand, we are better equipped to approach that fascinating
-realm which touches on the intelligence, the spirituality, the
-mysticism, the psychic phenomena, the higher life of plants.
-
-In all this, the manifest independence of plant life and purpose is
-convincingly apparent. The plants have their own lives to lead and
-their own evolutionary processes to carry on. They completed the
-conquest of the earth long before the first human being appeared on its
-surface. Out of approximately a hundred thousand species of flowering
-plants, it has been estimated that only two hundred and forty-seven
-render direct and important service to man, and of these, only about
-fifty-four are utilized by him to any great extent.
-
-While today it is no longer the fashion to believe that plants were
-created for man’s _sole_ benefit, yet it cannot be denied that,
-because of their physical limitations and inferior intelligence, the
-plants frequently become very docile servants of the human race,
-thereby thriving mightily and to their own great advantage. This is
-as it should be. It is a law of earthly life. The danger lies in the
-contempt which this servitude engenders in the consciousness of man,
-the master. The plants are inferiors but very wonderful inferiors. We
-should accord them the highest respect. We should accept our dominion
-over them as a favour of a beneficent Providence,--a priceless gift
-which it is criminal to squander or misuse.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I
-
-Origin of Plants
-
-  “_’Tis a quaint thought, and yet perchance,
-    Sweet blossoms, ye have sprung
-  From flowers that over Eden once
-    Their pristine fragrance flung._”
-
-
-“In the beginning God created the heaven and earth. And the earth was
-without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And
-the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let
-there be light: and there was light!”
-
-There is no greater mystery than the mystery of creation. Nowhere is
-its story told more eloquently and more scientifically than in the
-opening words of Genesis. All the fruitage of centuries of research but
-reaffirms this ancient narrative.
-
-In the early days of this planet, when its crust was scarcely hardened
-from the molten state, there reigned what might be called the age of
-water. The entire surface of the globe was covered with a sea of
-restless, moving liquid, overcharged with a heavy atmosphere of vapour,
-so dense that not a single ray of light could penetrate it. As the
-process of cooling went on, more and more moisture condensed out of the
-air, until finally the first ray of light reached the universal sea and
-terrestrial day began.
-
-Here in this dim, watery world, about the time that the first land
-began to emerge from the deep, by some divine, mysterious agency, the
-first life was born.
-
-No doubt it was one-celled, free-moving, and like modern Flagellates,
-partaking of the nature of both plant and animal.
-
-Slowly, and in response to evolutionary promptings, simple aquatic
-plant forms began to develop from the primary single cells. Animal
-life may have begun a simultaneous development, but if it did, it did
-not become strong enough to make any impress on the geologic rock from
-which we draw our data.
-
-Certainly the plants were in the ascendency. The mobile green Algae
-were characteristic of the time. It is a remarkable thing that though
-they are probably the progenitors of all that vast world of vegetable
-life which enriches the world today, the Algae have always gone on
-reproducing their own kind. Today we can watch, under a microscope, the
-activities of the first form of terrestrial life, born incalculable
-aeons ago.
-
-Mayhap the earth would be peopled exclusively by Algae and similar
-forms today, if it had not been for a prehistoric accident. One day,
-the water suddenly receded from a bit of land and left some Algae in
-the mud behind it. Now, the Algae had always been used to plenty of
-water and they saw that unless they did some quick thinking, they
-were in danger of drying up and blowing away. Accordingly, by common
-consent, they secreted and surrounded themselves with a jelly-like mass
-capable of absorbing and holding water. The amphibious Liverworts and
-the _Ricciocarpus Natans_ do the same thing today.
-
-With the Algae successfully living in the mud, surrounded by their
-mucilaginous water-reservoirs, it was but a step for some enterprising
-individual to extend a portion of his own tissue in search of more
-water. By this simple act, the first root came into being, and lo!
-there were terrestrial plants.
-
-It is to be noted that all development in the plant world is born of
-necessity. To the plants, dependence upon water, food and the impulse
-to reproduction may be ascribed the start of many a new form among
-them. In the more complex groups we seem to see a conscious striving
-for higher and better things, but the lowlier species often need the
-goad of circumstance to force them to attainment.
-
-When the plants first emerged upon the land, a number of structural
-changes became necessary. Whereas in the marine world, water is
-absorbed directly by all parts of the plant, in land life special
-organs of absorption and conductivity must be developed. At first, the
-roots were mere rhizoids or hairs, aided by water-drinking leaves and
-tubers, as in the Mosses and Liverworts today; but it was not long
-before true root and vascular systems were evolved. Other changes which
-came with terrestrial life were greater rigidity of tissue and devices
-to guard against evaporation. Leaves were developed for the purposes of
-manufacturing starch by photosynthesis, spreading out into thin layers
-in order to present the greatest possible surface.
-
-These lower land plants retained and still retain some characteristics
-of their aquatic ancestry, notably swimming spore cells, as in the
-Mosses. The formation of rigid cellulose about vegetable cells stops
-their movement, except when cilia or projections of protoplasm extend
-through openings in the cell walls. The Liverworts were probably among
-the first real land plants: their spores are non-motile and they have a
-massive, foot-like organ for the absorption of water.
-
-To the liberality of Nature we must ascribe the development of the law
-which ties the plants to the soil. They started out as animals, but
-enjoyed such an abundance of food that it became unnecessary for them
-to go in search for it. Water and carbon dioxide, which formed their
-principal means of subsistence, were all about them; they settled
-down to a life of quiet ease. When Corals, Sponges, Oysters and other
-lower animals are similarly situated, they become as firmly rooted as
-any plant. Moreover, they have free-swimming larvae analogous to the
-active zoospores of certain members of the plant world.
-
-The first land vegetation of the globe must have presented a curious
-spectacle. Imagine a forest consisting of endless repetitions of
-Algae, Fungi, Lichens, Liverworts and Mosses, with many forms of
-gigantic sizes. The fresh-water Algae early developed a clever device
-to save their race from extinction by drought. Certain cells in each
-plant became hard and devoid of water, presenting that phenomenon of
-suspended animation to be observed in many of the higher seeds. When
-drought overtook any particular plant, it died, but these special
-restive cells lived, and were carried about by the wind or other
-agencies until a new abundance of moisture called them out of their
-trance. As zygotes, they exist in the Nostoc today.
-
-The first plants were non-sexual and propagated by cell division. They
-were therefore capable of little advancement. With the introduction
-of the sex element, infinite possibilities for racial improvement
-and differentiation were opened up. The Mosses and Ferns belonging
-to the family _Archegoniatae_ early established an alternation of
-generation in which the spores give rise to a small plant which looks
-like a Liverwort and bears the reproductive organs. The fertilized ovum
-of this plant grows into a leafy, sexless individual which produces
-spores non-sexually. We therefore have a generation endowed with sex
-organs making for development and progress, alternating with a sexless
-generation calculated to continue the tendencies of the race.
-
-It is undoubtedly the sex element which accounts for those “sports” or
-mutations in plantdom which occasionally overstep the limits of species
-to form new species.
-
-In the luxurious atmosphere of the early globe, vegetation waxed
-strong and vigorous and attained remarkable proportions. The primeval
-woods served to draw the superabundant carbon from the air and in
-millions of decayed bodies store it up as graphite, coal, petroleum and
-illuminating gas. The present day graphite beds alone represent vast
-quantities of ancient vegetation. It is a unique experience to be able
-to write or draw pictures of these prehistoric plants and use, in the
-carbon of our pencils, portions of their very bodies.
-
-Everything was on a grand scale in the “Old Red Sandstone” age. There
-were no real trees yet, but the Asterophyllites, with their tall,
-slender stems, looked much like Palms. The Eryptogams were immense
-Mushrooms. Algae, Zostera and Psilophytons covered the shores with a
-tangle of seaweed vegetation.
-
-In the succeeding carboniferous period, the plant world reached the
-climax of its dominion. While the variety was still very much limited,
-its vigor and luxuriance were astounding. The Tree-ferns seem to have
-come down to us unchanged from that time, but other plant descendants
-have dwindled in size greatly. Our humble Mares’ Tails were then twenty
-or thirty foot trees called Calamites. The Club-Mosses were giant
-Lepidodendrons. Other immense plants which have no direct descendants
-were the Sigillarias and the Lomatophylos. With its flexible, fluted
-and checkered stems, saw-edged leaves, and hanging garlands of
-parasitic Ferns, the carboniferous forest presented a remarkable scene.
-
-The air was still very moist, covering the entire earth with a
-permanent fog and a uniform temperature. It is said that certain
-present-day islands in the Pacific Ocean approximate these ancient
-conditions.
-
-All the plants of that time were flowerless, and belonged to neither
-the monocotyledonous nor the dicotyledonous classes, which include the
-greater number of families today. Thanks to many excellent specimens
-found in coal mines, it is possible for scientists to classify as many
-as five hundred families. It is believed that coal itself was mostly
-formed from small plants, but often entire trunks of the tree-like
-forms are found in bituminous strata. Bits of bark, cones and petrified
-leaves have also been unearthed at different times.
-
-In the course of evolution, the Conifer trees were the next to develop
-extensively. They gained a great ascendency, but were succeeded by
-Palms, Alders, Cypress and Elms. By the Miocene period, all the
-forms known in tropic Africa today had come into existence, but were
-restricted by no such regional limitations as they labour under now.
-Oaks and Palms, Birches and Bamboos, Elms and Laurels grew side by
-side. The Palms reached as far north as Bohemia, Switzerland and
-Belgium. Maples, Lindens, Planes, Spruces, Magnolias, Persimmons
-and Pines flourished in Greenland. The Silver Fir and the Southern
-Cypress advanced to within two hundred leagues of the North Pole.
-The California Redwoods and Sequoias are survivors of a race which
-flourished in this age.
-
-Man came very late in the earth’s evolution, but he has had a profound
-effect upon the plant world. His most noteworthy feat has been to take
-comparatively weak plants like the grains and, for his own purposes,
-give them large areas in which to grow. Wheat, Maize, Yams and Tobacco
-became widely diffused as cultivated plants before the historic era. It
-is probable that Rice and the Legumes were first domesticated in Asia;
-Barley and Wheat in Egypt; and Maize, Potatoes, Yams and Manioc in
-America.
-
-The origin and development of plants is a fascinating study. So
-authentic are the records which they have left in the eternal rocks
-that we have little difficulty in reconstructing their entire race
-history.
-
-[Illustration: THE LIFE OF A DAISY IS SPENT IN BRIGHTENING OUR FIELDS
-AND PASTURES]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II
-
-LIFE OF A PLANT
-
-  “_We cannot pass a blade of grass unheeded by the way,
-  For it whispers to our thoughts and we its silent voice obey._”
-
-  --_J. E. Carpenter_
-
-
-The growth and development of a plant, though such a common thing,
-is full of very real wonder and mystery. It takes only a little
-observation to discover the various stages in the process, but how they
-are brought about and by what laws they are governed, not even the most
-astute investigators can always say.
-
-To the lay mind, the statement that the plants depend upon the soil
-for their nourishment is quite self-evident, yet it is extremely
-inaccurate. It is now quite certain that the vegetable world relies
-upon the _air_ for its largest and most important food supply. The
-great mass of carbon which is the chief constituent of all plant
-structure is drawn almost exclusively from the atmosphere. While it is
-true that many vital elements are obtained from the earth, all green
-plants manufacture the greater part of their solid material out of
-the carbon dioxide of the air. Of what the plants do obtain from the
-soil, water makes up the largest bulk. The bread and meat of the plant
-world is carbon dioxide; the drink is soil water in which is dissolved
-certain essential salts and condiments.
-
-A chemical analysis of a Green Pea will show approximately 46.5% of
-carbon, 4.2% of nitrogen and 3.1% of all other elements, exclusive of
-the hydrogen and oxygen which make up the water permeating all tissue.
-
-This is truly a startling fact. Instead of belonging to the earth,
-the plants then belong primarily to the air. The air is their natural
-habitat; the earth serves to give them a fixed place in the world and
-provide them with flavoured water to drink.
-
-Plants are born from seeds, the joint product of two previous
-individuals; they live by eating and drinking; they marry and in turn
-rear families of their own. It is our purpose in this chapter to show,
-in a very definite way, that this is not mere figurative language but a
-common-sense statement of fact.
-
-The cycle of plant life can be illustrated by any dicotyledonous,
-herbaceous annual. If one is so inclined he may hark back to his high
-school days and plant a few Beans in a box as a practical illustration
-of the facts stated here.
-
-The first action of the planted Bean is to absorb water to a prodigious
-amount, and so wake the quiescent life forces which may have been
-slumbering within it for years. It is a law of animal and vegetable
-life that all vital processes must be performed in solution. Without
-water, life is dead or somnolent.
-
-When Nature made the Bean, she left a small opening or window in
-its skin-wall called the micropyle. Through this opening of the
-water-swollen seed, now issue two pale sprouts. One is long and
-pointed; it is the radicle or incipient root. The other is stubbier
-and is tipped by a cluster of folded, yellow-green leaves; it is the
-plumule or incipient stem. With unerring exactness, the radicle grows
-down into the soil and the plumule feels its way up into the air.
-
-By this time, the seed has burst its walls and split into two halves,
-which indicates that it belongs to the dicotyledonous group of plants.
-As the seedling continues to grow, these cotyledons begin to shrink
-and shrivel. The plant is living on their substance until it can begin
-to make its own. In the case of the Bean, the stem lifts the emaciated
-cotyledons up into the air, where they act as leaves until the tiny
-green things at the stem’s tip have expanded into those important
-organs.
-
-When the first leaves have fully opened and the spent cotyledons have
-dropped off as mere empty shells, the independent life of the plant may
-be said to have begun. We are now in a position to examine its methods
-of living.
-
-Examining the root, we find that by this time it has expanded into
-many branches. Each tip is a tiny mouth through which the plant drinks
-the all-important water and mineral salts. Root tips exercise great
-ingenuity; they feel their way underground, touching here, recoiling
-there, and searching out the elements necessary to the plant’s economy
-with wonderful sagacity.
-
-The actual absorption is done by minute filaments or hairs which take
-in water and its dissolved contents by osmotic action. They secrete
-a digestive fluid which renders certain minerals soluble, and by a
-strange intelligence, select the kind and amount of material they
-take in. In certain groups of plants, notably the Legumes, colonies
-of Bacteria take the place of root hairs, and by a reciprocal action,
-provide the plant with the nitrogenous elements which it craves.
-
-The principal food of most vital importance taken in by the roots is
-nitrogen. Nitrogen is one of the basic elements of protoplasm, the
-life fluid of the living cell. Where there is life, there is nitrogen.
-Sulphur, phosphorous, silica, iron and other elements are also needed
-in small quantities.
-
-The root hairs are constructed so as to allow fluids to pass in but not
-out. The continual absorption of water results in a mechanical pressure
-which automatically forces the sap up through the stem to all parts of
-the plant. The process is aided by the evaporation of water from the
-leaves, through the partial vacuum created by them at the top of the
-system. Pushed from below and pulled from above, the sap of a tree,
-for instance, moves with a propulsive power greater than the blood
-pressure of the strongest animal.
-
-Above the roots and the stem of the developing plant are the branches.
-Their function is too well known to need much comment. They raise
-the leaves up into the air and the light. They act as conduits for
-ascending and descending sap. They give the plant strength and
-rigidity. Each main stem is a clever bit of plant engineering, so built
-as to withstand all kinds of heavy strains and stresses.
-
-The leaves of our seedling are extremely important parts of its
-anatomy. Pluck them off and it will die in a few hours. They are
-mouths, stomachs and lungs all in one. Their surfaces are broad and
-flat, in order that they may catch and devour every particle of
-carbon dioxide which comes their way. To us, carbon dioxide is a
-negligible part of the atmosphere, but out of this intangible product
-of combustion, arising from fires, breathed out by animals and expelled
-by volcanoes and hot springs, the tallest tree builds its greatest
-structure. Is it any wonder that it takes so long!
-
-In the inner tissue of each leaf is a substance called chlorophyll.
-It is the material which gives leaves their green colour. It is one
-of the most important substances in plantdom. Under the influence of
-sunlight, this chlorophyll takes the carbon dioxide of the air, and,
-with water and certain minerals, makes starch, the raw material of
-plant construction. This process, called photosynthesis, goes on while
-the sun shines, and stops with the approach of darkness. The necessity
-of plenty of light cannot be overestimated.
-
-In the manufacture of starch, oxygen occurs as a by-product. As
-the plant has no use for this element, it is breathed out from
-the surface of the leaves. From the standpoint of man, this makes
-plants atmospheric purifiers. At night, when the making of starch is
-suspended, there is often a superabundance of carbon dioxide within
-plant structures. It is this gas which is now exhaled, though in very
-small amounts. Some authorities maintain that the excess of carbon
-dioxide is contained in water absorbed by the roots. In the daytime
-this is welcomed as additional starch material, but at night there is
-no use for it.
-
-Another substance which is always present in excess of plant needs is
-water. It is essential as a tissue builder and also as a carrier of
-nourishment. Its continual evaporation from the leaf surfaces furnishes
-one of the sources of motive power for the circulatory system. The rate
-of evaporation is controlled by the stomata, little pores or mouths
-which have contractible lips. In the Lilac there are as many as one
-hundred and twenty thousand stomata to the square inch. They are nearly
-always located on the under surface of the leaves.
-
-Certain plants like the Cacti seem to be able to get along without
-leaves, but thick, fleshy sections of stem perform all their functions.
-The Fungi and other parasites differ from most plants in that they have
-no chlorophyll for starch-making but live on the already elaborated
-tissue of living or dead neighbors.
-
-When our seedling grows old enough, it marries and has a family. Among
-the higher plants, the sexes are quite distinct. There are such things
-as male plants and such things as female plants, but more often both
-sexes occur in the same individual and frequently in the same flowers.
-The Hop, Nettle, and Date Palm are one-sex plants. Maize has flowers of
-different sexes on the same stem.
-
-Flowers are the reproductive organs. In the blossom of the Bean, the
-stamens are the male organs and the pistil is the female organ. The
-stamens produce dust-like pollen which is conveyed by the wind to the
-pistil of some other flower. Pollen grains deposited on the stigma of
-the pistil are held there by a sticky secretion until they can grow
-a long tube which travels down the style, eventually reaching and
-fertilizing the tiny ovules or eggs.
-
-The ovules then develop into seeds and the pistil grows into a pod, on
-both of which the parent plant bends all its energies to give a good
-start in the world.
-
-The cycle is now complete. We have another Bean and are back to where
-we started, ready for some other fellow to plant the new Bean and
-perform the experiment all over again.
-
-This is the story in brief, but there are many other details. The
-different plants have invented and perfected all kinds of devices
-to secure the effective propagation of the race. The Hazel and the
-Grasses hang their stamens out in the wind in order that it may blow
-their pollen to some other plant, which is waiting with feathered
-pistil to catch it. Most garden plants depend on the insects to act as
-pollen carriers and display gorgeous flower-petals and nectar pits with
-which to attract them. Many plants aim to prevent self-fertilization by
-having the stamens and the pistil come to maturity at different times.
-
-The plants go to great lengths to secure an advantageous distribution
-of their offspring. The nature of a plant is to live by growing. When
-it has reached a prescribed height, it must continue the process by
-producing new individuals to carry on the cycle. It gives its children
-a start in the world by providing them with wings, bladders, feathers,
-spikes, thorns, sticky secretions, submarines, boats, and kites,
-according to the method of travel they are to use. Sometimes the
-matured pistil or fruit is dispersed entire. Sometimes it opens and
-shoots the seeds out. The Violet and Oxalis act like veritable guns, so
-vigorously do they expel their seeds. There are seed-capsules, like
-those of the Primrose and Xanthium Spinosum, which open at the top so
-that only a high and efficient wind can dislodge the seeds.
-
-The problem of food storage is an important one in plantdom. Annuals
-die when they have flowered and produced seed. Perennials wither but
-persist for a number of seasons and sometimes many years. Those whose
-stems or trunks are permanent withdraw their starch and chlorophyll
-into their cambium layer where it is safe from freezing. Those which
-die down to the ground each fall store up food material in underground
-stems and roots in sufficient amount to get a good start the following
-season. The Potato is an enlargement of the underground stem, but
-Carrots, Beets, and Turnips are bulbous roots. Hyacinths, Tulips,
-Daffodils, Snowdrops, Crocuses, and Buttercups all store food material
-in bulbs. Practically all wild flowers which come up early in the
-spring, feed upon the nutriment manufactured during the previous season.
-
-Buds represent the foliage of the coming season. Each fall, trees and
-bushes prepare for next year’s growth by putting forth miniature
-shoots and leaves folded up in warm brown overcoats. At spring’s urgent
-call, the buds have merely to cast aside their coverings and step out
-into the warm sunlight. These buds really make a tree a community of
-individuals, because each one is capable of reproducing everything that
-has occurred on the plant up to that point. This is the principle on
-which grafting is carried on.
-
-The most wonderful thing in all plant structure is the plant cell.
-There are anywhere from six thousand to twelve thousand of these living
-units to the square inch. In their restless, moving protoplasm lies
-the mystery of life--the directing energy which controls the plant’s
-activities and makes it a conscious, intelligent organism.
-
-[Illustration: IF THIS AGED CEDAR COULD TELL ITS LIFE’S STORY, WE WOULD
-FIND IT FULL OF ROMANCE AND ADVENTURE]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III
-
-Migrations of Plants
-
-  “_Race after race of leaves and men
-    Bloom, wither and are gone;
-  As winds and water rise and fall
-    So life and death roll on._”
-
-
-We are so in the habit of thinking of plants as fixed and static things
-that it rarely occurs to us that they migrate over the earth’s surface
-quite as extensively as do men or animals.
-
-While it is probably true that vegetation originated simultaneously
-at different points on the globe’s surface, not much observation is
-necessary to indicate that it does not always stay where it is put.
-Plants are peculiar and native to certain lands in a very definite
-way, but their love of adventure often carries them to the far corners
-of the earth. They are the most energetic and effective colonizers in
-existence. The complete history of plantdom would include the stories
-of invasions, conquests and revolutions quite as stirring as anything
-in human annals.
-
-If it is absorbing to follow the racial movements of man, ancient and
-modern, it is equally fascinating for a lover of plants to investigate
-_their_ migratory habits. We have exact records of many of their
-travels and can make interesting conjectures about the rest.
-
-To a layman, the present distribution of plants may seem chaotic. He
-reads that certain families are natives of Europe and Australia, or
-North America and Africa and are absent from all intervening countries.
-The Alpine species _Primulas_ and _Saxifrages_ are common to both
-the Arctic and the Antarctic. There are fifty-eight European and New
-Zealand species which are identical. The British Grass _Poa Annua_ is
-also found in the Andes of Brazil. Through what thousands of years of
-change and evolution have these things come about! Yet the results are
-no more complex than was the filling of America with its mixed and
-conglomerate human population.
-
-In a general way, there is a measure of fixity to plant distribution.
-Certain plants have elected the tropics as their home; and only under
-the greatest stress of circumstance can they be induced to go elsewhere.
-
-Tropical heat and moisture make for luxuriance of vegetation. There
-is a much greater variety there than in the North. Woody Vines climb
-the tallest trunks, where they intermingle their leaves and blossoms
-with those of their host. Gorgeous Air Plants beautify and perfume the
-forest. Stately Palms wave magnificent bouquets of pendulous fronds.
-
-As we travel away from the equator, the vegetation takes on a simpler
-aspect. There are more annuals and more herbs. The number of Ferns,
-Grasses, and catkin-bearing Trees, like the Alder and the Birch,
-increase. The limited growing seasons make for a more restricted
-accumulation of tissue. Such tropic plants as have braved the rigours
-of the colder climates have dwindled much in size. The Castor Oil Tree
-becomes a humble annual (_Ricinus Communis_) only three to eight feet
-in height. Other tropical trees become so small that temperate zone
-folk tread them under foot.
-
-When we get into the polar regions, all the plants take on a stunted
-and dwarfed appearance and, in some cases, retire almost entirely
-under ground. The number of genera and species is much reduced. The
-Oak, Walnut, Chestnut and Elm are replaced by the hardy conifers. At
-the point where vegetation becomes almost extinct are dwarf Birches,
-Willows and polar Blackberries (_Rubus Arcticus_). The simple Mosses
-and Lichens mark the last lingering evidences of life.
-
-A curious feature of plant life in the polar regions is the rapid
-growth which it often exhibits. The summer of the Far North is short
-but it is one day of intense and blinding light. The sun shines
-continually throughout each twenty-four hours. By virtue of its
-stimulating power, plants are able to perform in a few weeks processes
-of development which take months under ordinary conditions.
-
-It is illuminating to take a single country in a more favoured climate
-and, as far as possible, trace its plant history. The British Isles,
-because of their limited area, are a convenient field of study. An
-investigation of their settlement by plants gives us many hints about
-prehistoric climatic and geographical changes.
-
-Geologists generally believe that the British Isles were once joined
-to the mainland of Europe. It was at this time that they were settled
-by vegetation. Some of this plant life came from Spain and some from
-southwest France; there was also a Germanic group. The floating ice of
-the glacial period brought over hardy visitors from the Scandinavian
-peninsula. A few plant immigrants arrived from North America and landed
-on the west coast of Ireland.
-
-St. Helena is an isolated volcanic mass built up seventeen thousand
-feet from the bed of the ocean. It therefore has its own peculiar
-vegetation, a portion of which is believed to have been evolved on the
-spot from the one-celled state. According to Sir Joseph Hooker, forty
-out of fifty flowering plants and ten out of twenty-six Ferns “with
-scarcely an exception cannot be regarded as very close specific allies
-of any other plants at all.” Sixteen of the Ferns are common to Africa,
-India or America and were probably carried there by the wind. Ocean
-currents also brought other species from Africa.
-
-In 1883, a most interesting thing occurred on the Asiatic island of
-Krakatoa. A violent volcanic eruption wiped every vestige of life
-off its surface. When the flow of lava ceased and the earth cooled
-once more, Krakatoa was to all intents and purposes a volcanic island
-newly risen from the sea. It presented the exact analogy of a recently
-created bit of land waiting to be settled by the plants. In 1883, it
-was as barren as the face of the moon. In 1888, a Mr. Hemsley described
-its appearance as follows:--
-
-“The first phase of the new vegetation, was a thin film of microscopic
-fresh-water Algae, forming a green, slimy coating, such as may often
-be seen on damp rocks, and furnishing a hygroscopic condition, in the
-absence of which it is doubtful whether the Ferns by which they were
-followed could have established themselves. Both Algae and Ferns are
-reproduced from microscopic spores, which are readily conveyed long
-distances by winds. Eleven species of Ferns were found, all of very
-wide distribution, and some of them had already become common the
-fourth year after the eruption. Scattered here and there among the
-Ferns were isolated individuals of flowering plants, belonging to such
-kinds as have succulent seed-vessels eaten by birds, or such as have a
-light, feathery seed-vessel like the Dandelion and a host of others,
-and are wafted from place to place by the winds.
-
-“On the seashore there were young plants and seeds (or seed-vessels
-containing seeds) of upwards of a dozen other herbs, shrubs and trees,
-all of them common on coral islands, and all known to have seeds
-capable of bearing long immersion in sea water without injury. Among
-the established seedlings were those of several large trees, and a
-Convolvulus that grows on almost all tropical coasts, often forming
-runners one hundred yards in length. There were Cocoanuts also, though
-none had germinated.”
-
-The farther such an island is from the land, the longer will vegetation
-take to get established. Darwin found that the isolated islands of
-Keeling, after thousands of years of existence, contained only twenty
-kinds of flowering plants.
-
-Although plants have no legs they are not devoid of mobility. When man
-uses the propulsive power of steam to travel by, he shows no greater
-ingenuity than do plants in their use of special devices of locomotion.
-
-Species like the Tumble Weed (_Amarantus Albus_) pull up stakes, and,
-consigning themselves to the swift autumn winds, race across country
-at great speed, scattering seeds as they go. The Utriculariae or
-Bladderworts are true sailors and float about on inland streams like
-little ships. The Duckweeds and Wolffias also have aquatic habits.
-
-However, most plants prefer to travel in embryo. In the form of small
-and microscopic seeds the force of gravity has little influence on
-them, and they can journey for long and incredible distances.
-
-To this end practically every seed in existence is provided with
-some apparatus or appendage designed to help it make its way in the
-world. The Elm, the Linden, and the Ash bear winged seeds, which
-are so efficient in riding the breeze that they are really miniature
-aeroplanes. The double wings of the Maple are very much like those of
-an insect. The seeds are released from their container in such manner
-as to acquire a whirling motion as they fall.
-
-The progeny of the Willow is provided with long projecting hairs which
-curl together to form a tiny balloon. Feathery attachments called
-pappus enable the children of the Dandelion, the Thistle and the Fire
-Weed to go on long jaunts of exploration.
-
-The seed-pods of the Sycamore are great rollers. Even ordinary nuts and
-fruits may be blown to considerable distances by the strong winds of
-autumn. The many edible seeds and fruits are carried gratis by birds
-and animals. The Mistletoe, for instance, is distributed entirely by
-them.
-
-Walnuts, Butternuts, and Acorns bear water travel well, as do certain
-of the hard seeds. The Arrowhead (_Sagittaria_) has a self-made
-water-wing on which its offspring float.
-
-Plant seeds, which like to travel on animals, all provide themselves
-with grappling irons in the shape of sharp hooks, spurs and spines with
-which they cling to their carriers. Everybody in the northern United
-States knows of the avidity with which the Cockle-bur clings to any
-passing object. The Touch-me-not (_Impatiens_), the Wistaria, and a
-host of others, actually shoot their seeds from their pods as from a
-gun.
-
-Every vagrant breeze, every purling brook, every deep river, every
-ocean current, is a highway of travel in plantdom. The birds, the
-beasts, the insects, and not least, man himself, are involuntary
-vehicles on which our vegetable friends tour the world. The spores of
-Mosses, Lichens, Fungi and other cryptogams are so light that they
-find no difficulty in mounting into the air and traveling across the
-Atlantic or Pacific Oceans at will.
-
-The complete record of plant conquests would fill many volumes. Their
-operations have extended into every land and have had influence on the
-world’s history. It very often happens that plant invaders become so
-quickly and thoroughly naturalized in a strange country that they go
-a long way toward supplanting the original inhabitants in a very short
-time.
-
-It was Darwin who first noticed the extensive conquests of the Cardoon
-Artichoke (_Cynara Cardunculus_) in South America. In one section,
-these prickly plants covered an area of several hundred square miles,
-having entirely superceded the aborigines.
-
-It is well known that the most troublesome of the American weeds are of
-British origin. On the other hand, the American water weed _Anacharis_
-blocks up small English streams. The grass called _Stipa Tortilis_
-has captured the steppes of southern Russia. The love of change seems
-to be an inherent tendency in plantdom. The Pigweed and the Morning
-Glory have come north from the tropics. The Canada Thistle, originally
-a foreigner in North America, has spread all over Canada and New
-England. The American _Erigeron Canadense_ has emigrated to all parts
-of the world. The flora of Scandinavia, like its people, are aggressive
-colonizers. More than one hundred and fifty species have reached New
-Zealand alone and nearly as many have established themselves in the
-eastern United States.
-
-Some plants seem to be able to adapt themselves to any climate and
-therefore are born explorers, but the greater number are too fastidious
-regarding conditions of soil, heat, light and moisture to thrive well
-everywhere. It is a noticeable fact that the most successful plant
-invaders usually come in the wake of human colonizers and stick to the
-sphere of man’s influence. For example, the Butter-and-Eggs (_Linaria
-Linaria_) has followed the railroad tracks almost entirely over the
-tropical and semi-tropical world. Sometimes, however, hardy plants
-advance into the primeval jungle, there to give battle to its lusty
-inhabitants.
-
-On the whole, annuals have a better chance than perennials to gain a
-foothold in a new country. Every spring the weeds, grasses, and common
-flowering plants have to start all over again from a seed beginning.
-The spores of newcomers, therefore, have almost an equal chance
-with the established inhabitants. On the other hand, the bodies of
-perennials occupy the land in close-packed ranks all the year, ready
-to dispute every inch of ground with an aggressor. It is very hard for
-new plants to gain entrance into a well-grown forest.
-
-Man has been of tremendous aid in the distribution of plants over the
-earth’s surface. Either consciously or unconsciously he takes his
-plants with him wherever he goes.
-
-It was the Emperor Chang-Chien who carried the Bean, Cucumber, Lucerne,
-Saffron, Walnut, Pea, Spinach and Watermelon from Asia to China about
-200 B. C. The period of Roman conquest was a great epoch in the history
-of plant migrations. The Peach and the Apricot first became prominent
-as fruits at that time. Roman generals introduced the Pear, Peach,
-Cherry, Mulberry, Walnut and many ornamental shrubs into England.
-
-From an obscure native of Bengal, the Sugar Cane has become an
-important plant of wide distribution. Coffee, a wild berry of Arabia,
-is now the chief crop of whole countries in the West Indies and South
-America. The yellow Maize of America has become a citizen of the world.
-The weak and humble Wheat is the sole possessor of thousands of square
-miles of land in America, Russia and elsewhere.
-
-All this has been wrought by man’s efforts. When it is to his interest,
-he fights the battles of plantdom, and because of his superior
-knowledge and equipment is of tremendous service. Sometimes, however,
-he gives aid to his plant friends through motives that are quite
-unselfish. A romantic story is related of a French naval officer named
-Declieux who once elected to carry a Coffee Plant to the Colony of
-Martinique. The supply of water ran low during the voyage, and, rather
-than see the plant die, the man shared his daily glass with it, at
-considerate discomfort to himself.
-
-Until man becomes all-wise, he will continue to make mistakes; and
-not least of these will be in connection with his investigations into
-the mysteries of Nature. It has happened more than once that he has
-introduced some new plant into an old land, or vice versa, and lived to
-thoroughly regret his action.
-
-Sometime in 1890, a generously inclined individual threw a Water
-Hyacinth into the St. Johns River in Florida. In the space of a few
-short years, that single plant had multiplied so prodigiously as to
-seriously impede navigation, lumbering and fishing.
-
-Jack London tells of a similiar thing that happened in Hawaii: “In
-the United States, in greenhouses and old-fashioned gardens, grows a
-potted flowering shrub called Lantana; in India dwells a very noisy
-and quarrelsome bird known as the Myna. Both were introduced into
-Hawaii--the bird to feed upon the cut-worm of a certain moth; the
-flower to gladden with old associations the heart of a flower-loving
-missionary. But the land loved the Lantana. From a small flower that
-grew in a pot, the Lantana took to itself feet and walked out of the
-pot into the missionary’s garden. Here it flourished and increased
-mightily in size and constitution. From over the garden wall came the
-love call of all Hawaii, and the Lantana responded to the call, climbed
-over the wall, and went a-roving and a-loving in the wild woods.
-
-“And just as the Lantana had taken to itself feet, by the seduction of
-its seed it added to itself the wings of the Myna, which distributed
-its seed over every island in the group. From a delicate,
-hand-manicured, potted plant of the greenhouse, it shot up into a
-tough, and belligerent swashbuckler a fathom tall, that marched in
-serried ranks over the landscape, crushing beneath it and choking to
-death all the sweet native grasses, shrubs and flowers. In the lower
-forests, it became jungle, in the open, it became jungle only more so.
-It was practically impenetrable to man. The cattlemen wailed and vainly
-fought with it. It grew faster and spread faster than they could grub
-it out.”
-
-Then ensued a battle royal between man and plant. The man called to
-his aid hosts of insect mercenaries. “Some of these predacious enemies
-of the Lantana ate and sucked and sapped. Others made incubators out
-of the stems, tunnelled and undermined the flower-clusters, hatched
-maggots in the hearts of the seeds, or covered the leaves with
-suffocating fungoid growths. Thus simultaneously attacked in front and
-rear and flank, above and below, inside and out, the all-conquering
-swashbuckler recoiled. Today, the battle is almost over, and what
-remains of the Lantana is putting up a sickly and losing fight.
-Unfortunately, one of the mercenaries has mutinied. This is the
-accidently introduced Mani Blight, which is now waging unholy war upon
-garden flowers and ornamental plants, and against which some other army
-of mercenaries must be turned.”
-
-Such unfortunate occurrences are sure to become more and more
-infrequent as plant emigration and immigration finds itself under
-increasingly drastic governmental regulation.
-
-The Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction Service of the United States
-Department of Agriculture makes a scientific examination of all plants
-brought into the United States for propagation purposes. It rids them
-of objectionable Bacteria and insect pests and refuses them admittance
-entirely if its experts decide that the newcomers will be harmful or
-injurious in any way.
-
-The agents of the Service are constantly scouring the far corners of
-the earth for new and rare plants. In the twenty-four years of its
-existence it has introduced from abroad some fifty thousand specimens
-of seeds and plant cuttings. Some of the successful immigrants have
-been Feterita (from Egypt), Sudan Grass, Bamboo and Alfalfa. New
-Zealand has yielded new types of Potatoes. Dwarf Almonds and strange
-Cherries and Apricots have come from Turkestan. All these have proven
-of commercial importance, as has Durum Russian Wheat, credited with
-opening up new areas in the Northwest, and the Navel Orange from Brazil
-which has created for itself a California industry covering thirty
-thousand acres and valued at fifteen million dollars per annum.
-
-Painstaking and scientific methods are best when man attempts to aid
-Nature in her evolutionary processes, especially when they are in
-connection with the migration and distribution of plants.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV
-
-COMRADES OF THE PLANT WORLD
-
-  “... _which links by a fraternal tie
-  The meanest of His creatures with the high._”
-
-  --_Lamartine_
-
-
-The first and greatest problem for every terrestrial creature is to
-live. The chief means of doing so is to eat. Therefore, the relation of
-being to being and species to species is dominated by the necessity for
-food. Among man this fact is somewhat masked and obscured, but in the
-rest of the world it is entirely plain and obvious. Again and again on
-every hand, we see that plant, animal, and man all maintain their life
-impulses by consuming the tissue of their fellows.
-
-In view of this fundamental fact, we can afford to look with some
-degree of charity upon that class of plants which are termed parasites.
-These interesting creatures are merely carrying out in a very direct
-and apparent way a principle which permeates all domains of life. A
-Tiger kills its prey; an Ox devours unoffending Grass; the parasitic
-Dodder robs some healthy neighbour of part of its juices.
-
-The word “parasite” originally referred to a member of a college of
-priests who had their meals in common. Later, it came to mean living
-at another’s expense, as large numbers of people did in classical
-times. When one realizes that there are twenty-five hundred species
-of parasitical seed plants, he hesitates to brand them all as thieves
-and degenerates. Taking into consideration plants which depend upon
-the soil fungi for part of their sustenance, we should have to call
-half the seed plants in the world “parasites.” On a basis of strict
-accountability, it would also be necessary to classify all fruits as
-“parasites” as they draw nourishment from the parent boughs and give no
-return.
-
-The fact is there are very few plants which are not more or less
-dependent upon some living fellow creature for their food supply.
-Sometimes the relation is strictly reciprocal; sometimes the advantage
-appears to greatly favour one or the other of the participants. In
-other cases the occurrence arises accidently through chance proximity,
-without a conscious pact or deliberate contract.
-
-Edward Step in his illuminating book _Messmates_ sums up the matter
-admirably: “Two friends in good health, each able to earn his own
-living, agree for the sake of companionship to live together, but each
-defraying the cost of his own necessities and luxuries. This is a case
-of mutualism. Two other friends also agree to share quarters and have
-a common table; but one may be infirm and wealthy whilst the other is
-strong and comparatively poor. The infirm one offers to pay two-thirds
-of their common expenses if the other will contribute one third,
-plus his protection, cheerful companionship or other valuable help.
-This is a commensalism. The pair are messmates, each contributing to
-hotch-potch according to his ability or endowment, each affording what
-the other lacks, and both, therefore, benefitting from the partnership.”
-
-It must be admitted that there are cases of plant companionship in
-which, to all human perception, the material benefits seem directly
-one-sided, but who can conclusively deny that the nourishment-giving
-partner may not receive some psychic or spiritual benefit from the
-union? The Orchids and many other tree-parasites bear flowers of
-exquisite beauty. Can we be quite sure that the trees do not like to
-adorn themselves with gorgeous ornaments of this kind? Such a desire
-would be quite natural.
-
-Plants which are low and weak in the scale of evolution are very
-prone to enter into symbiotic relations. The Lichens are compound
-organisms in which green Algal cells live between fungous threads.
-The Fungus sucks up the water and mineral salts from the soil and the
-Alga combines them with carbon dioxide from the air to form palatable
-food for both. Such plant-partners have been observed to live together
-amiably for twenty-five years or more.
-
-The Fungi and all plants which are “pale, fleshy, as if the decaying
-dead with a spirit of life had been animated” have no chlorophyll, the
-mysterious green substance which is necessary for the production of
-starch. They must either make alliances with plants which possess this
-vital elixir or live on decaying matter which contains elaborated
-food material. Many choose the latter course, but a goodly number,
-especially those of primitive structure, have entered into profitable
-partnerships.
-
-The minute one-celled plants called Zoochlorella or Zooxanthella
-have chosen the fresh water sponge _Ephydatia Fluviatilis_ for their
-messmates. Sometimes they live with the Hydra called _Viridis_ and
-impart to it a bright green colour.
-
-There are whole regiments of microscopic parasites which thrive on
-living plant tissue and cause spots and rust to appear on Apples,
-Peaches, Pears and other fruits and number among their cohorts
-Rose-blight, Wheat-rust, and various Mildews. The larger messmate does
-not receive very much benefit from the relation, in this instance,
-except when the minute guests serve to cover a cut or an abrasion with
-a protective mantle, just as Mildew shields cheese or jelly from decay.
-
-Cases where Fungi render very valuable services to larger plants are
-exemplified by the Monotropa or Indian Pipe. This pallid scavenger
-grows on the decaying vegetable matter of the woods. It toils not,
-neither does it make plant starch, but it is able to produce pretty,
-ghostly flowers and white scale-like leaves. On its roots thrive
-species of Fungi which perform the part of root hairs and in return
-receive nourishment from their host. Certain authorities claim that the
-Fungi get the better of the bargain, as the Monotropa has been known to
-maintain its health without them in laboratories. But the fact is the
-relation _does_ exist with undisputed benefit to both parties.
-
-Beech Drops germinate in contact with roots of the Beech tree, attach
-themselves there and raise yellow, seared stems covered with scales
-instead of leaves but bearing perfect flowers. The Broom-Rapes get
-their nourishment from the roots of Tobacco and Hemp in the same way.
-
-Prominent among the larger parasitic plants is the Dodder or Devil’s
-Thread. This vine derives all its sustenance from other plants and,
-as far as can be determined, gives no material return. From this
-standpoint, the Dodder is a robber pure and simple, a degenerate
-outcast from the community of decent plants. From the viewpoint of
-this chapter, it is possible to believe that the host of the Dodder
-derives some spiritual or hidden material benefit from the union which
-makes it distinctly worth while. If such were not the case, it would
-seem that, through ages of evolutionary development, such plants as
-Flax would have devised means to escape the Dodder’s clutches.
-
-The Dodder inhabits low ground and pokes an inquiring head above the
-surface each spring much like any self-sustaining plant. However, it is
-not long before it attaches itself to some lusty neighbour by root-like
-suckers, which pierce the stem and extract the nourishing juices. If
-the supply seems adequate, the Dodder winds its yellow, yarn-like
-tendrils about the host and allows the roots which connect it to the
-earth to wither. Its absorbing tubercles look like caterpillar feet;
-their cells form a perfect graft with the host and gradually disperse
-through its body. If other plants are near enough, the Devil’s Thread
-will reach out and tap their food supplies also. A single Dodder
-has been known to draw nourishment from five or six other plants of
-different families at the same time, thus indicating that it must have
-digestive machinery enough to appropriate these varying saps to its own
-uses. The Dodder has no chlorophyll and therefore no leaves but bears
-pretty little bell-like flowers which later produce seed.
-
-In the tropical jungles are many parasites of brilliant aspect, which,
-having no leaves or root hairs, germinate directly on supporting plants
-and apply suckers to the tissues of their hosts. When seen from the
-ground, their short stems make them seem all flower, and often very
-handsome ones. The _Rafflesia Arnoldi_ of Sumatra is a notable example.
-
-Man cannot help condemning such plant practices. Yet all Nature is a
-struggle for existence. Does it not require some courage and hardihood
-to come out and do in a bold and open way what the rest of the universe
-is doing by indirect or underhand methods?
-
-The beautiful Orchids belong to a botanic group of Epiphytes which
-may be classified as guests or lodgers. Being green, they are able to
-gather their own living from dust, rain and carbon dioxide in the air.
-All they ask from their tree-hosts is a branch on which to perch.
-There are probably few trees which are not delighted to have such
-delicate, fairy-like creatures add to their own beauty and charm. They
-wear them much as a woman wears a rose in her hair.
-
-In America there are well-mannered parasites such as the decorative
-Spanish Moss so common throughout the South. This plant is normal in
-all respects; except that, perched on a kindly tree, it draws all its
-nourishment from the air instead of through soil-piercing roots.
-
-The Mistletoe is a perfect example of a mutualist. Early in its aerial
-life, it sends a root through the bark of its tree companion and during
-the spring and summer, absorbs much food. When winter days come, and
-the tree has lost its leaves, the grateful messmate reverses the
-process and sends into the heart of its friend the larger part of the
-nourishment which it has been able to store up during the prosperous
-weeks of summer. The seeds of the Mistletoe are interesting because
-they are covered with a sticky fluid which enables them to travel from
-tree to tree on the feet of birds.
-
-That some plants are parasites from necessity or laziness rather than
-choice is indicated by a Brazilian variety of the Cuckoo-Pint which
-sits far up on some tree branch and, like an immense spider, sends down
-to the earth long delicate tubes through which it sometimes sucks food
-and water.
-
-One of the most interesting facts in plantdom is the alliance
-maintained by Clovers, Beans, Vetches and other leguminous plants, with
-Bacteria belonging to the class _Pseudomonas_. No soil can be fertile
-unless it contains organic compounds of nitrogen. The earth Bacteria
-have discovered methods of producing these important substances,
-possibly extracting nitrogen distributed through the ground. These
-minute parasites attach themselves to the roots of the larger plants,
-which promptly enclose them in cysts or nodules where they can lead a
-sheltered life and manufacture assimilable food compounds for their
-hosts. When they die, the owners of the roots feed upon their bodies.
-
-What is the art of grafting but a form of artificial parasitism? Very
-often a branch or cutting is made to form a bodily union with some
-plant of an entirely dissimilar species. In some cases, the intruder
-sends roots into the tissue of its host like a true dependent. Grafts
-of Prickly Pears, Mexican Grapevines and Agaves put forth food-suckers
-in the soft flesh of the Giant Cactus or the Barrel Cactus much as they
-would do if planted in the earth. There is here no true diffusive union
-of partners but mere absorption on the part of the invader.
-
-Even grafting of allied species of Grapes sometimes results in the
-young plants sending roots through the tissues of the scion, eventually
-reaching the earth by way of the body of the host. In such cases, the
-parasite also draws nutriment from its messmate by means of a superior
-osmotic pressure.
-
-Almost everything lies in the point of view. No man, no animal, no
-plant is so debased and degraded that it does not radiate some little
-measure of helpfulness. If “all things work together for good,” even
-that member of a plant union which seems to act upon that inverted
-principle of “all coming in and nothing going out” has its legitimate
-place in the world. As for those numerous examples of share-alike
-partnerships, they illustrate the principle of the divine law of love
-which lies back of and above the very real hardships and cruelties of
-this work-a-day world.
-
-[Illustration: FRIENDLY ALLIES BY THE WATER’S EDGE]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V
-
-ALLIES OF THE PLANT WORLD
-
-  “_I wish I were a willow tree--
-  Young wind in the green hair of me
-  And old brown water round my feet,
-  And a familiar bird to greet._”
-
-  --_Elizabeth Fahnestock._
-
-
-Every division of terrestrial life constitutes a struggle. The plants
-grow and carry on their business and social activities so unobtrusively
-that we seldom think of them as appealing to arms--yet their whole
-existence is a battle royal. They must fight with aspiring neighbours
-for every inch of their upward growth, and at the same time wage
-incessant warfare against a hundred insects and animal foes.
-
-Under such strenuous conditions, it is only to be expected that the
-plants should seek profitable alliances with birds, insects and animals
-having interests similiar to their own. Such pacts are described by
-botanists as examples of symbiosis; they most frequently occur between
-plants and insects, but the plants also have their working agreements
-with members of the other two great kingdoms of life. In fact, all
-Nature is a vast system of checks and balances, with every creature
-preying more or less upon every other creature, except when they can
-gain more by joining their efforts. Certain Humming-Birds lie in wait
-near plants which by their nectar-sweets attract swarms of insects, and
-hard by, Snakes lie in wait for the Birds. The Birds rid the plants
-of destroying pests; the part of the Snakes in a beneficent scheme of
-existence is not so apparent, but merely because we cannot see good in
-a thing is no argument that it does not exist.
-
-Many of the most important alliances of plants are made in response
-to the law that “Nature abhors perpetual self-fertilization”. This
-principle is one of the greatest in plantdom; there is a constant
-necessity for the intercrossing of independent life-streams. The plants
-go to great lengths to see that the multiplication and evolution of the
-species is properly carried on.
-
-We always associate Bees and flowers, yet it is probable, that, as a
-whole, the plants, especially in the tropics, depend more upon Ants
-than upon any other insects. Many vegetable folk deliberately employ
-them to keep their leaves and stalks free of obnoxious visitors. The
-Cow-Horn Orchid, like most plants which perch on trunks and branches,
-produces pseudo-bulbs into which its vitality can recede in dry
-seasons. There is always a small opening at the bottom of each of these
-little tubes, through which Ants enter. They honeycomb the interior
-with cells and galleries where they can be perfectly dry in the wettest
-weather. On the approach of Caterpillars, Cockroaches and other Orchid
-enemies, the residents issue in great swarms to protect their combined
-host and home.
-
-The species _Coryanthes_, instead of pseudo-bulbs, grows great masses
-of fibrous aerial roots among which the Ants dwell. They are ever ready
-to repel invasions of Cockroaches and other crawlers who seek to eat
-the tender growing root-tips.
-
-An Epiphyte which is particularly solicitous for the welfare of its
-insect allies is the Ant-nest Plant, _Rubiaceae Myrme_. This ingenious
-creature not only builds nests but builds them made-to-order. Certain
-enlargements on its stem are hollowed out into chambers with connecting
-galleries quite ready for their intended tenants. All the Ants have to
-do is to move in. The kind that usually enter the plant’s service are
-fierce warriors, _Iridiomyrmex Myrmecodiae_, with very powerful stings.
-They form a formidable bodyguard.
-
-Sometimes the Ant warriors of such compacts are quite satisfied to
-accept the free rental of their snug quarters as sufficient pay and
-seek their food elsewhere. More frequently, the alliance includes
-“board and lodging” with the plant issuing wages in the form of nectar,
-sweet pulp and other food.
-
-The Cherry and Vetch are among plants which secrete a candy-like
-substance on their stalks which serves as an allurement for Ants to
-climb and establish their homes there. In many cases, these excretions
-are also barriers which prevent the Ants from hunting among the
-plant’s blossoms for honey, as they would thus destroy the precious
-grains of pollen.
-
-The South American Imba-uba Tree, Cecropia, has a hollow trunk in which
-Bees and Ants dwell together amicably. The Polygonums Tree of the same
-continent has so many Ant allies that it is often entirely hollowed
-out by them. The process often operates so far that men break off the
-smaller twigs and use them as ready-made pipe stems. The Melastroma
-Plant of South America provides pouches on each leaf-stalk for the
-benefit of its black guardian Ants. The Tococas and Mermidones also
-have Ant-sacs.
-
-In China it is a common practice of the Orange-growers to encourage
-the visitation of non-vegetarian Ants by placing selected species on
-trees and connecting the trees by bamboo poles over which the faithful
-insects can rush their forces to particularly threatened points.
-
-Everyone knows of the large part the industrious Bee plays in the
-economy of the plant world. Few plants, there are, which are not aided
-in their love-making by this tiny brown buzzer; some flowers depend
-upon him entirely in their efforts to propagate the species.
-
-The Bees and their relatives are particularly welcome to the flowers
-because they do the work of fertilization so well. Wingless insects
-are undesirable because they offer little guarantee that they will
-successfully carry pollen to some other flower of the same species.
-Even if it is not brushed off in the course of their laborious travels,
-they are not at all particular what kind of flowers they visit and so
-offer small hope of carrying pollen to its correct destination. Flying
-insects of the Bee family seem to have the work of cross-fertilization
-directly assigned to them. On each of their separate, pollen-gathering
-journeys, they are partial to one particular kind of flower. As they
-flit from blossom to blossom of the same species, going in and out of
-flower and flower, rubbing against a group of stamens here and brushing
-against a pistil there, they fertilize plant after plant in grateful
-acknowledgment of the store of sweets they are collecting.
-
-Many and ingenious are the methods which flowers adopt to make sure
-that only invited and useful guests come to their nectar-feasts. The
-very Ants which guard the lower portions of a plant so well, might
-become mere greedy plunderers, if allowed to crawl within the flowers.
-It is not often that they do. Sometimes, the stalks and even the petals
-of flowers like the Rock-Lichens and the Butter-Wort are coated with
-some plant chemical exceedingly disagreeable for an insect to crawl
-over. Various alkaloids, resins and oils in the cell juices also make
-the flower and its leaves obnoxious to grazing animals. Many plants,
-like the Mullein and Stinging-Nettle, use bristles and prickles to
-repel Slugs and Caterpillars.
-
-A common protective device is for a flower to place its nectar at the
-bottom of a long, narrow tube only accessible to a flying insect having
-a proboscis. In the _Antirrhinum_ the entrance to the flower is closed
-to small crawlers by a very heavy corolla. Bees, because of their size
-and strength, can force their way through. It is said that as soon as
-the stigma of this flower has been fertilized, the corolla relaxes and
-Ants and their kind are free to enter and partake of such dainties as
-are left.
-
-Nettles, Passion-flowers, and Lilies frequently line their interiors
-with stiff, in-pointing hairs which oppose a most effective palisade
-against anything that crawls, whereas a flyer provided with a proboscis
-can stand on the edge and, inserting his straw, drink up the best soda
-water in plantdom. This existence of proboscides in insects which help
-to cross-fertilize flowers is the very finest example we have of true
-mutualism. Here is a case where members of two supposedly different
-worlds of life have developed highly specialized organs in order that
-they might help each other.
-
-It is said that Charles Darwin, after noting the extraordinary length
-of the spur of the Orchid _Angraecum Sesquipedale_ of Madagascar
-predicted that some day there would be found in that country a moth
-with a proboscis ten to eleven inches long. Not many years after, Dr.
-Fritz Müller verified the sagacity of the famous scientist by finding
-an insect exactly answering this description.
-
-The Birth-Wort (_Aristolochia Clematitis_) takes no chances with
-its insect visitors. In entering it, a Bee brushes easily by the
-down-pointing hairs only to find that, when he attempts to go out
-again, the bristles present stiff, unyielding obstacles against his
-egress. In his excitement at this discovery, he buzzes around quite
-angrily and, without noticing it, thoroughly showers the stigma with
-pollen and incidentally covers his own body with a good supply to be
-carried on to the next stop. When this process is quite complete, the
-flower graciously relents, relaxes its hairs and allows the exasperated
-insect to escape.
-
-The _Pedicularis_ family uses similiar coercive methods, and by sharp
-teeth, forces insect-visitors to take a course through the flowers
-which brings them in contact with both stamens and pistils.
-
-The purple Loosestrife, pretty dweller by banks and meadows, sets a
-rich table and so always has plenty of insect visitors. It produces six
-different kinds of yellow and green pollen, and is therefore sure to
-suit every taste. Incidentally it has two different sets of stamens and
-stigmas of three different lengths.
-
-Night-blooming flowers only entertain after the sun goes down. All day
-long they look withered and dead, but with the coming of the stars,
-they open up to show conspicuous white or light-tinted interiors. A
-flower like the Silene also exhales a rich, sensuous odor, which, with
-its light colour, serves to attract such insects as are abroad at night.
-
-Sycamore and Lime trees have humble allies in the tiny mites which live
-in the retreats built of hairs to be found at the places where the
-veins of the leaves fork. During the day they hide away from sight, but
-at night they come out and scour the leaves clean of noxious bacteria
-and fungus spores.
-
-Pollen of different plants, when examined under the microscope, reveals
-wonderful facts about the reciprocal relations which exist between
-plants and insects. Wind-fertilized plants are nearly always without
-any special beauty of form, colour or scent, while plants which are
-fertilized by insects are most always conspicuous, brightly coloured
-and highly scented. In the same way, pollen of the Hazel, Birch,
-and Balsam Poplar, which is carried by the wind, is small, light,
-practically spherical and devoid of protuberances. Pollen of the
-Primrose, Cowslip and Polyanthus, often carried by insects, is deeply
-furrowed, covered with spines and knobs, strung together by sticky
-threads and, in other ways, provided with apparatus which enables it to
-adhere to any object which it touches.
-
-The pollen of the Hollyhock and the Dandelion consists of large,
-beautiful, spherical grains covered with spikes. The Rhododendrons,
-Azalias, and Fuchsias produce great masses of grains bound together by
-viscid threads. Many of these bits of life-principle are geometric
-masterpieces. A pollen grain of the _Cobaea Scandens_ is one of the
-most fascinating objects of the microscopic world. It is perfectly
-spherical and cut into small hexagonal facets like the eyes of a fly.
-Grains of pollen of all kinds vary between one two-thousandth and one
-two-hundredth of an inch in diameter.
-
-Alliances between plants and birds are more important than we imagine.
-The tropical Humming-birds and the eastern Sun-birds are in habits
-exactly like the pollen-carrying insects. To watch one of these
-brilliantly coloured creatures hovering over a flower or flying
-directly into a blossom after nectar, is to almost always mistake it
-for a Butterfly.
-
-Many birds are invaluable allies of the plant world. They devour
-thousands of leaf-eating insects per day and so keep down the army of
-enemies which would otherwise destroy whole forests. Birds like the
-Woodpeckers rid tree bark of wood-boring crawlers.
-
-In the human world every partner does not always live up to his
-agreements. And there are evidences that both plants and their allies
-sometimes engage in questionable practices, bordering on deception and
-chicanery.
-
-The insects are often enough the offenders, and their crime is most
-frequently one of robbery. If they can get the sweets they are
-after without carrying out their share of the bargain, they will do
-so. Bumble Bees have been observed to cut through the flower-walls
-of a Nasturtium and so extract its nectar without coming near the
-pollen-producing stamens. Sweet Peas frequently ignore the insects and
-fertilize themselves. The Hawkweed (_Hieracium_) has so little faith
-in insect allies that it produces seeds parthenogenetically, that is,
-without the union of sex elements.
-
-Alliances which start out advantageously for both parties sometimes
-degenerate into mere sinecures for one or the other. The naturalists
-Ihering, Ule and Fiebrig, working in South America, a few years ago
-concluded that the association of the plant Cecropia and the Aztecan
-Ants, long regarded as a classic example of mutualism, is by far of
-greater benefit to the Ants. The openings which the Ants make into
-the hollow interiors of this plant also allow the entrance of certain
-destructive insects, and the Ants themselves attract Woodpeckers
-which damage the plants. It is also alleged that these same Ants,
-and the ones which inhabit the _Humboldtia Laurifolia_, are often so
-busy feasting on nectar that they do not stop to repel invasions of
-foliage-destroying insects.
-
-While man is the greatest enemy of the plant world, he is also at times
-its greatest friend. When it is to his advantage or when he is prompted
-by a sincere love of Nature, he becomes a strong and helpful ally. He
-aids his fellow creatures of the vegetable world when they are sick or
-injured and, by improving their environment and protecting them from
-attack and danger, enables them to develop to best advantage. A wizard
-like Luther Burbank helps them in their efforts at race improvement and
-development.
-
-In Egypt and Arabia, man has acted as carrier of pollen for centuries,
-and has thus insured an abundant Date crop. The same thing is often
-done in other parts of the world with Apples, Pistachios, Melons,
-Cucumbers and other plants having unisexual flowers.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI
-
-MARRIAGE CUSTOMS OF PLANTS
-
-            “_Pale primroses
-  That die unmarried._”--_Shakespeare_
-
-
-“Love consumes the plants” once wrote Linnaeus, and the observation of
-every student of Nature goes to confirm his statement. The plants marry
-and are given in marriage. Reproduction is undoubtedly their chief end
-in life.
-
-The simplest and most primitive plants have no sex but produce new
-individuals by splitting their single cells in two. It is in the
-thread-like bodies of Pond Weeds that we find the first beginnings of
-the principle of generation by union. These lowly creatures consist of
-single cells strung end to end like beads in a necklace. When two of
-the living chains happen to find themselves parallel to each other,
-certain of the cells reach out and join those opposite them to form new
-cells. Such a mixture of life forces is always beneficial to the race.
-
-In the higher plants the same process is carried out in a little more
-elaborate way. Of the two cells which unite, one is small and active,
-and is called the male or pollen cell. The other is larger, richer and
-more passive, and is the ovule or female cell.
-
-It is one of the main objects of each plant’s life to see that its
-ovules are fertilized by pollen grains from some other member of
-the same species. When this is impossible, flowers are reduced to
-fertilizing themselves, but if this continues very long, degeneracy is
-very apt to result. It is not wise to marry one’s first cousin.
-
-Many plants depend upon the wind to distribute their pollen. Such
-species bear slight, inconspicuous flowers which not infrequently
-cluster together in long, pendent catkins. This was undoubtedly the
-first and original form of plant marriage. Though often successful, it
-is very wasteful and undependable. “The wind bloweth where it listeth”
-and loses a million grains of pollen for every one it lodges.
-
-One hazy day in the long ago, some plant had a brilliant idea. “There
-are a number of insects which are in the habit of paying me unwelcome
-visits for the purpose of eating pollen. Why can’t I make use of these
-thieves and turn their marauding habits to my own advantage?”
-
-No sooner said than done, though it doubtless took many centuries
-to get the plan in thorough working order. It was a new departure
-in the plant world and led to various revolutionary changes. In all
-probability, there were no bright-hued flowers before the advent
-of pollen-eating insects. In the beginning, at least, flowers were
-developed as the signs by which plants advertised their wares. “We will
-make ourselves luringly attractive,” reasoned the plants. “We will add
-to our bright-coloured petals the sweet delights of nectar and honey.
-While the insect is eating at our table, we will shower his back with
-pollen and, going forth to some floral neighbour, he will unwittingly
-become the marriage priest of our race.”
-
-This was the idea, and in many diverse and wonderful ways the plants
-have carried it out. The first flowers were developed by training
-certain stamens to flatten and expand themselves, daub their surfaces
-with colour, and so become petals. This evolutionary fact can be
-seen today in the white Water Lily, where concentric rows of stamens
-gradually merge into petals. Double Roses and Poppies are examples of
-the same thing.
-
-The formation of flowers was only the first step. It is not enough to
-get the insect to come to the plant. Once he is there, means must be
-found to make sure that he performs the marriage duties assigned to
-him. Each flower takes care of this problem in a different way.
-
-At ordinary times, the Gorse is a closed flower, provided, however,
-with a little step or platform on which a Bee can alight. As soon as
-an industrious honey-seeker has settled down on this little floral
-porch, his pressure causes the entire corolla of the flower to spring
-violently open and shower him with pollen. A Gorse flower which has
-thus unburdened itself at once hangs down dejectedly and is no longer
-the object of insect regard. The Lupine and the English Bird’s-Foot
-Trefoil entertain their tiny visitors in a similiar way.
-
-There are two different arrangements of sexual organs in the Primrose.
-One variety is provided with long stamens and a short pistil. The
-other has the reverse combination of short stamens and a long pistil.
-In both cases, the nectar is in a pit at the bottom of the flower. As
-long as an insect visits short-stamened flowers, he collects pollen on
-the upper part of his proboscis. Happening to enter a short-pistiled
-flower, this portion of his drinking tube is now opposite the
-female organ and fertilizes it. In the same way, the insect’s feet
-gather pollen from the long-stamened flowers and deposit it in the
-long-pistiled variety. By such involved methods does this particular
-flower make sure of fertilization.
-
-Sage flowers have only two stamens but they do the work of forty. Using
-their power of movement, they bend forward and deliberately embrace a
-bee as soon as he enters their chamber. They do not release him until
-he is covered with their yellow pollen.
-
-The English Figwort has adopted repulsive methods of entertainment.
-It has contrived to make itself look like and give forth the odour of
-decaying meat, because it knows that it will thereby attract certain
-Wasps. The South African Stapelia does the same thing with the idea of
-alluring Carrion Flies. Still another imitator of similiar kind is the
-pale-green Carrion Flower whose visitor is the Blow Fly.
-
-When in repose, the stamens of the pink-white Mountain Laurel (_Kalmia
-Latifolia_) curve so that their anthers or pollen-bags fit into
-corresponding pits or depressions in the petals. When a Bumble Bee
-happens along and blunders among these delicate organs, the stamens
-spring up and shower his back with pollen.
-
-Everyone is familiar with the purple barber pole of the Cuckoo Pint
-which stands up straight out of a pulpit-shaped leaf. This barber pole
-is the upper end of a fertilizing device of marvelous efficiency.
-
-Down in the shelter of the cup-shaped leaf, the pole is covered with
-primitive male flowers, without petals or without sepals, in fact,
-nothing more than simple stamens. Below them are rudimentary female
-flowers consisting of unadorned pistils. Certain Midges and Flies are
-attracted into the leaf cavity of the plant by the store of sweets at
-its bottom. Traveling down the pole, these would-be feasters readily
-pass the guardian hairs just above the stamens, pass the stamens
-themselves and unintentionally fertilize the pistils with pollen they
-have picked up on other marauding expeditions. Having partaken of
-honey, the Flies seek to escape, but now find the way barred by the
-down-pointing hairs which have bristled up in a militant manner. The
-insects must stay until the plant decides to release them, which is
-never until the stamens have ripened and showered them with a fresh
-supply of pollen.
-
-The Orchids are among the most beautiful and extraordinary flowers
-in the world. Their noteworthy development has come about through
-their efforts to secure abundant and efficient insect fertilization.
-So certain are their methods that they ordinarily do not require the
-services of more than one stamen.
-
-In one variety, the English Spotted Orchid, the pollen is enclosed in
-two sacks or bags provided with long stems. These sacs are lodged in
-special cavities near the pistil in such a manner that the sticky ends
-of the stems come in contact with the head of a nectar-sucking Bee.
-They adhere firmly. When he departs he has two bulbous ornaments for a
-crest. At first they stand erect, but as he flies, the air dries them
-and they incline forward on curved stems. When he is ready for his
-next cup of honey, they are hanging down in front of his eyes like a
-new kind of pawnbroker’s sign. It is no mere happenstance that in this
-new position the pollen sacs are deposited on the stigma of the second
-flower’s pistil. By such ingenious marriage customs, the Orchids have
-become a dominant family in plantdom. They are in the ascendency even
-in the tropics, where their frail bodies have to compete with hosts of
-plants which are physically much more vigorous.
-
-Between the Yucca and the Yucca Moth exists a wonderful life-long
-partnership for the purpose of furthering the reproductive processes of
-both. Surely, Nature moves in mysterious ways.
-
-Insects are the chief marriage priests of the plant world, but in the
-tropics they are aided and abetted by Humming-Birds, Sun-Birds and
-Lories, which are all provided with long, tubular tongues.
-
-Most insects act as if they were unaware of the important place they
-occupy in plant hymeneals. So intent are they on their honey-gathering
-that they become covered from head to foot with pollen without
-appearing to notice it. Yet in a few instances, the Bees not only
-recognize that they have been pressed into the plant’s messenger
-service, but by underhand methods seek the rewards of labour without
-giving adequate return. They have learned how to cut a hole in the
-calyx tube of the Bean and the Scarlet Runner, and get at the precious
-honey by short cut. If all Bees and other fertilizing insects should
-master this trick, the flowers would have to wear defensive armour or
-perish.
-
-Pollen to be effective must remain dry. The plants have perfected many
-devices to shield it from moisture. Frequently, the flowers hang so
-that their petals act as tiny umbrellas for it. Others wear rainy day
-hoods, and practically all close when the night mists are abroad.
-
-The necessity for dry pollen obtains even among the water plants. If
-they are surface-floaters like the Pond Lily or the Victoria Regia, it
-is easy enough for them to thrust their blossoms up into the air, where
-they may be as dry as though they were on land. The sub-aqueous plants
-have a harder problem and are sometimes driven to developing their
-flowers in leaf air-chambers below the surface. The Water Chestnut
-(_Trapa Natans_) makes itself buoyant at its flowering period with
-generated air and rises en masse to the surface. After fertilization,
-it sinks again to its sub-aqueous quiet.
-
-Self-fertilization in its strictest sense occurs within the
-individual flower. Plants only resort to it as an extreme measure
-and commonly make use of many devices to prevent it. In the Iris,
-the petal-like stamens are in direct contact with the pistil and yet
-self-fertilization does not result, because the pollen surface is
-always carefully turned away from the ovary.
-
-By bringing their pistils and stamens to maturity at different times,
-many flowers make sure that they will not fertilize themselves. Such is
-the case in the Bulbous Buttercup and the Arrowhead.
-
-Flowers of the same tree or bush might be called distant cousins. Their
-union results in healthy offspring, though the marriage of still more
-divergent individuals is preferable. Plants like the Begonia, which
-bear single-sex flowers, often grow in somewhat isolated positions and
-so must intermarry a great deal among themselves. Staminate flowers at
-the top of a stalk can shower pollen over many female flowers growing
-below them.
-
-The exception always proves the rule, which explains why we find a
-few flowers which deliberately choose to fertilize themselves. In
-the Fuchsia, the flower droops, throwing the long pistil below the
-stamens, which can readily drop pollen onto it. Minute hooks hold
-the petals of the Indigo and Lucerne partly closed until the flower
-is completely developed. When they give way, the petals fly back, so
-shaking the whole flower that the anthers shower pollen on the pistil.
-The single-sex flowers of the Aloe bend near each other at mating time.
-
-The Violets and Polygalas are also largely self-fertilizing. They are,
-therefore, borne under the leaves or close to the ground, where they
-attract little attention.
-
-The love and marriages in plantdom may seem to be largely instinctive
-and mechanical, but that is probably because we have not investigated
-them sufficiently. The Persian poet Osmai believed that the plants had
-affairs of the heart as real as those recorded in the human world. Here
-is his account of one:--
-
-“I was possessor of a garden in which was a Palm Tree, which had every
-year produced abundance of fruit; but two seasons having passed away
-without its affording any, I sent for a person well acquainted with the
-culture of Palm Trees, to discover for me the cause of the failure.
-
-“‘An unhappy attachment,’ observed the man, after a moment’s
-inspection, ‘is the sole cause why this Palm Tree produces no fruit.’
-
-“He then climbed up the trunk, and looking around, discovered another
-Palm at no great distance, which he recognized as the object of my
-unhappy tree’s affection; and he advised me to procure some of the
-powder from its blossoms and to scatter it over the branches. This I
-did; and the consequence was my Date Palm, whom unrequited love had
-kept barren, bore me an abundant harvest.”
-
-[Illustration: FLORAL OFFERINGS IN A MOUNTAIN CATHEDRAL]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII
-
-ART IN THE PLANT WORLD
-
-  “_As if the rainbows of the fresh mild spring
-  Had blossomed where they fell._”
-
-
-The plants are perfect artists. From the budding of the Rose to the
-sudden shooting forth of the seeds of the Wistaria, everything they do
-is in perfect taste. Ugly flowers are decidedly uncommon. Those which
-human judgment declares to be less lovely than their fellows have their
-attractive points, if we take the trouble to look for them. If art is a
-desire for beauty, a searching after perfect harmony, then the plants
-and flowers are the most artistic creatures in the universe.
-
-Plant colours are particularly interesting. The flowers are
-master-craftsmen when it comes to the adornment of dainty, delicate
-petals with pigments which are the distilled essence of a thousand
-rainbows. No other quality in the natural world gives man a deeper
-emotional enjoyment. Floral colours speak a whole language of their
-own of which we can get only faint interpretations.
-
-Cold biologists explain that the beautiful hues and shades of plantdom
-are largely designed to attract insects and so secure a necessary
-distribution of pollen. There is no doubt that this is true, but for
-one to believe that this is the sole function of a flower’s beauty is
-to reduce the world to a materialistic basis and banish all thoughts of
-the esthetic, the spiritual and the ideal. The flowers are permitted to
-adorn themselves in bright raiment at least partly in order to satisfy
-the universal craving for the delicate and the artistic.
-
-It should not be imagined that the gayest and most brilliantly coloured
-members of the plant world are always residents of the tropics. The
-hot countries undoubtedly produce many specimens of startling hue and
-pattern, but it is often their ostentation and exotic character, rather
-than their beauty or charm, which attract attention. They are apt to be
-a bit barbaric and not as numerous as they are reputed to be. For great
-masses of beautiful flowers, we do not go to Mid-Africa or Cuba, but
-to the mountain-bound meadows of the Alps, the plains of Australia,
-or the prairies of America. What is more startlingly beautiful than
-a field of Yellow Buttercups or Black-eyed Susans which can be seen
-anywhere in the eastern United States? Where can our eyes feast upon a
-more wonderful scene than a field of Wild Verbenas and Delphiniums as
-found in Texas? In the tropics the flower masses are more scattered.
-Even the far-famed Orchids are only abundant in occasional favoured
-spots.
-
-The gardens of our large country estates offer floral displays which
-cannot be rivaled anywhere. Our temperate zone Roses, Peonies,
-Hollyhocks, Wistaria, Lilacs, Lilies, Tulips, Hyacinths, Gentians,
-Asters, Anemonies and Poppies are the most delicate colour creations
-in existence. For brilliance and alluring charm nothing surpasses the
-Mountain Laurel and Rhododendrons of the East, or the Trumpet Vine
-and Yellow Jessamine of the South. The gorgeous Azalias, Camellias,
-Pelargoniums, Calceolarias and Cinerarias also belong to the regions
-which have cold periods in their annual weather schemes. Even the
-humble Gorse is clothed in gold, while the prickly and much-despised
-Cactus bears little crimson-coloured bells.
-
-It is quite evident that man got his original idea of colour from
-Nature, particularly the plant world. Why is it that we are inclined
-to wear green in spring, brown in autumn, and all manner of colours in
-summer? Simply because, consciously or unconsciously, we are imitating
-Nature. We take pigments and dyes and get a pale similitude of an
-exquisite flower. If it happens to be a Rose, we name the colour after
-it. Sometimes we name tints after the sky or an animal or a bird, but
-in these cases, we might just as well have gone to the flowers for our
-nomenclature.
-
-Every tint and hue which we can ever hope to reproduce is present in
-the plant world. The flowers by no means monopolize them. On close
-examination, a single stalk and leaf exhibit a wonderful variety of
-colour. In the Begonia and the Sea Holly, the stalks are exactly the
-same colours as the flowers. The wild Cranesbill sports a crimson
-stem. The stalks of Poplar leaves are a vivid yellow. To speak of
-“green leaves” is to speak in the most general of terms. What is
-more exquisite than the silver gray to be seen on the backs of many
-tree-leaves, notably the Alders, Willows, and Poplars? Many leaves join
-the Wild Lettuce in having purple backs. The reverse sides of Magnolias
-and Rhododendrons are red-brown. In the autumn, nearly all leaves show
-brilliant patches of colour.
-
-In borrowing Nature’s colours to set forth our ideas, we have become
-possessors of a mighty vehicle of expression. With yellow, we can speak
-of life, light, cheer and vitality. Red tells of fire, heat, blood,
-excitement and passion. Blue indicates coolness, quiet and restraint.
-In choosing green for its most universal colour, Nature harmonizes life
-and restraint, warmth and coolness, as represented by the component
-blue and yellow. In the same way, when she wants to concentrate the
-maximum colour power in a single fruit or flower, she uses orange,
-a combination of light and heat, vitality and excitement. Purple
-represents a neutralized idea. Red vitality is tempered with blue
-restraint, which results in mysticism. Nature clothes the Poppy in red
-to suggest power and strength. The royal purple of the Aster and the
-Violet is purposely calculated to arouse a feeling of mystery and awe.
-
-Our man-made cloth designs often show various plant forms intact in
-the weave. The same is true of lace, while one has only to look at the
-miniature flower gardens which women wear on their heads to realize the
-potent influence of plants in the domains of millinery. An important
-plant element seems to run through many fields of applied art.
-
-In some ways, the beauties of form and structure are more appealing
-than chromatic charms. Lines are more refined and fundamental than
-colours. A feathery mass of tree-twigs seen against a distant horizon
-is exquisitely beautiful. A symmetrically shaped tree comes very
-close to presenting an idea of pure form. One may argue that it is
-impossible to dissociate all idea of colour from a natural object. This
-is theoretically true, but practically, while we are impressed by the
-colour of the Rose, it is the structural beauty of the Palm and Weeping
-Willow which attracts our eye.
-
-Nature is the true and original sculptor. From her we learn our rules
-of symmetry and design. All her plant creations are finished with a
-faithfulness to artistic principles which is quite exact. Nor does
-she build houses with false exteriors. Her structures show forth the
-necessity of truth in real esthetic creation. Bartholdi’s exquisite
-Statue of Liberty, viewed from the interior, is an ugly, hollow tube.
-A stalk of corn not only has a pleasing exterior but is made up of
-symmetrically formed and packed interior cells. From a giant Redwood to
-a microscopic vegetable organism, every line and structural unit in the
-plant world is perfect in its inception and execution.
-
-Each plant, viewed as a whole, has its own peculiar style of structural
-beauty--the variation of line and form which stamps it with charm.
-This differentiation extends to all parts of the plant and gives
-character to leaves, stem, flowers and fruit. Marvellous is the art
-worked out in the minute parts. The tendril of the Passion Flower,
-the radicle of a Seedling Maple, the feathery hair on a stalk of
-Mullein--all these are shaped according to the unknown law of beauty.
-Probably every geometrical form exists in some seed pod or fruit. The
-artistic little seeds of the Milkweed and the Dandelion are packed into
-their containers with a skill which cannot be duplicated, once they
-are dislodged. There are a million seeds in the capsules of certain
-Orchids. Many seed vessels are tipped, balled, carved and frescoed.
-
-The same delicate touch is seen down to the last cell. Plant stems
-range from the common tubular variety to four-sided, hexagonal and
-octagonal forms. Trees exhibit exquisite mosaics in their rough
-bark. Bell-shaped flowers and flowers which are tubes, rings, ovals,
-trumpets, horns, and cones are only some of the pleasing shapes to be
-found in this part of vegetable anatomy.
-
-It is a significant thing that there are few straight lines in
-plantdom. Everything is built in fascinating and alluring curves.
-There is a definite idea of symmetry to be observed everywhere. The
-beautiful, five-pointed, leaves of the Sweet Gum Tree are arranged so
-that each one fits into an interstice between two others and so obtains
-a maximum supply of air and light. In general, leaves nearest the
-ground are largest, thus insuring each its supply of sunshine.
-
-When we study ornamental design, ancient and modern, we see plant forms
-on all hands. The Greeks and the Moors were the only nations to be
-content with geometric shapes and lines--and they were only content at
-times. All other peoples have given plants and flowers a large place
-in their decorative conceptions. The Egyptians and the Assyrians,
-who may be considered the first civilized artists, used the Palm,
-Papyrus, Lotus and Lily. The Greeks and Romans were partial to the
-Acanthus, Olive, Ivy, Vine, Fir and Oak. The Gothic art of Germany,
-France and Spain featured the Lily, Rose, Pomegranate, Oak, Maple,
-Iris, Buttercup, Passion Flower and Trefoil. The modern Chinese are
-more conservative and seek inspiration only from the Aster and the
-Peony. The Japanese use the Almond, Cherry, Wistaria and the graceful
-Bamboo in their art work. These various plant forms are sometimes quite
-conventionalized but are readily recognizable, whether they occur in
-architecture, carvings, paintings, illuminations, tapestries or cloth
-fabrics.
-
-The plant world has been man’s most constant and readily apprehended
-artistic model. Yet when we see the multitude of attractive lines,
-curves and shapes in Nature’s great garden, we wonder that he has so
-limited his imitation. One rarely sees the Thorn-Apple, the Hawthorn,
-the Daisy or the Tulip in wood or stone, yet they are all exquisitely
-beautiful.
-
-Again, artists and artisans throughout the centuries have nearly
-always confined themselves to but two phases of plant life--the leaves
-and the matured fruit. Tendrils have been neglected or treated with
-characterless mediocrity. Thorns, leaf stipules, buds, pods, and leaf
-scars have been universally overlooked. Who has ever seen the fruit of
-the Rose in ornamental art? Why is it no one has thought to use the
-leaf scars of trees like the Horse Chestnut as decorative units?
-
-Grapes and Pomegranates are reproduced with some justice, but the
-various small berries almost always appear as miscellaneous spherical
-bodies, whereas they are really greatly varied. The Snowberry, Privet,
-Laurel and Barberry have distinct characteristics of form and shape.
-
-There are chances for worlds of artistic expression in various seed
-pods and fruit vessels. An open Pea Pod occurs in certain Renaissance
-ornament. Why not (and this is not intended to be humorous) a String
-Bean?
-
-Even a lowly thing like the scarred stalk of an old Cabbage has a
-pattern worthy of imitation. The shields or remains of leaves of former
-seasons form an artistic detail of the growing Palm Tree. The Romans
-occasionally reproduced them on their columns. Leaf shields are also
-met with in Greek border ornament.
-
-Why must our sculptors represent the various fruits as bursting with
-mature mellowness? In many cases, the unripe fruit is artistically more
-attractive than when in the later stages of development.
-
-We rarely think of disease or decay as being pleasing, yet some plants
-are artistic even in their dissolution. Certain galls and cankers draw
-beautiful designs on the bodies of their victims.
-
-Everything in plantdom has its own peculiar style of structure and
-beauty. All are worthy of imitation and reproduction, provided only it
-is done in the right place and the right way. It must be remembered
-that, in origin, ornament was first symbolic and then decorative. Real
-ornament is never unduly prominent but subordinates itself to the idea
-and structure of the whole.
-
-Man has imitated the plants also in things of a lowlier nature. Cups,
-vases, pitchers and other utensils were undoubtedly first suggested by
-similar shapes in plantdom. It is not too fantastic to imagine that
-the smoking pipe is modelled after the flower known as the Dutchman’s
-Pipe. An electric wire running down the chain of a suspended lighting
-fixture looks all the world like a climbing vine. Human jewelry has
-its prototype among the flowers. Our garden beauties powdered their
-faces long before their human sisters ever thought of that method of
-self-adornment. It is said that Greek dancers and athletes sometimes
-exercised before certain slender plants in order to pattern their
-bodies after them.
-
-We are not all artists or interior decorators, and yet we can all
-make use of the artistic possibilities present and inherent in our
-plant friends. We can cultivate and further the use of plants and
-flowers in and about our homes. Europe is far ahead of us in this
-respect. In England, a city house may be ever so frowsy and run-down
-but it will be sure to have its well-kept window boxes. The suburban
-homes of labourers and other lowly folk are often veritable bowers of
-loveliness. The German must have a garden in which to drink his beer.
-If there is none handy, he builds one, and cool and delightful he makes
-it. In many European cities, all the houses come out to the building
-line and even arch the sidewalks. Not a bit of greensward is in sight.
-Yet shrubs, flowers and vines spring from every sill and balcony and so
-make the streets to blossom as the Rose.
-
-American cities are too inclined to be barren wastes of brick and
-stone, with but scant provision for plant beauty. Even the rich, who
-have their elaborate and beautiful country gardens, seem to forget
-the plants and flowers when they come to the city. The self-tending
-Ampelopsis and Wistaria vines are the only plants at all common. Our
-short summer season and the fact that so many people do not occupy
-their city homes in warm weather are a little discouraging, but need
-not shake the enthusiasm of any one really interested in plants. For a
-few dollars a season florists will assume all care of exterior plants
-and vines.
-
-The man who has a little plot of ground before his door is indeed
-fortunate. Even a well-clipped grass lawn is a refreshing asset. Sweet
-Peas train well against a wall. Pansies flourish in shady spots and
-Nasturtiums wax beautiful where other plants fail.
-
-A brown stone front, flushed to the sidewalk in the middle of a block,
-need not go without floral decoration. Even a terra cotta box on
-either side of the entrance is capable of holding much growing joy.
-Evergreen shrubs fit well into such surroundings. A window box has
-great possibilities. In early spring, Crocus, Narcissus and Hyacinth
-flourish in it to advantage. Ivy-Geraniums of smooth waxy leaves and
-graceful loose sprays will grow all summer. Vines of various kinds can
-be trained so as to make very effective window screens.
-
-The subject of home plants is fascinating. It is well to note that it
-is not always necessary to go in for the more elaborate varieties. It
-is surprising what a delicate and pleasing decoration is made by so
-humble a thing as a sprouting Carrot or a Sweet Potato Vine.
-
-Outdoor and landscape gardening are whole sciences unto themselves.
-In general, a Renaissance house looks best surrounded by formal
-and well-clipt flower beds. Houses on the Gothic order should have
-undulating lawns and irregular groups of shrubs and trees about them.
-
-Plants and flowers are the first and original artists. Their creations
-are our best and most worthy models. We can use them both as examples
-to be imitated and beautiful objects with which to surround ourselves.
-They are one of our greatest esthetic inspirations.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII
-
-MUSIC IN THE PLANT WORLD
-
-“_Many voices there are in Nature’s choir, and none but were good to
-hear Had we mastered the laws of their music well, and could read their
-meaning clear; But we who can feel at Nature’s touch, cannot think as
-yet with her thought; And I only know that the sough of the pines with
-a spell of its own is fraught._”
-
-
-Music is a language--a species of soft, dreamy speech which makes up
-for its lack of definiteness and precision by a beauty and harmony
-which can best be described as divine. Indeed, the ancient Greeks
-made music an all-inclusive term for the higher conceptions of life.
-Dancing, poetry, and even science were supposed to be under its sway,
-while the revolution of the heavenly bodies created that “music of the
-spheres” which entertained the gods.
-
-It would be better for mankind if this sentiment were more popular
-today. It is a narrow notion which confines the idea of musical
-harmony to the sounds produced by certain man-made instruments.
-Art which is restricted to workings in oil may be very pleasing but
-it is also very much limited. Music which is only interpreted on a
-violin or a piano falls far short of its grandest possibilities. To
-certain minds, the sighing of the wind through a Pine forest is more
-exquisitely expressive than a hundred breath-blown symphonies. When men
-cannot agree as to what is music among the sounds produced by their
-self-created instruments, dare they lightly ignore the many pleasing
-sounds which accompany the operations of Nature?
-
-To an American ear, Chinese singing sounds like squealing and a Fiji
-concert like a vociferous boiler factory. Yet a Chinaman or a Fiji
-Islander will leave our grandest operatic efforts in disgust, though
-he may be pleased with the preceding orchestral tunings. Where are we
-to set the standard? Is it not safest to fall back on Nature for our
-truest conceptions?
-
-The real sublimity of Nature lies in her vocalism. A soundless world
-would be greatly lacking in charm. The endearing noises of the woods
-and the fields often become so familiar that we fail to notice
-their individual merits. Yet they are there. Their sudden cessation
-would leave a terrible and unbearable gap. The woods are filled with
-gaily costumed feathered minstrels. The meadows are great emerald
-stages of song and fancy. The very grass roots are filled with little
-insect-fiddlers who chirp cheerfulness. Wind, water and rain all
-furnish a grand and beautiful accompaniment.
-
-Nature sings in the inharmonic scale, that is, a scale which takes in
-all intervals. Between the piano notes “C” and “D” lies a great space.
-They only represent halting points in the ascent of sound. Just as in
-the spectrum there are a hundred variations of shade between blue and
-green, so the cultivated human voice can hint at a hundred intervals
-between “C” and “D”. Nature uses all the tiny shades of sound there
-are, and certain humans have followed suit. To the Arabians, water
-“lisps in a murmuring scale.”
-
-Occasionally, Nature uses the diatonic scale familiar to our western
-civilization. When the wind unites its vibrations into the long shrill
-note we call the whistle, it is playing according to our musical rules.
-Water, when falling perpendicularly from a great height also gives
-forth a long, steady note. Even the rhythmical quality so essential to
-good music is not lacking in such phenomena as rain pattering on dry
-leaves. This sound has proved unusually appealing to many people. The
-Mexicans sometimes attempt to imitate it by means of clay rattles.
-
-Not only does the countryside continually sing a great symphony,
-but each region has its own acoustic properties. While large cities
-maintain a discordant and incessant roar, the country is filled with
-soft and pleasing voices. Birds, animals, water and wind give forth
-quaint musings of the most soothing nature. Once in a while the woods
-go on a musical jag and every instrument becomes discordant. Under
-the influence of the bright moonlight, the inhabitants of the South
-American jungles sometimes seem to go mad. The hoarse roars of the
-Tiger mingle with the piercing shrieks of Parrots and the shrill
-wailings of Monkeys, while the croaking of Bull Frogs and the dismal
-hoot of Owls is deafening. Jaguars scream as they chase Monkeys through
-the tree-tops.
-
-The various members of the plant kingdom are the principal instruments
-upon which the wind plays. Without the obstruction offered by plants,
-trees, rocks, and houses, we should not hear the wind at all. The
-trees, because of their size and exposed positions, are most noted as
-plant-musicians, but the grasses and herbs are also very susceptible to
-the caressings of the wind.
-
-Who has not heard and gloried in the music of the Pines? The sharp
-needles of these big conifers seem unusually fitted for esthetic
-expression. They are the Aeolian harps of the woods. During a storm,
-they sing in a mighty chorus of acclaim. At such a time, the breaking
-of many small branches sounds like the snapping of overstrained violin
-strings.
-
-Almost any tree located on a cliff or on the edge of a mountain,
-becomes a musician of the first order. It is apt to take on the
-sorrowful tendencies of solitude. The weepings, wailings, murmurings,
-groanings, sighs and whispers of the universe vibrate through its
-branches. It would seem as if such a tree were trying to express many
-mysterious wonders of which man has little knowledge.
-
-The trees are not altogether dependent upon their leaves for their
-music. The barren branches of fall and winter sing in a most attractive
-way. Their dry and discarded leaves litter the ground and carry on
-crackly songs of their own, or sing as they play tag in whirls of wind.
-The Elm is a pleasing autumn singer and the Willows, when covered with
-ice, rattle their twigs like a minstrel’s bones. As the winter wind
-hums around the Cottonwood Trees, it rocks the seed balls in their
-natural cradles with a sighing, crooning sound. This is the way the
-Tree sings to her babies! When the wind soughs through a hollow tree,
-it produces a ghostly sound suggestive of a mourning or dying person.
-A current of air rubbing two boughs together causes a scrunching sound
-which sends the shivers up one’s back.
-
-It is reasonable to believe that every tree and plant has its own
-individual voice as set in motion by the wind. A Nature-lover does not
-have much difficulty in distinguishing a great many. The desert Sage
-whistles in the wind; the Cedar laughs in the storm; the air rustles
-through a Wheat field; an agitated Sugar Cane or Corn field gives forth
-a sound like tinkling glass. The noise produced by a high wind in the
-Southern Smilax has been likened to a harp struck at random.
-
-The bursting pods of the Witch Hazel pop gently and the seeds fall
-among the dead leaves like so many buck shot; the Oxalis sends forth
-its seed-babies with the crack of a pistol shot. Members of the Bean
-family moan in the breeze like plaintive violins. The Squirting
-Cucumber gurgles not unlike certain frogs. The Sunflower is a
-professional drummer who rattles his seeds about in his pods. The
-Rattlesnake Iris holds its seed-capsule in such a way that it gives an
-excellent imitation of the warning noise of the reptile for which it
-is named. Catalpa pods snap like horse-whips, but Cat-Tails sigh like
-small reed instruments.
-
-Early man gained more inspiration and pleasure from the music of the
-plants than his wiser but more worldly successors. It is said that the
-idea for the first flute was obtained by listening to the wind sigh
-through the Reeds on the shore of a lake. The first stringed instrument
-was probably a fibre accidentally stretched across a hollow shell. The
-classic Aeolian harp consisted of a wooden frame containing a thin
-sounding-board over which were stretched a number of strips of cat-gut.
-If placed before a half-open window so that an air current strikes it
-sideways, it gives forth a great volume of harmonious notes in several
-octaves. This is a clear case of catching the music of the wind. In a
-cruder, less harmonious way, the Japanese glass tinklers of our day do
-the same thing. The humming of telegraph wires and the strange chirping
-of a wireless instrument are also a kind of singing.
-
-All the plants are not expert musicians, which explains why they often
-seek to make up for their own deficiencies by hiring numerous birds and
-insects to make melody for them. These musicians are employed in the
-truest sense of the word and receive their pay in food, shelter and
-protection. In the air and on the ground, by day and by night, they
-sing and fiddle for their hosts. The broad leaves of the Water Lily
-(_Victoria Regia_) are veritable music schools of Frog practice. Every
-voice from croaking bass to youthful tenor is heard! Every tree has its
-Frogs and Birds--every bush and shrub innumerable insect warblers.
-
-The birds are the plants’ vocalists. Their songs and delightful
-twitterings are among the most familiar things in Nature. The music of
-the large body of insect-instrumentalists is carried on in such obscure
-places, and often so far down among the very roots of the plants, that
-a considerable investigation of their methods may not be amiss. They
-are especially active after sundown.
-
-The common Grasshoppers form a great corps of violinists. A large vein
-on the inside of their thighs makes an ideal bow. It is roughened not
-with resin but by a hundred minute spines. When this vein is rubbed
-to and fro on the serrated veins of the insect’s wing-cover, a shrill
-tone is produced. Sitting on its haunches, the Grasshopper saws away
-with both hind legs at a great rate. The interesting discovery has been
-made that the velocity of the strokes increases with the temperature.
-Grasshoppers in large swarms emit a low roar.
-
-The Locust is a near relative of the Grasshopper. His music is produced
-by scraping one wing across the other. The Cricket uses the same
-method. When he is a house species, he fiddles in a higher tone. The
-gold-green Muskback Beetle is an exquisite violinist. His instrumental
-methods are most peculiar. His sharp breast acts as a bow which he
-draws across a small group of veins on his wing covers. The resulting
-music is so faint as to be almost inaudible.
-
-To Bees, Wasps, Hornets, Flies and Mosquitoes we may ascribe reed
-instruments. They depend upon the rapid vibration of their tiny wings
-to get their effects. The respiration openings distributed over the
-body of a Bee, by giving resonance to the tone, aid in the process and
-turn the whole insect’s body into a small clarionet. The drowsy buzz
-of the honey-gatherer is only attained by swinging its wings at the
-rate of four hundred vibrations a minute. People who have good ears for
-music have observed that the ordinary Bee drones his song out on G
-sharp. The House-Fly is credited with singing at F with a preliminary
-grace note on E. Everyone is familiar with the high thin plaint of the
-Mosquito.
-
-There are many drummers in the insect orchestra. The Cicada operates
-a small kettle drum. On the front of its body, a tough membrane is
-stretched over a small cavity. When set in motion by a special muscle,
-it gives out a surprisingly agreeable sound. The Greeks enjoyed this
-music so well that they often caged the Cicada much as they would a
-bird. In the hatching time of the seventeen-year variety, the energetic
-drumming of thousands of the insects rises into a scream which is far
-from melodious. Under such conditions, the noise can be heard for half
-a mile. Travelers tell of a giant South American species which produces
-a drumming which is as loud as a locomotive whistle. An uncanny drummer
-is the “Death Watch Beetle.” It uses its head for drumsticks and when
-in the wood of furniture often plays a tattoo with considerable skill.
-Superstitious people, for no apparent good reason, sometimes insist
-this is a warning of impending death. Even the pretty little Butterfly
-on occasion is a drummer. With hooks on its wings, it makes a sharp
-crackle, not unlike one of the weird noises sometimes used by human
-“traps.” Beetles play the bones.
-
-The Bamboo Tree is sometimes the possessor of a whole corps of
-intelligent and efficient drummers. They attach themselves to the
-under side of the leaves, from which vantage-point they strike them
-with their heads whenever their services are required. An Ant of the
-_Sumatran_ species keeps wonderful time. Though spread out over a
-number of square yards of leaf space, a group of these tiny creatures
-will start and stop tapping at the same instant.
-
-Perhaps in some far-distant age, mankind will begin remotely to
-understand the significance of the music of the plant world and its
-allies. We have no right to say that the plants are not true musicians.
-While we may only understand their system of harmony in part, we can
-realize it contains hidden beauties just as the presence of microscopic
-organisms in the world is indicated by their effects rather than by
-actual perception.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IX
-
-SCIENCE IN THE PLANT WORLD
-
-  “_Weak with nice sense, the chaste Mimosa stands,
-  From each rude touch withdraws her timid hands._”
-
-
-Plants are profound scientists. Their knowledge may not be as broad and
-far-reaching as that of man, but they are more successful workers than
-he. With all his wonderful discoveries in physics and chemistry, man as
-a class has not yet learned to conduct his own body so as to make it
-yield the highest efficiency. In fact, members of the human race are
-today wearing out their frames at a faster rate than ever before. Adept
-at running huge mechanisms of steel, they are neglectful of those most
-delicate and wonderful machines which are bound up with their own life
-processes.
-
-Plants are not so prodigal. Whenever they are given a chance, they
-develop and expand their powers in the most marvelous way. They bring
-out the latent strength in their beings and so conduct themselves as to
-conserve their energies. Whether by instinct, reason or blind force
-they always know just what to do and how to make the most of their
-heredity and environment. Their efficiency rating is one hundred per
-cent.
-
-As the whole life of all plants is a scientific progression, we can
-only consider in the brief limits of this chapter some of the more
-startling instances of the marvelous sense they exhibit in dealing with
-Nature’s forces.
-
-Probably one of the reasons we do not always think of plants in the
-human, sympathetic way we should, is that we are inclined to regard
-them as quiet, static objects, playthings of every wind that blows
-upon them. Such is far from the case. Life is motion and the plants
-are very much alive and very much in motion. From the tiniest cell to
-the largest tree they exhibit constant, pulsating movements. Many of
-the movements are described through so small a space as ordinarily to
-escape our notice, but a little observation makes them quite apparent.
-They all have a well-directed, scientific purpose.
-
-What is plant growth itself but motion upward and outward? If a
-telescope or an instrument such as Sir Jaghadish Bose’s crescograph
-be trained on a healthy plant, it is possible to see the growth
-actually take place before the eye somewhat as it is managed in motion
-pictures. Travelers aver that if a Banana Plant be cut off close to the
-ground and the surrounding soil well supplied with water, the sturdy
-creature will make such strenuous efforts to destroy the effects of its
-mutilation that its growth may easily be perceived with the unaided
-eye, and a full-sized leaf produced in a single day.
-
-Leaves and flowers are usually quite mobile. When they go to sleep,
-they droop and fold their edges together very carefully, sometimes to
-such an extent as to make themselves almost invisible. Even such an
-astute man as Linnaeus was once completely deceived by some sleeping
-specimens of Lotus. They were very fine red flowers and he was proud
-of them. Taking a friend to view them one evening by lantern-light,
-what was his dismay to find that they had completely disappeared. He
-concluded that they had been stolen or eaten by insects and went away,
-only to find them in full array on his return the next morning. It
-took several nocturnal visits to unravel the mystery and discover
-that the flowers folded themselves and retired so adroitly into the
-surrounding foliage each evening that they were completely hidden.
-
-The Acacia is a plant which closes up at night; the same phenomenon is
-very striking in the Oxalis. The common Bean sleeps standing: that is,
-its leaves close upward instead of downward. The little blue Veronica
-flower, so strikingly brilliant and attractive in the daytime, tucks
-itself in so snugly at bedtime that it becomes quite inconspicuous. A
-Marigold called _Calendula Pluvialis_ even contracts its corolla every
-time the sun is veiled by a passing cloud. These sleep movements all
-have a scientific purpose. Their main object, just as in animals, is
-to reduce bodily activities to a low ebb and so to give the plant a
-chance to recuperate for another day’s efforts. The contraction of all
-surfaces cuts down the radiation of heat and moisture and presents less
-resistance to outside elements. The plant is in a quiescent, somnolent
-state.
-
-There are other movements of leaves and flowers the object of which is
-not quite so apparent. For instance, there is the _Hedysarum Gyrans_ or
-Oscillating Sainfoin. Each of its leaves has three folioles. The center
-one is very large and stands bolt upright, except at night, when it
-condescends to bend its head in sleep. The two lateral folioles are in
-perpetual oscillation both day and night. Nothing but a very hot sun
-seems able to stop their movement. Possibly, this plant is a fresh air
-fiend which requires a steady atmospheric flow upon its respiratory
-surfaces! The two lateral folioles of each leaf are delegated to act as
-fans and blow a constant supply of air upon their majestic brother.
-
-Similar oscillations have been noticed in some Orchids, where a part of
-the flower’s corolla rises and falls with a regular rhythm not unlike
-the beating of a human pulse.
-
-The stamens and pistils of flowers sometimes have the power of
-movement. If an insect, wandering about in the flower of the Barberry
-Tree (Berberis Vulgaris), happens to touch the base of a stamen,
-it bends forward with a quick, spring-like motion and presently
-straightens up again. The evident intent is to shower some pollen on
-the little intruder with the hope that he may carry its vital principle
-to some neighbour of the same species.
-
-In the _Parnassia Palustris_, fortunate observers have sometimes seen
-the five stamens bend forward and beat on the head of the pistil in
-rotation as if on an anvil. Perhaps outside pollen-carrying agencies
-have passed this particular flower by and, in desperation, it is
-resorting to self-fertilization.
-
-The _Junger Mania_, a plant allied to the Mosses, shows knowledge of
-the laws of mechanics when it uses a natural spring coiled in a small
-tube to project its seeds out into the world. Seeds of fresh-water
-Algae swim about for a few hours after leaving their mother-plant,
-vibrating their cilia with great rapidity. It is the ability of certain
-one-celled plants to move about freely which causes considerable
-discussion as to whether they are really not animals. The Diatoms are
-examples. They propel themselves through the water by oscillating their
-whole bodies from side to side. To reverse their direction they go
-backward like a ferryboat.
-
-The ancients as far back as Aristotle recognized the sensitiveness of
-plants to light and their eager use of its life-giving properties. In
-fact, one has only to watch the Sun-Flower follow the orb of day across
-the heavens to realize that there must be something vital in sunlight
-for the plants. What interests us is that they have the instinct or the
-knowledge to so present their surfaces to the light that they receive
-a maximum benefit from its influences. From the aristocratic indoor
-potted plant to the wild trees and shrubs on the edge of a thicket, we
-notice a vigorous straining toward the light. Each leaf is tilted at
-just the right angle to receive the largest possible share of energy,
-for the leaves are starch factories for which the sun furnishes the
-motive power.
-
-Botanists tell us that this heliotropism or turning motion toward the
-light is due to the tendency of most leaves to arrange themselves
-perpendicularly to the sun’s rays. Tendrils may be apheliotropic or
-tend to turn away from the light. Morning Glories or Wistaria, which
-climb up whatever support is handy, exhibit insensibility to light no
-matter from what angle it strikes. Stems, flower and leaves of all
-plants each give a different and scientific reaction to light in a way
-which looks much like directing thought.
-
-Nothing is more scientific than the skill with which plants co-operate
-with gravity in constructing their root systems. The roots are often
-trained to grow out horizontally and resist gravity for a certain
-distance. Then they gracefully yield to its pulling power, and, curving
-their tips downward, grow straight toward the center of the earth. Any
-secondary roots which are sent out again start horizontally to repeat
-the above process on a smaller scale. All this makes for an efficient,
-well-balanced root-system.
-
-A curious motion which is not thoroughly understood is a slight
-gyratory movement observable in the tips of all living plants. It is
-possible that it is connected in some way with the earth’s rotation or
-is it merely a kind of groping, feeling gesture? In the case of roots,
-where the same gyrations occur, it undoubtedly serves that purpose. A
-revolving root tip makes a very efficient drill with which the hardy
-plant may bore a way through refractory soil. It is claimed that the
-great whirling sweeps made by tendrils of various climbers are merely
-amplifications of the circumnutation occurring in all plant terminals.
-
-Before leaving the subject of scientific movement in the plant world,
-it will be of interest to briefly consider some of the vegetable
-motions which are called forth by the stimulus of touch. Almost
-everyone is familiar with the Sensitive Plant and its double rows of
-tiny leaves. Touch any one of them and the whole group will instantly
-begin to contract and bend toward the stalk. We say begin, for so
-slow is the transmission of the impulse that one can readily see its
-progress, as one after another of the leaves respond.
-
-A motion which has forethought and design behind it occurs in the
-leaves of the famous and crafty Venus Fly-Trap. Two sections of
-leaves edged with teeth-like nerve-hairs form the two halves of an
-enticing-looking bowl and cover. The slightest contact with one of
-the delicate hairs will cause the trap to shut together and imprison
-any sweet-toothed member of the insect world which has happened to
-stray inside. An aquatic form of the same thing occurs in a species of
-Bladderwort which spreads a leaf-net cunningly shaped to look like a
-fish’s mouth. Frightened baby-fishes, accustomed to seek their mother’s
-throat in time of danger, sometimes swim in and, brushing certain
-nerve-hairs near the entrance, cause the lips to close and leave them
-to slow dissolution. Both sinister and scientific are the movements of
-carnivorous plants.
-
-Far from being static or quiescent, the plant world is a kingdom of
-energetic, vibratory motion--a motion which is cool and calculating
-and which rarely fails to accomplish its purpose. Even the protoplasm
-of microscopic plant cells is in constant movement. If a thin slice
-of Sycamore bark be placed under a microscope, a regular circulation
-of cell-liquid, suggestive of blood circulation in animals, can be
-observed.
-
-Plants show great skill in their use of water. It is their storage
-of liquid in their cells which makes their soft bodies rigid and so
-makes movement possible. This property sometimes called turgidity
-was discovered by the scientist De Vries in 1877, the same year that
-Pfeffer established the theory of osmosis. This latter is a phenomenon
-which physicists find very difficult to explain and involves the
-transmutation of one liquid into another through the medium of an
-intervening membrane.
-
-Some plants have acquired the faculty of storing water in their bodies,
-on which, camel-like, they can subsist for long periods of time. A
-certain large tree-cactus of the American desert sometimes stores up
-as much as seventeen hundred pounds or five barrels of water in the
-wet season. When drought comes, its roots dry up and it lives entirely
-on its internal resources. It is said that an eighteen-foot specimen
-can exist for a year on its stored-up liquid. A branch on such a plant
-may live and bloom after the trunk is dead. Many ordinary plants, such
-as Turnips, Carrots, and Beets, store water along with starch and
-dextrose in their underground tubers. Such subterranean reservoirs are
-preferable to those above ground.
-
-Plants have paid particular attention to the manipulation of gases.
-They maintain an internal atmosphere of their own composed of oxygen,
-nitrogen and carbon dioxide in proportions varying greatly from those
-of the outside air. If the stem of a Water Lily be broken below the
-surface of a pond, gas bubbles will often be observed to issue from the
-wound, indicating that the internal gas pressure of this particular
-plant is greater than that of the external air. In other cases, the
-reverse is true and we find partial vacuums within the bodies of plants.
-
-Man long ago found it impossible to “live on air” but the plants have
-solved the difficulty of aerial existence and have become creatures of
-the air rather than the earth, so far as their food is concerned. The
-great bulk of the largest tree is preponderantly composed of carbon,
-which has been slowly and labouriously extracted from the air. The
-mineral salts and water which have been filtered out of the ground by
-the roots are essential but are present in a much lesser quantity.
-
-It is well known that plants breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out
-oxygen. This can be graphically demonstrated by placing a plant in a
-glass jar of carbon dioxide inverted in water. If its life processes
-are quickened by exposure to sunlight, the plant will replace the CO₂
-with oxygen in a day. A more striking example is furnished by any
-aquatic plant accustomed to growing submerged in ponds and rivers.
-Placed in a water-filled bottle inverted in a pan of water, it will
-generate oxygen so rapidly that the bubbles can be seen forming on
-the leaves when the sun is allowed to strike them fully. The bottle
-will become filled with oxygen in a few hours, and its presence can be
-demonstrated with the usual ember test.
-
-Opposed to the absorption of carbon dioxide and the breathing out of
-oxygen, which is really a digestive operation, the plants, queerly
-enough, carry on a directly opposite process which involves the
-absorption of oxygen and the breathing out of carbon dioxide. This
-is a respiratory process akin to breathing in animals. It is carried
-on in such a relatively small way that it does not seriously affect
-the statement that “plants breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe
-out oxygen” and so are purifiers of the air which man and animals
-contaminate.
-
-Besides this general use of gases common to nearly all plants, a few
-of the members of the vegetable world specialize in the production
-of protective and poisonous vapours of various composition. One of
-the most interesting of these is the Gas Plant of the South American
-jungles. This beautiful white-flowered inhabitant of the tropics is
-entirely protected from leaf-destroying insects and birds by the
-poisonous vapours it constantly pours forth.
-
-The plants are expert chemists, and the reactions in which they engage
-are, on the whole, much simpler than those which go on in the bodies
-of animals. Vegetable tissue is largely carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and
-nitrogen. It is a curious fact that instead of using the abundant
-carbon compounds present in decomposed animal and vegetable matter of
-the soil the plants get most of their carbon from the carbon dioxide
-of the air. Inversely, they largely disregard the seventy-eight per
-cent nitrogen of the air, and extract that element from the complicated
-compounds found in the soil, or take it from the air only by aid of
-certain Bacteria.
-
-Certain plants manufacture lime and metallic oxides with which to
-harden the protective armour they wear. Many others generate nitric
-acid, carbonic acid and ammonia for use in their interior laboratories.
-Roots nearly always secrete a fluid which aids in the absorption of
-minerals from the earth. It is so powerful that quartz, flint and
-limestone are often scratched and corroded by its action. Above and
-below ground, plants are active chemical laboratories.
-
-The differences of taste, smell and colour which characterize leaves,
-blossoms and fruits are due to the presence of various organic
-compounds. These are largely volatile oils which are more complex than
-the substances involved in the simpler life processes. The slow or
-rapid evaporation of these oils influences the strength and character
-of an odour. When a flower or fruit passes through infinite gradations
-of colour, we can give no adequate account of the chemical changes
-involved. All we can do is to observe and to note. Sometimes infusions
-of iron sulphate or other chemicals in the soil darken the hues of
-flowers. Gardeners profit by this fact in the cultivation of certain
-varieties of Hortensia.
-
-The chemical activities of plants are of incalculable value to man.
-They change air, water and mineral salts into forms easily assimilable
-by the human system. Eliminate all the vegetable life from this planet,
-and the animals, including man, would perish in a few months. Man has
-also learned to make abundant use of plant substances for innumerable
-purposes. Potash is an example of how the plants come to our aid in
-furnishing us a valuable chemical. It is extracted from wood, Seaweed
-and Banana stalks. These plants have discovered a way of getting it out
-of its well-nigh insoluble earth combinations with silica. If it had
-not been for certain industrious sea plants, man would probably never
-have been aware of the important chemical twins, bromine and iodine, so
-important in photography. These plants patiently filter them out of sea
-water where they exist in microscopic quantities, and build them into
-their bodies. Beer is possible because germinating grains transform
-amylum or plant starch into sugar. We find ripe fruits palatable
-because their acids change into sugar under the influence of sunlight.
-
-Man seems to have outstripped the plants in the use of light, heat,
-electricity, and other physical forces, but the plants have more
-engineers among them than we imagine. In the fact that man has just
-learned to extract nitrogen from the air by the agency of electrical
-discharges, lies the probable explanation of how the plants have
-been doing the same thing for years. It is believed that the minute
-electrical discharges continually going on between the different air
-strata make small quantities of nitrogen assimilable for the plants.
-The micro-organisms which also furnish nitrogenous material to the
-plants may get nitrogen from the air in the same way. It is quite
-certain that the plants are affected by the chemical state of the
-atmosphere.
-
-Everyone knows what an important part light plays in plant physiology,
-but the fact that certain plants produce their own lights, while
-generally known, is not universally understood. The Austrian
-naturalist, Heller, was the first to demonstrate that the glowing of
-decayed wood at night is caused by emanations of light from Fungus
-growing in the cavities. A similiar organism called Luminous Peridineas
-(sometimes classed as an animal) is responsible for the phosphorescence
-of the ocean and the night lights of many flowers.
-
-About three hundred species of Bacteria and fifteen species of Fungus
-are recognized to be luminous. The dead leaves of the tropical
-Banibusa, Nephelium and Aglaia often glow at night with the light of
-these tiny creatures. Ordinary dead Oak and Beech leaves are luminous,
-sometimes shining in spots, but frequently glowing throughout with a
-soft, white, steady light. These miniature incandescent lights often
-shine for days, weeks and months, and with abundant nutriment at hand,
-sometimes for years. The light is slight in intensity, but uniformly
-steady and white, green or blue-green in colour. It is strong enough to
-enable the plants on which the Fungus grows to photograph themselves by
-long exposure to sensitized plates. The fungus light has also been used
-to influence the heliotropic movements of plant seedlings. In fact, a
-colony of Fungus has sometimes been placed in an electric light bulb
-and made thus to serve as an illuminant.
-
-No matter from what angle we study the plants, we find that they are
-extremely scientific. They conduct themselves and all their activities
-in a way to always get the best results. They show knowledge and
-acquaintance with all of Nature’s laws, and they have learned to apply
-many of them with startling success.
-
-[Illustration: MODERN NATURE WORSHIPPERS]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER X
-
-RELIGION IN THE PLANT WORLD
-
-  “_Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth._”
-
-  --_Byron_
-
-
-In a sense, the entire plant world is a beautiful and expressive
-worship of a bountiful and beneficent Creator. No creed which does not
-deny God will fail to see the silent but reverent adoration exhibited
-by His handiwork. Every tree which raises its brave crest toward the
-heavens, every flower which greets the warming sunlight with a smile,
-is a testimony to the omnipotence of divine law. Fully explain the
-wonders of a single blade of Grass, and you have solved the mysteries
-which underlie the universe.
-
-Primitive peoples, who are always closely attuned to natural
-influences, early discerned the divine thread which runs through all
-plantdom. In their incessant search for God, they did not overlook His
-manifestations in the plants and flowers. Along with fire, water,
-stars, sun, moon, animals, birds and graven images, our wood-roving
-ancestors ascribed supernatural attributes to many trees and flowers.
-In various places and at various times, many different plants have been
-idolized as the material substance of an ethereal or spiritual being.
-Certain plant growths have been repeatedly designated as sacred, and
-even in the present day, untutored races have many plant superstitions.
-Tree worship was common among the Celts and Teutons. The present day
-Christmas tree is a relic of primitive tree veneration. Even the
-American Indians worshiped trees at times. Man has been groping for God
-all through the ages. His tendency has been to deify those elements
-and things which he did not understand or which contained mystery. As
-soon as he became acquainted with the causes of these mysteries, the
-supernatural collapsed into the natural and he went searching after new
-wonders to call God.
-
-From the beginning of literature, the bards of every land have sung
-to and of the flowers; the prophets have used them as instruments for
-their sooth-saying; the believer in resurrection has cited them to
-prove a final resurrection for the souls of men; the reincarnationists
-have claimed in them a great evidence of the reincarnation of the soul;
-the atheist has tried to show through them the validity of his belief;
-hero and conqueror have found in them their crowns of glory and the
-poet has made them the theme of his pen. Yet the flowers bloom today
-much as they did on the hillsides of Greece and Babylon, and man, with
-all his century-accumulated wisdom, seems but to have seen the outer
-edge of their real lives.
-
-The superstitious veneration of various flowers is an ancient and
-peculiarly charming expression of man’s innate appreciation of the
-beautiful. He who condemns as idolaters the flower-worshippers of
-ancient ages may well look upon himself with critical eyes. Which is
-the better: to pay tribute to the Creator through the adoration of his
-beautiful floral children or make cold, glittering gold the ultimate
-though unacknowledged goal of this earthly life?
-
-It is interesting to notice, in reviewing the annals of flower-worship,
-that the most fervent and frequent examples are found in tropical
-countries. This is due, no doubt, to the luxuriance of vegetation in
-the hot countries, and the fact that, in most cases, flowers are in
-bloom there all the year around. Even one trained in a more rigid
-faith is tempted to strange reverence when he suddenly comes upon a
-great, glowing Orchid, squatting like some beautiful animal on the
-shaggy trunk of an aged tree. A Hindu is quite excusable when he
-becomes raptly worshipful while paddling through a floating sea of
-Lotus-Flowers.
-
-In heathen mythology, “every flower was the emblem of a god; every tree
-the abode of a nymph.” Paradise, itself, was a kind of “nemorous temple
-or sacred grove” planted by God himself. The patriarchal groves which
-are prominent throughout Biblical history were probably planted as
-living memorials of the Garden of Eden, the first grove and man’s first
-abode.
-
-Sacred flowers were common among the Greeks. The Anemone, Poppy and
-Violet were dedicated to Venus. To Diana belonged “all flowers growing
-in untrodden dells and shady nooks, uncontaminated by the tread
-of man.” The Narcissus and Maiden-Hair Fern were under the special
-protection of Proserpina and to Ceres belonged the Willow. The Pink was
-Jove’s flower, while Juno claimed the Lily, Crocus and Asphodel.
-
-The life of Christ flings a bright and illuminating ray of light over
-the whole vegetable world. Trees and flowers which have heretofore been
-associated with various heathen rites now become connected with holier
-names and are frequently made a part of the crucifixion itself. Hosts
-of flowers are dedicated to the Virgin Mary, particularly white ones,
-which are taken to be emblematic of her purity. Christian worshippers
-even went to the classic Juno and Diana, to the Scandinavian Freyja
-and Bertha, to obtain flowers to dedicate to her. The Passion Flower
-was often taken to represent various incidents connected with the
-crucifixion.
-
-Though the Rose and the Lily are the blossoms which are most frequently
-associated with the Virgin, particularly in paintings, there is an
-endless list of other flowers of low and high degree which are either
-named after her or thought to be under her influence.
-
-Orchids are called “Our Lady’s Slipper.” Maiden-Hair is “Virgin’s
-Hair.” The Thyme, Woodroof and Groundsel plants are reputed to have
-formed the Virgin’s bed. Among fruits the Strawberry and the Molluka
-Bean have been set aside for her worship.
-
-The “Rose of Jericho” is made famous by the Bible. Popular tradition
-states that it first blossomed at Christ’s birth, closed at His
-crucifixion and reopened at His resurrection. The legend of the
-rose-coloured Sainfoin is especially interesting. One of the flowers
-happened to be among the grasses and herbs lodged in the manger of the
-Christ child. At the presence of that holy form, it suddenly opened its
-blossoms to form a wreath for His head.
-
-A more gruesome tale relates that the Wood-Sorrel, Spotted Persicaria,
-Arum, Purple Orchid and Red Anemone owe their dark-stained blossoms to
-the blood which trickled from the Cross.
-
-Among the many theories regarding the identity of the wood of the
-Cross, the one about the Mistletoe is especially fanciful. The
-Mistletoe is alleged to have been originally a full-sized tree but
-because of its ignoble part in the great Christian tragedy, it was
-reduced to its present parasitical form.
-
-Every saint in the Catholic calendar has his own particular flower,
-either because of some incident in his life with which it was connected
-or because of arbitrary dedication. Care has been taken to pick flowers
-which are in bloom at the time of the festival of the saint which
-they represent. In this way, the flowers of the field make a living,
-religious time-piece.
-
-Among the individual sacred flowers, Orchids and Lotus-Blossoms have
-probably been known and reverenced as much as any. There is small
-wonder that sentiment approaching veneration should exist toward
-the Orchids. Their singular beauty and fragrance have compelled the
-admiration of all historic peoples. The primitive Mexicans hold them in
-very great esteem. The Lotus-Flower, portrayed through all the ages,
-on papyrus, paper, silk, stone, and wood, has a world-wide sanctity.
-The ancient Egyptians worshipped the Lotus in connection with the
-mysteries of Isis and Osiris. The sculptural remains of the Nile abound
-with the sacred plant in every stage of its development, the flowers
-and fruit being represented with utmost accuracy. The Brahmans regarded
-it as divine and the Hindus used it to decorate their temples and lay
-on their religious altars. The Chinese also called it sacred. Brahma,
-at his birth, is said to have come forth from the Lotus. Buddha and
-other eastern deities, including the Chinese god Pazza, are reported to
-have first appeared floating on its leaves.
-
-Sir William Jones was one time dining on the banks of the Ganges.
-Desiring to examine the sacred Lotus-Flower, he despatched some of
-his people to procure a specimen. When it was brought, his Indian
-attendants immediately fell on their faces in adoration.
-
-The Yellow Narcissus is a famous fabled flower which originally came
-from Palestine. Mahomet once said: “Whoever possesses two loaves of
-bread, let him trade one for a blossom of Narcissus, for bread is
-nourishment for the body, but the Narcissus for the soul.” The birth
-of the Narcissus is narrated thus: In Sussexshire, England, the good
-St. Leonhard once battled with a dragon for three whole days. Before
-he was able to slay the monster, the doughty warrior was wounded with
-consequent loss of blood. God could not bear to see the life fluid of
-this holy man spilled heedlessly, so transformed each drop, as it fell,
-into a Narcissus.
-
-“Consider the Lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not,
-neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you that even Solomon in
-all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” This is a great
-tribute to the Lily and it has been similarly praised throughout all
-literature. About this lovely flower hang myriads of sacred legends and
-such titles as the “symbol of purity,” the “soul of beauty” and “the
-symbol of peace.” In the lore of the Greeks and the Orientals, this
-matchless flower was hailed with the Rose as the “Queen of Heaven.”
-The Venerable Bede called it the most worthy symbol of the Virgin. He
-said that its pure white petals represent her undefiled body and the
-golden stamens her radiant soul shining with god-like light. Many old
-paintings of the Virgin show her with a vase of Lilies by her side.
-
-The Rose is the universal symbol of royalty. In Greek mythology, it
-was the favourite flower of Aphrodite and was represented as springing
-from the blood of Adonis. Through all Norse and German mythology is
-repeated reference to the “regal beauty” and “queenly mien” of the
-Rose. In northern lands, the Rose was under the special protection of
-the fairies, dwarves, and elves.
-
-The “Balm of Gilead” is a well-known sacred plant (_Balsamum Judaicum_)
-written of by Pliny, Strabo and Justin and grown in many parts of the
-East. It is said to have been first brought from Arabia by the Queen of
-Sheba as a gift to Solomon.
-
-St. John’s Wort (_Hypericum Perforatum_) was dedicated to St. John
-because its phosphorescent glow was remindful of the Biblical reference
-to him as a “bright and shining light.” Some European peasants still
-believe that, if gathered and worn on St. John’s Eve, it has the power
-of bringing good luck and success.
-
-The Greeks and Romans used Verbena extensively in their religious
-ceremonies, principally because of its wonderful perfume. The Romans
-called it “the sacred herb” and regarded it as an aid in divinations
-and omens. On New Year’s Day, it was sent to friends as a token of
-greeting. The Roman generals wore a sprig in their pockets as a
-protection against bodily injury.
-
-The Soma or Moon-Plant of India (_Asclepias Acida_) is a climbing vine
-with milky juice which is said to confer immortality upon its admirers.
-
-Pomegranate was long reverenced by the Persians and Jews as the
-forbidden fruit of the Garden of Eden.
-
-The Indian plant Basil for many centuries has been held in good repute
-by the Hindus, having been made sacred to Vishnu.
-
-Mahomet pronounced Henna, the Egyptian Privet, “chief of the flowers of
-this world and the next.” Wormwood was dedicated to the goddess Iris.
-
-If there are many plants which man’s adoration has made religious,
-there are almost an equal number which his suspicion and perversity
-have branded irreligious. A famous plant of this kind is the
-Enchanter’s Nightshade which has long been celebrated in the mysteries
-of witchcraft. Perhaps its usual place of growth in old graveyards
-among decaying bones and mouldering coffins has much to do with the
-sinister superstitions and legends connected with it.
-
-The Belladonna is another plant whose name is often associated with
-black magic.
-
-To this day many Danes believe that the Elder is eternally cursed.
-Children who sleep in beds containing Elder wood continually complain
-of having their feet tickled and their legs pulled. To carry a cane of
-Elder is to invite attacks of slander. Women who have Elder wood in
-their houses will never be married. It is the elves who dwell in the
-Elder who are supposed to work all this mischief.
-
-Plants often rise superior to the curse which men place upon them.
-Probably every well-known plant, sometime in its history, has had
-attributed to it both good and evil. The deity of one nation may become
-the demon of another.
-
-Plant worship holds a more prominent place in the world today than one
-would at first thought imagine, and it is not altogether confined to
-uncultured peoples. Dr. George Birdwood tells of remarkable instances
-of modern flower worship he saw in Bombay. In describing the Victoria
-Gardens, he says: “Presently, a true Persian, in flowing robes of
-blue, and on his head his sheep-skin hat, ‘black, glossy, curl’d, the
-fleece of Kar-kal’, would saunter in, and stand and meditate over every
-flower he saw, and always, as if half in vision. And when the vision
-was fulfilled, and the flower he was seeking found, he would spread his
-mat and sit before it until the setting of the sun, then fold up his
-mat again and night after night, until that particular flower faded
-away, he would return to it, and bring his friends in ever-increasing
-troupes to it, and sit and play the guitar or lute before it, and they
-would altogether pray there, and after praying still sit before it,
-sipping sherbet, and talking the most hilarious and shocking scandal
-late into the moonlight; and so again and again every evening until the
-flower died. Sometimes, by way of grand finalé the whole company would
-suddenly rise before the flower and serenade it together, with an ode
-from Hafiz, and then depart.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XI
-
-PLANT MYTHOLOGY
-
-  “_I’ll seek a four-leaved clover
-  In all the fairy dells,
-  And if I find the charmed leaf,
-  Oh, how I’ll weave my spells._”
-
-
-Every Plant is surrounded by a halo of human thought. If one is
-able to discern that halo, he finds a new and fascinating interest
-attaching itself to each herb and flower. The most humble of them
-become fortune-tellers, luck-bringers, and talismen against evil, as
-well as dwelling-places of fairies, elves, imps, and other ethereal
-mischief-makers.
-
-In the childhood of humanity, the earth was a very romantic place. In
-addition to the familiar human inhabitants, there were whole races of
-supernatural and invisible beings which wielded great influence over
-the every-day world of affairs. Every plant was considered good or
-evil, according to the character of the spirits which it was believed
-to harbour.
-
-People of this practical age are inclined to look upon these stories
-with contemptuous intolerance. “We have outgrown such baby-talk,” they
-say, and forthwith relegate whole kingdoms of elfin hosts to their
-children’s nurseries, or possibly refuse them their homes entirely. But
-to a few discerning minds, these idle dreams of a romantic past offer a
-most refreshing contrast to present-day utilitarianism.
-
-The airy fancies of our forefathers should have a larger share in our
-thought today. A single flower myth contains more beauty and enduring
-appeal than a hundred steel mills. We must go back to the youth of the
-race,--to the time of Shakespeare, Milton, and gentle Ben Jonson,--for
-our noblest literature. In those days, men actually believed in
-fairies, goblins, and all the rest, and were probably better for having
-done so. We, with our broader intellectual outlook, can congratulate
-ourselves that we have advanced beyond such things, but still
-appreciate their spirit and their beauty.
-
-In studying plant mythology, it is interesting to notice that certain
-traditions and legends are to be found in all parts of the world
-and in many widely separated localities, forming, as it were, the
-ground-work of a great universal system of folklore. This would suggest
-that plant myths are founded mainly on true and inherent facts rather
-than on passing fancies. Almost all the nations have chosen the Rose
-for the queen of the floral court, and therefore the most fitting
-symbol of love. The White Lily has purity written on its spotless
-petals, and could never stand for anything else, anywhere. The Poppy is
-a brilliant, sensuous flower, quite suggestive of the narcotic excesses
-which its opium induces. Many extravagant plant beliefs of the past had
-their foundation in medicine. In the Middle Ages, quacks and charlatans
-used herbs having curative powers to exhort money from the masses. A
-few of the correctives were of real value, but there were thousands
-of out-and-out deceptions. Even so redolent and simple a thing as the
-common Onion was sometimes suspended in a room in the belief that it
-would draw all troublesome maladies out of the inmates. The first
-herbalists were priests, but gradually their art passed into the hands
-of professional outsiders, where it suffered greater and greater abuse.
-
-One ancient dogma taught that each plant possessed the power of healing
-one particular disease, made known by some outward sign or similiarity.
-Thus bright-eyed flowers were good for those with failing sight; red
-blossoms of all kinds would arrest nose-bleed; Turmeric, a very yellow
-dye, cured jaundice; plants with long, tubular flowers were excellent
-specifics for throat troubles.
-
-Many of these medicinal superstitions linger among the more simple
-of the earth’s inhabitants today. Dutch and English countrymen still
-believe that a Potato carried in the pocket is a sort of protective
-charm against rheumatism. In Ohio, the farmers sometimes wear a string
-of Job’s Tears seeds in an effort to cure goitre. In New England, the
-same magic charm is used to help babies through the troublesome period
-of teething.
-
-The devil and his evil spirits have always wielded a large influence
-over certain members of the plant kingdom. In Scotland, up until the
-seventeenth century, it was customary to allow a small section of each
-farm to lie untilled and uncropped as a peace offering to Satan. In
-certain English counties, children of today will not pick Blackberries
-after a certain date, believing that the Evil One has trampled them and
-made them poisonous to humans. German peasants, without batting an eye,
-will tell you that the devil, in one form or another, has the regular
-habit of stealing portions of their crops.
-
-Of plants that are dedicated to Satan, or more properly, which he
-has appropriated, there are many hundreds. Toadstools, because of
-their miraculously fast growth and fantastic shape, have always been
-associated with the kingdom of evil. It is not quite so apparent why
-other more beautiful plants are also handed over to Satan, though a
-reason can usually be found. The most alluring and gorgeous flowers are
-quite apt to be poisonous.
-
-In old Bohemia, the Belladonna was a favourite of the devil. He
-could be enticed from it on Walpurgis Night by letting loose a black
-hen, after which he ran. In Russia, people shun the Sow-Thistle as a
-devil-plant. Some Germans believe that evil spirits lurk in Lettuce
-beds. To the same people, the Herban is the “Devil’s Eye.” Many
-nationalities are quite sure that the Herb-Bennett, when kept in a
-house, takes its owners out from under the devil’s influence. Thistle
-is often used for the same purpose. The Greeks used to place a Laurel
-bough over their doors to ward off evil. There is an English Fungus
-called Lycoperdon, or Puff-Ball, which produces a mass of dusty spores
-not unlike snuff. The annoyance experienced by people in the vicinity
-of the bursting pods has led to the plant being called “Devil’s
-Snuff-Box.” Children use it for various amusing pranks.
-
-Closely allied to the devil-plants are the witch-plants, vegetable
-favourites of his human emissaries. The Elder is supposed to be a
-frequent meeting-place of these sinister hags; under its branches they
-bury their satanic offspring.
-
-The witches employ the deadly Night-Shade in their vile concoctions.
-It is reputed to spring from the foam of the vicious, many-headed
-dog which guards the infernal regions. The Vervain and the Rue are
-also ingredients. The fact that the former was at one time sacred to
-Thor, and was also used in the rituals of the Druids, is a possible
-explanation of its evil name. Rue as a narcotic capable of producing
-hallucinations, is most naturally a witch’s plant. Strange to say,
-both of these plants are sometimes used as charms _against_ witches.
-The Romans used the Vervain in casting lots, telling fortunes, and
-foreshadowing national events. Many other plants, ordinarily harmless,
-become the possessors of evil charms when gathered under certain
-circumstances. Thus, Shakespeare speaks of “root of hemlock digg’d i’
-the dark,” and “slips of yew sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse,” as being
-cast into the bubbling pot.
-
-The Fox Glove is “Witches’ Bell,” and is used by them to decorate
-their fingers. They employ the large Ragwort as a steed for their
-midnight journeys. In Ireland it is known as “Fairies’ Horse.” It
-is said that witches use Fern seed to make themselves invisible. In
-Germany they employ the Luck Flower for the same purpose. The Sea Poppy
-and the Moonwart (_Botrychium Lunaria_) are also numbered among the
-witch-plants. To the latter is also given the power of opening locks.
-
-In England, Pimpernel, Herb-Paris and Cyclamen are protections against
-witches. In Germany and many other continental countries, the St.
-John’s Wort is their enemy and exposer.
-
-The fairies have appropriated many flowers for their especial use.
-Despite the disbelief of latter days, to some people elfland still
-extends around the globe, and defies all the laws of chemistry and
-physics. It is still fairy midnight trippings which form those
-mysterious circles or depressions often to be noticed on the dewy sward
-of early morning. When the peasant girls of England go out into the
-meadows to beautify their complexions with applications of May dew,
-they always leave these mystic circles severely alone, for fear of
-offending the fays.
-
-Midnight is the fairy magic hour. At the trumpet call of the Harebell,
-they gallop to their meeting-places mounted on blades of Grass or
-on Cabbage leaves. Sometimes they assemble to the tolling of the
-Wood-Sorrel or “Fairy Bell”. For more extended migrations, they travel
-in Nuts. They usually dress in green and provide themselves with
-mantles of Gossamer. The Irish ones use Fox-Glove blossoms to cover
-their hands. In infancy, the fays are cradled in Tulips and throughout
-life, they use the Cowslip as a drinking cup, and seek shelter of the
-Wood-Anemone in wet weather.
-
-In some localities, it is believed that the fairies create the
-Toad-Stools. They are also reputed to gather colours from the sunset
-clouds, and with tiny but accurate brushes cover flower petals with
-their delicate tints. Fairies seldom reveal themselves to men, but the
-lucky possessor of a four-leafed Clover is sometimes privileged to see
-them.
-
-From time immemorial, men and maidens in love have sought the aid of
-their floral friends. Which of us is there who has not gone to the
-Daisy in some heart perplexity of youth, and made its petals say, “She
-loves me; She loves me not,” as we pulled them off one by one? An older
-and less known superstition says that an Apple seed placed on a hot
-stove will hop towards one’s future mate.
-
-In England, the Marigold is used for various love divinations, but in
-Germany it is carefully excluded from affairs of the heart. In that
-latter country the Star-Flower and the Dandelion are popular in such
-cases. There was a time when Peas were much in demand for sentimental
-forecasts. On opening a pod, the number of green spheres discovered had
-a special significance. The dwarves were supposed to be especially fond
-of Peas. Even the prosaic Onion has at times been used to explain the
-mysteries of the divine emotion.
-
-The Rose, most superb of flowers, has been extolled through all ages as
-the symbol of love. Incidentally, it is the national flower of England.
-The Scotch have a pretty ballad legend about Fair Margaret and Sweet
-William. The beautiful love of these two young people never realized
-itself in marriage. They both met an untimely death and were buried
-on either side of the neighbouring church. Soon there sprang up a
-climbing Rose vine from the grave of each, and meeting on the gable of
-the church, the lovers entwined in the lasting embrace which had been
-denied in life. Red Roses, because of their colour, have sometimes been
-supposed to have a relation to human blood. The medieval girl used to
-bury a few drops of her blood under a Rosebush in the hope that this
-action would bring her ruddy cheeks. The Romans used the Rose as the
-symbol of love for the dead. They placed it extensively on their tombs.
-
-In the past, there have arisen rumours of plants of wondrous properties
-which have been the mere inventions of glory-seeking travelers. Sir
-John Mandeville was a famous offender who even issued reports of trees
-which produced live animals in their fruits.
-
-The old Greeks used to decorate their tombs with Parsley. When a person
-was dangerously ill, it was often said, “He has need now of nothing but
-Parsley.”
-
-The humble Bean has at times been afforded superstitious reverence. It
-is said that Pythagoras forbade his disciples to eat it.
-
-The anxiety to secure good crops has led to many superstitious
-practices. In the pagan days of Germany and likewise in Rome, an image
-was carried around each field in order to insure its fertility. After
-the introduction of Christianity, the image of a saint was substituted
-for the heathen deity, and the practice continued.
-
-Again and again, the Onion, whose name today is only mentioned with
-bated breath, crops up among old plant superstitions. Because of its
-structure of enveloping sheaths, the Egyptians rightly considered
-it a splendid symbol of the universe. In Christian days, St. Thomas
-patronized it. Its cousin, the Leek, bears the blossom which Welshmen
-still hail as their national flower. It is worn by all loyal patriots
-on March first, St. David’s Day.
-
-The Thistle, Scotland’s national flower, was once sacred to Thor. In
-those days it was regarded as a safeguard against lightning, from which
-it got its colour. Ireland’s Shamrock belongs to the Trefoil family,
-and is sometimes called Dutch Clover, though the Wood-Sorrel is claimed
-by some to be the true Shamrock. St. Patrick once used it as a natural
-symbol of the trinity, through which it became nationalized.
-
-Superstitions of the four-leafed Clover have lingered in the
-imaginations of men almost more than those of any other plant. To be
-efficacious in bringing good luck, the little talisman must be found
-unawares. If slipped into the shoe of a lover, it will insure his safe
-return. The finding of a five-leaved Clover brings bad luck.
-
-Superstition plays its part in the evolution of knowledge, and
-speculation is the parent of modern science. Astrologers, reading the
-fortunes of nations and individuals in the stars, paved the way for the
-great and exact science of astronomy. Studious alchemists in searching
-for a cheap way to make gold, laid the foundations of the profound
-science of chemistry. In a similar way, the old herbalists, with their
-secret potions and mysterious compounds, were the instigators of the
-accurate study of medicine, and most important from our standpoint,
-were instruments which greatly advanced the love and growing
-appreciation of plants and flowers.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XII
-
-MYSTICISM IN THE PLANT WORLD
-
-  “_Who passeth by the Rosemarie
-    And careth not to take the spraye,
-  For woman’s love no care has he,
-    Nor shall he though he live for aye._”
-
-
-One day John G. Allen of Cherry, Arizona, went fishing along a small
-tributary of the River Verde. His skill with the rod seeming to fail
-him, he decided to make his outing profitable in other directions by
-hunting through some neighbouring cliff-dwellings for pottery. While
-wandering through those ancient and curious abodes, he accidentally
-discovered a section of wall which looked as though it might have
-been built to close a former opening. Careful investigation revealed
-the truth of this surmise, for, with a little perseverance, he broke
-through and removed enough stone to admit his body into a small room or
-recess, which contained some pottery and household utensils of extreme
-age.
-
-In one corner of this prehistoric place, Mr. Allen discovered a few
-Corn cobs and about a dozen Squash seeds. More as a joke than anything
-else, he planted twelve of the seeds the next spring.
-
-Eleven of them remained insensate to the revivifying influence of
-earth, sun and water, but the twelfth took courage and, bursting the
-walls which had imprisoned it for hundreds and possibly thousands of
-years, sprang up into a hardy, healthy vine, which eventually bore a
-huge, green, extremely warty Squash weighing nearly twenty-five pounds.
-This vegetable visitor from a shadowy age was named the “Aztec,” and
-attained great fame.
-
-There have been other and more striking instances of the suspended
-animation which permits plant life to lie quiescent for countless
-centuries, ready for an opportune time to resume the regular cycle of
-its existence. There are those who are always ready to cry “fraud,” and
-conclusively prove these marvels false, but there is abundant evidence
-to show that plant embryos can and, in some cases, do survive long
-periods of time.
-
-What a lesson lies in such phenomena! The power that can keep alive and
-unchanged the cells of a vegetable seed so many centuries is not likely
-to allow the soul of a man to perish. What an argument for immortality!
-What a breeder of strange and mysterious thoughts!
-
-There is much mysticism in the plant world. What man does not
-understand, he either holds in awe or contempt. The plants are too
-often treated with good-humoured derision, but among higher minds,
-their unintelligible factors give them a greater fascination--a mystery
-and a psychic interest which is very alluring.
-
-The plants seem to be closer in tune with Nature than man. They place
-themselves under her direct tutelage, and are extremely sensitive to
-her various moods and fancies. They respond to influences of weather
-and time with remarkable alacrity. The scarlet Pimpernel in particular,
-is an excellent barometer. At the least indication of rain, it folds
-its petals together in snug security, and, contrary to human beings,
-closes instead of opens the umbrella of its body. On a rainy day, it
-never unfolds at all, so eager is it to keep its petals dry.
-
-  “No heart can think, no tongue can tell,
-  The virtues of the Pimpernell.”
-
-The greatest of all floral barometers is the Weather-Plant or Indian
-Licorice (_Abrus Precatorius_). So keenly sensitive to all atmospheric
-conditions is this plant that it may be used to foretell cyclones,
-hurricanes, earthquakes, and even volcanic eruptions. Its small,
-rose-like leaves are in continual motion, which varies noticeably under
-different electrical and magnetic influences. The Austrian Professor
-Norwack, working at his Weather-Plant Observatory at Kew Gardens,
-London, once used it to predict a disastrous fire-damp explosion.
-
-Many flowers show a remarkable appreciation of the passage of time and
-open and close at regular hours each day. In fact, a close student
-of floral habits can actually tell the time of day by watching the
-actions of the flowers around him. It is said that the Swedish botanist
-Linnaeus once built himself a flower clock, arranged to count the
-passing hours by the folding and unfolding of different blossoms. One
-does not really need to go to this trouble. The common flowers of
-the field and garden are all accurate time-pieces. Long before the
-rising of the sun their activity begins; in fact even the night hours
-are all noticed by certain more obscure plants. Along about three in
-the morning, the dainty Goat’s-Beard wakes from sleep and spreads
-its petals. Promptly at four o’clock the Dandelion begins its day’s
-work. The Naked Stalked Poppy, the copper-coloured Day-Lily and the
-smooth Sow-Thistle are five o’clock risers. The Field Marigold is a
-slug-a-bed, and does not blink its sleepy eyes at the sun until ten
-o’clock. The Ice-Plant throws back its downy coverlets exactly at noon.
-
-Shortly after mid-day, the early risers begin to get tired, and
-prepare to sleep through the heat of the afternoon. Beginning with the
-Hawkweed Picris shortly after noon, and extending to the bed-time of
-the Chickweed at ten at night, every quarter hour sees the retirement
-of some particular flower. After sundown, the night owls make their
-appearance, and such plants as the Night-Blooming Cereus, the
-Moonflower, and the Datura check off the fleeting minutes. How can this
-marvelous acquaintance with the passage of time be explained in terms
-of cold materialism?
-
-Among plants which show a well-developed sense of direction, the
-Compass-Plant is probably the most remarkable. Its flowers, and
-sometimes the edges of its leaves, always point toward the north with
-the certainty of a magnet. Travelers have been known to use it as a
-natural guide.
-
-A great many plants perform remarkable acts which can only be explained
-by the possession of some measure of psychic sense or quality. Thus,
-a climbing plant in need of a prop will creep along the ground toward
-the nearest vertical support. If the support is shifted, the vine will
-promptly change the direction of its progress, and eventually reach the
-object of its desires.
-
-Inasmuch as it is positively known that plants are sensitive to light,
-it may be that, in this case, the vine actually perceives the support
-through a process akin to animal sight; but if a climbing plant finds
-itself growing between two mounds or ridges, and behind one there is
-a wall or some other means of support, and behind the other none, it
-will invariably bend its creeping steps over the ridge hiding the wall.
-The wall was invisible from the plant’s starting-point, and certainly
-betrayed its presence through no odour or other manifestation. In
-some mysterious way, the creeper simply knew that a vital necessity
-of its life lay in a certain direction. Ordinarily, we associate such
-phenomena with psychic influences. It is quite evident, that in certain
-ways, the plants display a very practical knowledge of such mysteries.
-
-For many years, man has instinctively been aware of this psychic
-superiority of the members of the vegetable kingdom, and has gone to
-them for advice in various troubles and difficulties, even sometimes
-believing the plants to have a direct control over the affairs and
-lives of men. While the great mass of such alleged influence is classed
-by modern thought as merest superstition, who can say that the wildest
-of these fancies does not contain certain germs of truth? At any rate,
-a brief investigation of some of the more popular beliefs of former
-years is very illuminating.
-
-In ancient days, many flowers and plants were supposed to possess
-the power of discovering the location of lost or hidden riches and
-conducting a human searcher to them. The Germans named the Primrose
-Schlüsselblume, or key-flower, in the belief that, if held in the
-hand, it would unlock to its possessor the location of buried treasure
-by some movement or other manifestation. To this day, many country
-people in Europe and America have implicit faith in the ability of the
-divining rod to seek out underground water. There are many enlightened
-folk who claim that reported successes of this method of picking
-well-sites are mere coincidences, but in view of the wide-spread
-reliance on this theory which is constantly meeting the most practical
-tests, would it not be open-minded to suggest that possibly the
-branches of the rod do make some slight movement toward the hidden
-water with which they have a natural affinity?
-
-As mentioned in a previous chapter, young people through all ages have
-gone to flowers for counsel when in love. The most frequent masculine
-question has been “Does she love me?” The flowers have given the answer
-in a variety of ways, most often by the number of their petals. The
-query of the very young girl usually has been “Will I be married?”
-and she has been sure to see that the reply is most often in the
-affirmative. In _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Oberon tells Puck to lay
-Pansies on Titania’s eyes in order that she may fall in love with the
-first person she sees upon awakening.
-
-There was a time when people placed great reliance upon the efficacy
-of dreams. Plants seen in dreams always had special significance.
-Among the various omens, general good fortune was indicated by Palms,
-Olives, Jessamines, Lilies, Laurels, Thistles, Currants and Roses. When
-flowers or fruit of the Plum, Cherry, Cypress and Dandelion appeared,
-misfortune was indicated. Withered Roses foretold especially dire
-events. “Nobody is fond of fading flowers.” A four-leaved Clover
-put under a pillow induced dreams of one’s lover. In parts of South
-America, the natives are said to smoke and eat certain intoxicating
-plants in the hope that they may see visions in the resulting narcotic
-dreams.
-
-Plants have not been the cause of very many ghost stories, but
-occasionally one hears of some mysterious night adventure of which some
-plant is the central figure.
-
-The Reverend S. H. Wainright of Japan tells a somewhat amusing tale of
-a ghost scare he and his family had while living at Tsukiji, Tokio.
-One evening, while sitting around the fire, they were considerably
-disturbed by a weird and recurring sound which seemed to come from the
-front yard. At first they took it for the creaking of a bamboo gate,
-then for boys throwing pebbles, but neither of these explanations
-seemed adequate. Finally, continual repetitions led to a search which
-located the noises in a Wistaria arbour near the front fence. On near
-approach, the loud taps sounded so much like stones striking the
-leaves, that it was decided to take no further notice of the matter.
-However, the problem weighed on Mr. Wainright’s mind, and he and his
-son at length sallied forth a third time, determined with Aristotle
-that the main thing was to know the causes.
-
-“We entered the side yard through the bamboo gate and approached the
-Wistaria. Underneath the Trellis arbour there were dark shadows and
-outlines were indistinct. A Palmyra Palm was growing in the corner
-of the fence under the arbour, and the fingers of one of the leaves
-pointing downward seemed to be the hand of a man. When expectation is
-running high, a fingered palm leaf may easily become the hand of a
-human being or of a shadowy ghost. We had the electric burners brought
-to the windows upstairs and the light thrown toward the arbour, and the
-shadows cast by the electric rays rendered the situation all the more
-mysterious.
-
-“The noises were plainly among the Wistaria vines. But, strange to
-say, the stones which seemed to be striking the vines came from no
-particular direction. They seemed to burst like shells the minute
-they struck and the pieces were heard to fall or strike in different
-directions. By this time the thought of ghosts had not only occurred to
-us but was gaining force in our minds. Indeed, a first-rate romance was
-developing--subjectively, I should no doubt add.”
-
-Again the party abandoned the quest, returned to their fireside,
-but could not rest content. “With a heroic determination of will, I
-declared that I would again go in search of the causes and not return
-until the secret had been found out. The lights were held by those who
-remained indoors at the upstairs windows. Two of us approached through
-the side yard the place of mystery. Step by step we advanced, stopping
-at intervals to listen. We could see nothing, but the noises we heard
-were unmistakable. There could be no deception as to their reality.
-Step by step, we drew nearer, peering in the meanwhile into the dark
-shadows beneath the Wistaria. The nearer we came to the arbour, the
-greater was the sense of mystery which possessed us. The noises were
-weird and inexplicable. As we came near, a discovery was made which
-excited us still more. After the explosion of the shells, white sabers
-seemed to fall upon the ground. Were the ghosts in battle? What could
-it all mean?
-
-“Loyal to the heroic determination to go straight to the seat of the
-trouble, I walked beneath the Wistaria arbour feeling an atmosphere
-charged with electricity as I went. We stood side by side looking
-about and waiting, when suddenly a Fuji pod exploded before our
-eyes. The seeds flew in different directions and the divided halves
-of the pod fell to the ground and lay like sabers dropped in the
-attack of battle. When the discovery was made, one of us called out
-to the upstairs window that it was the explosion of the Wistaria pods
-that caused the noises. There was a general laugh and the ghosts
-disappeared. Not affected by rain or darkness, by heat or cold, by
-human foot-steps or voice, there is one thing ghosts cannot endure; to
-be laughed at literally slays them.”
-
-In the Middle Ages, the Mandrake was a magical plant which was reputed
-to shine like a candle at night and thrive particularly well near the
-gallows. When pulled from the earth, it uttered uncanny shrieks, and
-according to Shakespeare “living mortals hearing them ran mad.”
-
-Two centuries ago it was believed that every plant, as well as every
-human being, was under the influence of some particular planet. The
-plants over which Saturn claimed an ascendency were characterized by
-ill-favoured leaves, ugly flowers and repellent odours. On the other
-hand the plants of Jupiter displayed smooth leaves and graceful,
-fragrant flowers. Today we believe that all plants belong to only one
-planet, and that is the planet earth.
-
-In the minds of agricultural folk, the moon has always had great
-influence over vegetation. There are many rules still extant regarding
-the proper time of that satellite’s phases in which to plant, reap
-and perform a hundred other rustic acts. A medieval superstition
-stated that when the moon was on the increase it imparted healing and
-medicinal qualities to all herbs. During its decline, the same plants
-generated poisons.
-
-The mystic qualities of the flowers have been responsible for their
-extensive ceremonial use throughout all history. Man attempts to
-express all his more subtle emotions by their sweetness and purity.
-He carries them alike to christenings, weddings and funerals, and
-invariably sends them to his best girl. It is recorded that a certain
-eastern king of antiquity was in the habit of offering a hundred
-thousand flowers each day before the idol of a favourite god.
-
-Flowers are still extensively used as signs and symbols. There are
-ponderous volumes written on the “Language of Flowers.” All the garden
-beauties have a natural symbolism written on their faces. Rosemary,
-with its lingering colour, is an eternal emblem of remembrance.
-“Violets dim but sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes or Cytherea’s
-breath” speak of modesty in quiet tones. The spotless Lily must always
-stand for purity.
-
-Other floral symbols have been chosen for more remote but quite
-apparent characteristics. Impatience is indicated by the Balsam
-seed-pods, which, when ripe, curl up at the slightest touch, and shoot
-forth their seeds with great violence. A popular name for the plant
-is “Touch-Me-Not.” The very name of Heliotrope tells of its constant
-turning toward the sun. It is often referred to as a symbol of devoted
-attachment. Aspen, because of its tremulous motion has been made a sign
-of fear. When people think of the Poppy and its narcotic product, they
-likewise think of sleep and oblivion. A less apparent symbol is found
-in the Wild Anemone, which is taken to denote brevity because its
-frail petals are soon scattered by the boisterous wind. The Snow-Drop,
-first flower of spring, peeping from its immaculate snow bank, is an
-unmistakable emblem of purity.
-
-The ancients were very liberal users of floral tokens; the Chinese,
-Assyrians and Egyptians had many identical beliefs on the subject. The
-Olive was and still is the universal badge of peace. Laurel was the
-classic sign of renown with which the brows of prominent athletes and
-statesmen were crowned. The Cypress was often an index of mourning. The
-Rose and the Myrtle, having been dedicated to Venus, were insignias
-of love. The Palm was a wide-spread representation of victory. Bible
-students will recall that Palms were scattered before Jesus Christ on
-the occasion of his triumphant entry into Jerusalem.
-
-In their enthusiasm, flower-lovers have sometimes allowed their
-imagination to carry them into unnatural and artificial symbolism. It
-is not difficult to associate the White Lily with purity but when we
-are told that the Flowering Almond represents hope, the Common Almond
-indiscretion and stupidity, and the Floral Almond perfidity, one is
-reduced to looking up this curious code in an indexed book. When each
-variety of the Rose family has different and fluctuating significance,
-a swain hesitates to summon the floral language of love to his aid.
-
-Many people believe that peculiar mystic attachments exist between
-certain birds and flowers. The Persians claim that whenever a Rose
-is plucked, the nightingale utters a plaintive cry as if to protest
-against the wounding of the object of its love. Many other birds show
-marked affection for various plants.
-
-In the same manner, almost every man and woman has his or her favourite
-flower. Certain persons of a temperamental type are often emotionally
-affected by the presence of flowers with which they appear to have
-a mysterious psychic connection. Certain people claim to be able to
-discern such marked similiarity between human beings and various flower
-affinities that they undertake to liken various prominent people to
-different blossoms. There is much chance for scientific investigation
-in this field. With Perdita we at least know that “flowers of middle
-summer should be given to men of middle age, but for our young prince
-we want flowers of the spring that may become his time of day.”
-
-Sometimes, through sentimental attachment, whole peoples elect certain
-flowers to represent them before the world. Thus the United States has
-chosen the Goldenrod for its national floral emblem, while the Rose of
-England, the Thistle of Scotland, the Shamrock of Ireland, and the Leek
-of Wales act in the same capacity for the British Isles.
-
-Man paid a high compliment to the mystic veneration in which he holds
-the plant world when he, in his primitive beliefs, invariably conceived
-of heaven as some terrestrial paradise of luxurious vegetation. The
-Persians had their Mount Caucasus; the Arabians dreamed about an
-Elysium in the Desert of Arden; the Greeks and Romans had bright mental
-pictures of the Gardens of Hesperides; and the Celts hoped to spend
-their postmortem existence on an enchanted isle of wondrous beauty.
-
-Such beliefs have fallen into disuse, but man is still a long way off
-from a solution of the various mystic phenomena of the plant world.
-Botanists should leave off indexing and classifying plants for a while
-and endeavour to discover the subtle and fascinating laws of their
-psychic existence.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIII
-
-PLANT INTELLIGENCE
-
-  “_The Marigold goes to bed with the sun,
-  And with him rises weeping._”--_Shakespeare_
-
-
-It is no new thing to believe in the existence of intelligence among
-plants. As far back as Aristotle, various great minds in the earth’s
-history have ascribed definite, thinking acts to our floral and
-vegetable friends. Not a few have seen unmistakable evidences of soul
-in plantdom. Even the most skeptical have become aware of many things
-they cannot explain in purely mechanistic terms.
-
-We are still living in an age which has deified human wisdom. Man
-has built up vast systems of knowledge and law, all based on his own
-deep-rooted convictions. He approaches every subject with apriori
-beliefs and presumptions. He is slow to acknowledge thinking powers to
-his companion creatures of a terrestrial universe.
-
-[Illustration: ALLIES OF THE DESERT ARM THEMSELVES WITH PRICKLES AND
-THORNS AGAINST THEIR ANIMAL ENEMIES]
-
-To a person on a country road, the wayside trees and flowers are
-too often mere happenings or creations. Their ways are so quiet and
-undemonstrative, that, if he has never been taught differently, he
-rarely thinks of classifying them as independent, free-acting beings.
-The fact that they are anchored to the soil seems to remove them from
-the realm of self-willed creation. Yet why should it? Are fishes not
-doomed to pass all their days in the chemical combination of hydrogen
-and oxygen we call water? Does not the delicate Canary die if the air
-surrounding it goes below a certain temperature?
-
-The fact is that many plants exhibit all the elemental qualities of
-human intelligence and also have vague psychic expressions of their own
-which we only understand in a very limited way.
-
-What causes the radicle or root of the smallest sprouting seedling
-always to grow down and the plumule or stem always to grow up? It
-cannot be gravity because that great earth pull would affect both parts
-equally. This same radicle, when it has developed into a full-fledged
-root, feels and pushes its way through the earth in a marvellous
-fashion searching out water and traveling around obstructions with
-unerring exactness. The slightest pressure will serve to deflect it;
-aerial roots have been observed to avoid obstacles without actually
-coming in contact with them. The plants use their roots to feel their
-way to moisture and nourishment just as a man would feel his way with
-his hands. The great Darwin, himself, wrote many years ago: “It is
-hardly an exaggeration to say that the tip of the radicle thus endowed,
-and having the power of directing the movements of the adjoining parts,
-acts like the brain of one of the lower animals.”
-
-In the same way, plant tendrils seek and search out the best supports,
-after the manner of animal tentacles. When fully wound around a prop,
-they drag the body of the plant up after them.
-
-Practically all plants show a full knowledge of the importance of
-sunlight to their life processes. They usually strain all their
-energies and exert all their ingenuity in an effort to display as great
-a leaf surface as possible. That this action is not always purely
-instinctive is indicated by the response of certain carnivorous plants
-to light. Having learned that success in capturing their prey depends
-upon a static position of their leaves, they make no effort to adjust
-their parts to strong or concentrated light. This is clearly a case of
-intelligent adjustment to environment.
-
-It is interesting to note that the plant cells which are sensitive to
-light often become tired or partially blinded just like the retina of
-an animal eye. Darwin found that plants kept in darkness were much more
-responsive to light than those which dwelt habitually in the sunshine.
-
-Many plants are wonderful weather prophets and keepers of time. Their
-reactions to the coming of night, showers, heat, cold and other
-natural phenomena show much wisdom. That plants require the rest which
-accompanies sleep is indicated by the weakened and degenerate condition
-of individuals which are sometimes forced to exceptionally rapid
-development by continual exposure to electric light.
-
-A human faculty which few people associate with plants, is an acute
-sense of taste. How else do the plants know what elements to absorb out
-of the soil? Certain experiments have enabled investigators to discover
-marked taste preferences of a number of microscopic plants. Bacteria
-are exceptionally fond of kali salts. Though they thrive equally well
-on glycerine, they can be lured from it at any time by the toothsome
-kali solution.
-
-A sense of taste plays a remarkable part in the fecundation of Moss.
-The male element is composed of swift-swimming cells equipped with
-vibratory hairs. When deposited by the wind or other means on the cups
-of the female flower, they swim about in the moisture until they are
-eventually enticed to the unfertilized eggs at the bottom by their
-taste for malic acid. That this is no idle theory can be proved in the
-laboratory. The seed-animalcules of some of the Ferns also are urged to
-the act of impregnation by their preference for the sugar in the seed
-cups.
-
-All through the plant world we see actions and habits which are the
-reverse of automatism or mere instinctive response. Every plant
-continually has to meet new and trying conditions, and while its
-reactions, just like those of man, are frequently in the terms of
-racial and individual experience, it is constantly called upon to make
-new and novel decisions.
-
-Consider the intelligence of a wild Service Tree described by
-Carpenter. As a seed, it sprouted in the crotch of an Oak, and at once
-sent a lusty root down toward the earth. As it descended the Oak trunk
-and neared the ground, its further progress was barred by a large stone
-slab. It is authentically recorded, that, when still one and one-half
-feet away, the tip of the root, by direct perception or occult means,
-discovered the presence of the obstruction, and, at once splitting into
-two equal branches, passed on either side of the stone.
-
-A more remarkable case is that of a tropical Monstera, which, coming
-into life on top of a greenhouse, sent canny and vigorous roots
-directly down to certain water tanks on the ground.
-
-Isolated instances of plant intelligence might be mere coincidences if
-it were not for the fact that they multiply greatly the further one
-investigates. The common Potentillas and Brambles show remarkable
-sagacity in searching out hidden veins of soil among the rocks where
-they grow. Nothing is more ingenious than the way in which Hyacinths,
-Primroses and Irises smother competitive seedlings by putting forth
-large, low-lying leaves to cut off the light of neighbours.
-
-Plants are great inventors, and by continual experimentation have
-perfected thousands of ingenious devices to help them in their life
-struggles. Many of these have to do with the all-important processes
-of reproduction and cross-fertilization. The elaborate organs which
-oftentimes force visiting insects to aid the flowers in their
-love-making are conclusive proofs of directing intelligence. If, as is
-generally believed, vegetable life preceded animal life on this planet,
-then the plants must have developed these special reproductive organs
-in which insects act as the fertilizing agents as direct attempts to
-benefit the race by cross-breeding.
-
-While cross-fertilization is vitally necessary for the maintenance of
-a vigorous and hardy stock, inbreeding either between flowers of the
-same plant or even between the organs of a single bi-sexual flower is
-often practiced. In the love-making of the Grass of Parnassus and the
-Love in the Mist (_Nigella_), we have a very pretty and intelligent
-act. The flowers are unisexual and, as the females usually grow on
-much longer stalks than the males, the latter would not have much
-chance of showering their pollen on their consorts, if it were not for
-the fact that, at the proper season, without outside stimulation, the
-“tall females bend down to their dwarf husbands.” This surely is as
-intelligent and conscious as the mating of animals.
-
-The carnivorous plants act with uncanny wisdom. The insect-devouring
-Sundews pay no attention to pebbles, bits of metal, or other foreign
-substances placed on their leaves, but are quick enough to sense the
-nourishment to be derived from a piece of meat. Laboratory specimens
-have been observed to actually reach out toward Flies pinned on cards
-near them. So highstrung are these sensitive organisms that they can
-be partially paralyzed if certain spots on their leaves are pricked.
-
-Many people have no hesitancy in ascribing considerable intelligence
-to the higher animals; why do they balk at making the same concession
-to plants? If you concede intelligence to a single animal, you
-concede _some measure_ of brain-power to all animals down to the
-one-celled Amoeba, and so must grant the same favour to the plant
-world. Plants and animals, besides having many habits in common,
-in their simplest forms are often indistinguishable. Both reduce
-themselves to single-celled masses of protoplasm. The Myxomycetes are
-both so plant-like and at the same time so animal-like that their
-classification “depends rather on the general philosophical position of
-the observer than on facts.” Possibly they are both animal and plant at
-the same time--a sort of “missing link” connecting the two kingdoms of
-life.
-
-Anent the same question Edward Step says, “Modern thought denies
-consciousness to plants, though Huxley was bold enough to say that
-every plant is an animal enclosed in a wooden box; and science has
-demonstrated that there is no distinction between the protoplasm of
-animals and plants, and that if we get down to the very simplest forms
-in which life manifests itself we can call them animals or plants
-indifferently.”
-
-When one considers the rooted, plant-like life of Mollusks and Hermit
-Crabs, and then the active, animal-like life of the free-swimming Moss
-spores and the wind-borne Fungi, he is tempted to wonder if, after all,
-this talk of plants and animals, is not just another of man’s arbitrary
-classifications, which may be superceded in time by some other system
-of nomenclature.
-
-Of only one thing are we sure, and that is that all life is one--an
-expression of the intelligence and power which pervades the universe.
-
-Many readers may vaguely feel and believe these facts and yet not be
-certain that plants are individually and personally intelligent; long
-training makes them still feel that the many admittedly clever and
-ingenious acts recorded every day in plantdom are but the indications
-of some external mind or force working through Nature. The plants act
-in certain ways because they have no choice in the matter; they are
-passive tools in the hands of such craftsmen as “instinct,” “heredity,”
-and “environment.” The answer to this is that you can ascribe an
-exactly similar fatalistic interpretation to every human thought, word
-or deed. What you consider the freest decision of will you made today
-can be shown conclusively to be the result of a long train of acts and
-influences which stretches back to Adam. It would have been impossible
-for you to have acted differently.
-
-Such blanket reasoning leads nowhere. If you believe that you are a
-free, independent, decision-making soul (and who does not?) logically
-you must grant the same rights to the humble Squash.
-
-Even in the terms of man’s own science, the plants can be shown to be
-intelligent. The psychologist Titchner classifies the three stages of
-mental processes as (1) Sensations (2) Images and (3) Affections. The
-term “affection” is here used in the special sense of a capacity for
-entering into intellectual states of pleasure or pain.
-
-In view of what has already been said, it hardly seems necessary to
-prove the existence of sensation in plants. The very fact that all life
-is a constant response to stimuli and the adjustment to environment
-presupposes the existence of plant sensation. Only a few hours passed
-in the investigation of plant habits will show our vegetable friends
-giving definite responses to heat, cold, moisture, light, and touch,
-while laboratory experiments show their sensitive powers of taste and
-hearing.
-
-The touch sense of the Sundew is developed to such an extent that it
-can detect the pressure of a human hair one twenty-fifth of an inch
-long. The tendrils of the Passion Flower attempt to coil up at the
-slightest contact of the finger and as quickly flatten out upon its
-removal. The stamens of the Opuntia or Prickly Pear have specialized
-papillae of touch exactly similar to the papillae of the Hermione Worm.
-When rubbed by the body of an insect, they transmit an impulse which
-causes the anthers to let loose a shower of pollen on the intruder.
-The animal world cannot exhibit a higher sensitiveness to touch than
-that displayed by the celebrated Venus Fly-Trap. On each side of the
-leaf midrib stand three sharp little bristles. They are the sense
-organs controlling the closing of the vegetable spring. Quick must an
-insect be to escape their vigilance.
-
-Sensation and imagery are so closely connected in the human brain that
-the existence of one would seem to predicate the other. Fortunately, we
-have very good evidence to indicate the faculty of plant memory, which
-must necessarily be built up of images of one kind or another.
-
-If a plant which is accustomed to folding its leaves together in sleep
-on the setting of the sun, be placed in a completely dark room, it
-will continue to decline and elevate its foliage at regular intervals,
-indicating that it remembers the necessity for rest even with the
-reminder of outside stimuli lacking.
-
-By what faculty do plants become aware of the approach of spring?
-Only occasionally are they deceived by January thaws, and no matter
-how unseasonably cold a March may be, they go right ahead with the
-preparation of April buds and leaves. So accurate is plant knowledge
-about the seasons that Alpine flowers often bore their way up through
-long-lingering snow, even developing heat with which to melt the
-obstruction, when they feel that spring has really come. What gives
-plants such courage in the face of contradicting elements, if not an
-accurate sense of the passage of time and therefore the memory of other
-seasons, which implies imagery?
-
-Until we develop a workable system of thought communication with
-plants, we can never scientifically prove that plants are capable
-of psychological “affections” or emotions. Mental states are purely
-personal matters. We would never be sure that any other human being
-went through feelings of love, anger, hate and pity, similiar to our
-own, if he were not able to tell us of them. Until the plants can
-describe to us their inner emotions, we can never definitely know
-whether they have real feelings, and if they parallel the human variety
-in any degree. But just as we have become able to read a man’s mental
-processes by his facial expressions, tone of voice and bodily posture,
-so we can guess at plant emotion by external manifestations. When a
-flower greets the morning sun with expanded petals, uplifted head and
-a generally bright appearance, why should we not say it is happy and
-contented? When an approaching storm causes a plant to droop its body
-and contract its petals and leaves into the smallest compass possible,
-why is not fear, apprehension and melancholy indicated? When the jaws
-of the Venus Fly-Trap close on its hapless victim, they must do so with
-a savage joy akin to that of a Tiger springing on its prey.
-
-There are those who relegate a certain amount of intelligence to plants
-but deny them consciousness. They are unwilling to admit that plants
-are aware of their own physical and mental processes. This would
-seem to be the merest quibbling over terms and an entrance into that
-metaphysics which does away with all consciousness.
-
-If plants were not conscious, at least under stimulation, they would
-have long since perished from the earth through inability to react to
-new conditions. Francis Darwin says: “We must believe that in plants
-exists a faint copy of what we know as consciousness in ourselves.”
-Many scientists believe that life and consciousness always precede and
-are superior to organization. It is urged that possibly many plants
-possess consciousness without self-consciousness or introspection.
-
-After a thoughtful consideration of such facts as these, only the
-blindest prejudice can continue to laugh at plant intelligence. Why
-then has the world of human thought been so long and reluctant to
-acknowledge it? Simply because it always reasons along authentic and
-established lines. For many years it has been taught to associate
-animal movement with special groups of cells called muscles and
-intelligence with special groups of cells called nerve tissue. Failing
-to find any trace of nerve tissue in plants, it ignores a hundred
-convincing facts to the contrary, and declares that plant intelligence
-is a myth. Failing to detect a _mechanism_ of sensibility, it denies
-the existence of sensibility, even though in the little Mimosa the
-sense of touch travels from leaf to leaf before our eyes.
-
-It must be realized that the animal brain merely acts as the electrical
-motor for the life-power which drives the universe. This motor and all
-of its auxiliaries are absent in Protozoa and other one-celled animals,
-but the power is not. In the same way, they are absent throughout all
-plantdom, but the eternal life principle manifests itself in many
-mighty acts.
-
-What is a nervous system, anyhow? It is a group of cells, the
-specialized function of which is to transmit impulses from one to
-the other by certain obscure chemical reactions. Why cannot ordinary
-tissue cells do the same thing, possibly in a feebler, less efficient
-way? Plant cells are all joined together by fine connecting strands,
-forming a “continuity of protoplasm” through which such impulses could
-readily travel. Whether investigators agree to this or not, it is an
-indisputable fact that it is true.
-
-Though science is now beginning to verify the fact of plant
-intelligence most conclusively great and independent thinkers of all
-times have long felt its truth. Certain minds are always in advance
-of their age. While science laboriously proves every step of its way
-with painstaking and commendable exactness, they are soaring far ahead
-in new and fascinating fields. Sometimes they go astray, but quite as
-frequently they are the pioneers of great and progressive ideas.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIV
-
-THE HIGHER LIFE OF PLANTS
-
-  “_I swear I think now that everything, without exception,
-    has an immortal soul!
-  The trees have, rooted in the ground! the weeds of the sea
-    have! the animals!
-  I swear I think there is nothing but immortality!_”
-
-  --_Walt Whitman_
-
-
-Maurice Maeterlinck, in one of his delightful essays, pays a remarkable
-tribute to the spiritual powers of plants.
-
-“Though there be plants and flowers that are awkward or unlovely,” he
-says, “there is none that is wholly devoid of wisdom and ingenuity. All
-exert themselves to accomplish their work, all have the magnificent
-ambition to overrun and conquer the surface of the globe by endlessly
-multiplying the form of existence which they represent. To attain this
-object, they have, because of the law which chains them to the soil, to
-overcome difficulties much greater than those opposed to the increase
-of animals.... If we had applied to the removal of the various
-vicissitudes which crush us, such as pain, old age, and death, one-half
-the energy displayed by any little flower in our gardens, we may well
-believe that our lot would be very different from what it is.”
-
-No truer thought was ever set on paper. Though man prides himself upon
-his imagined superiority to non-human creation, and even denies the
-capacity for the higher things of life to animals and plants, he, in
-reality, nearly always shows himself vastly inferior to them in actual
-applications of moral and spiritual principles.
-
-Have the plants souls and spirits? No man who has carefully and
-conscientiously studied them can wholly deny it. They exhibit a pluck,
-a determination, a moral perseverance which awaken all our admiration.
-Where we are weak, they are strong. Where men would lie down and die,
-they go steadily forward. When a plant perishes in the struggle for
-existence, it is because the odds have been too great. To make the most
-of heredity and environment is an axiomatic rule in plantdom.
-
-Man’s mind has developed at the expense of man’s body. The plants
-always maintain an admirable balance between the two. There are
-degenerates and unscrupulous individuals among them, but they never
-forget that their first duty is to themselves. Self-culture is with
-them a passion. Whoever heard of a plant over-eating or over-drinking
-or giving way to any of those indulgent vices which are the bane of the
-human world? They have their faults, but they are sources of strength
-rather than weakness.
-
-In relation to its companions of the vegetable realm, the Murderer
-Liana is a double-dyed villain, yet it is only practicing in an open
-and frank way, the food-getting methods, which all life, by its very
-nature, is forced to adopt. To live by the destruction of others is the
-sad lot of both the smallest plant and the most highly developed animal.
-
-Aside from the peculiarly human susceptibility to self-indulgence, it
-is hard to find a single spiritual trait not exhibited by some member
-of the plant kingdom.
-
-Love? There is no higher devotion than that shown by the water plant
-called Vallisneria. The female flowers reach the surface of the water
-at the end of long, tapering, spiral-like stalks, but the males are
-compelled to remain far down near the bottom. At the flowering season,
-the males, responding to the universal mating instinct, deliberately
-break themselves from their stalks and rise to the surface to be near
-their loves for a little while. All too soon, however, they are carried
-away by unruly currents to an untimely death, leaving behind them, in
-their pollen, the principle from which another generation of their
-species shall arise. They have presented themselves a living sacrifice
-on the altar of love.
-
-Courage? Think of all the hardy trees which dwell in the high and cold
-places of the earth--places that are so exposed and desolate that the
-trees and plants find it necessary to contract themselves into the
-smallest possible compass, often living largely underground. On the
-other hand, think of the death-defying Cacti which live in infernos of
-the desert heat and dryness and yet put forth flowers of joy.
-
-Faith? Hope? What sustains the perennials through long, bleak winters
-and makes them sure of the promise of spring? When the Alpine flowers
-are so positive that spring has really come that they push their
-inquiring heads up through the snow which still covers the mountains,
-they are showing a superhuman faith, literally risking death in order
-that they may get a strong and early start in life.
-
-Charity? When trees like the Oak and the Maple allow a whole multitude
-of lesser plants to dwell in the snugness of their shadows, they are
-showing forth some of the kindly qualities of plantdom. If they chose
-to they could discourage lowly neighbours after the manner of the
-monopolistic Beech or the aristocratic Pine.
-
-Name a human sin or virtue, good quality or bad, and one does not
-have to search far in the plant world for its counterpart. Along with
-kindness, mercy, gratitude, submissiveness, and parental love we also
-find cruelty, hard-heartedness, ingratitude, arrogance and neglect
-of offspring. Even at that, the credit side always exceeds the debit
-and no plant is guilty of self-destruction. It must be borne in mind,
-that what we call sin and malignity are to them legitimate courses of
-action.
-
-If plants have every property of the human soul, why have men been so
-slow to admit their kinship with the trees and the flowers? Life, law
-and love are divine and bind man to all creation. He is spiritually
-as well as physically related to the plants. In the past, he has
-endeavoured to set himself apart from Nature and look down upon her
-as upon another world. Because he has a brain, he has imagined that
-anything which has none cannot possibly possess an intelligence and an
-inner life. To uphold this theory he has shut his eyes to a thousand
-denying facts.
-
-All plants and animals of whatever kind begin life on exactly the same
-level. The wayside Daisy and the Human Being both start their earthly
-careers as single cells. In both cases, there is no visible machinery
-of life and consciousness, yet we can say “Here is a potential Daisy.
-Here is a potential Man.” The wonderful, all-pervading spirit of life
-belongs to both.
-
-The language of the Bible classifies man with all life under the Hebrew
-term _Nephesh chayiah_, that is, living soul or creature. The Old
-Testament favours a rigorous protection of animals and plants against
-wanton destruction. Is not the equality of the three kingdoms of life
-hinted at in the following passage from Jonah?
-
-“Thou hast had pity on the Gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured,
-neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a
-night.”
-
-“And I shall not spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than
-six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand
-and their left hand and also much cattle.”
-
-Some marvelous experiments carried on by Sir Jaghadish Chaundra Bose in
-Calcutta, India, offer interesting light on the higher life of plants.
-By exceptionally delicate and ingenious instruments, Sir Jaghadish has
-been able to measure the plant movements associated with growth, shock
-and response to stimuli in general. He has come to the conclusion that
-plants not only have a conscious intelligence, but have their good and
-bad days, their moods, their whims. He believes they react to slight or
-pleasurable stimuli by general expansion. Violent stimuli cause pain
-and contraction. A plant struck a blow quivers and shakes in veritable
-agony. Plants about to die undergo a violent spasm and then by making
-no response at all to outside influences, show that they have actually
-given up the ghost.
-
-Sir Jaghadish is satisfied that a plant pulled up by the roots
-experiences a shock comparable to that of a man being beaten into
-insensibility. Many trees and plants, as every gardener knows, fail to
-survive transplanting and die from pure shock, even if their tissue has
-been in no way injured. Sir Jaghadish has performed the interesting
-experiment of administering a powerful chemical to act as an anesthetic
-to trees about to be transplanted. Such specimens have stood the
-re-location well but in some cases have shown an apparent loss of
-memory and a general state of upset habit, exactly as would a man or
-animal coming out of a stupor.
-
-All this strongly suggests a soul or driving spiritual force in every
-living creature. Regarding its exact nature there are many opinions.
-Maeterlinck believes that there is a general scattered intelligence, a
-sort of universal fluid, which penetrates all organisms in an amount
-proportionate to their conductivity. Man offers the least resistance
-to the divine principle and so receives a generous share. The plants
-receive lesser amounts, but really belong to the same intellectual
-order. They exhibit the same ideas, the same hopes, the same logic
-and undergo the same trials in a lesser degree than their more
-educated brothers. The plants and man both grope, hesitate and correct
-themselves in their labourious evolutionary development.
-
-Of course, this theory is only a conjecture, but is very appealing and
-much more modest than the traditional attitude which assumes that man
-is a miraculous and marvelously endowed being fallen from another world
-and therefore lacking any definite ties with the rest of terrestrial
-life.
-
-If then we believe that a vital spiritual force dwells within every
-plant, what becomes of it after the death of its enclosing walls? Each
-cell of a tree in effect dies many times each season. Continual waste
-and renovation bring periodic transformation of cell structure. The
-abode is changed but not the inhabitant. There must be an animating,
-non-physical force which carries on the cycle. If it is superior to
-the forces of bodily dissolution, must it not also be infinite,
-immortal?
-
-With so many modern people doubting (or pretending to doubt) the
-immortality of man, it may seem presumptuous to claim immortality for
-the plants, yet that is the unescapable conclusion to which the writers
-of this book are driven. All life is one, indivisible and inseparable.
-There is a divine spark in every living creature and it is reasonable
-to expect it to live beyond death. Immortality by reproduction is not
-enough. If it were true that the eternal principle continually passes
-from parent to offspring, and that when the parent dies, he is dead
-spiritually as well as physically, then we should expect immediate
-degeneracy and death after reproduction takes place. That a portion
-of soul essence descends through countless generations we do not
-doubt, but each plant and animal is also a spiritual entity. Man and
-plants are both tools in the hands of Maeterlinck’s all-prevailing
-intelligence. Yet man feels that he is a free agent. Why not the plants
-also?
-
-Every plant has racial and family traits, and each one also has a
-marked personality. If immortality is a fulfilling, a conserving
-continuance of the present earthly existence, then the plants deserve
-and have a right to expect a chance for infinite development.
-
-The plants serve to make this earth a floral paradise. Why should they
-not be equally necessary in a world of spirit? It is to man’s credit
-that he has always pictured heaven as a place made beautiful by great
-hosts of trees and flowers.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XV
-
-PLANTS AND MEN
-
-            “_Our human souls
-  Cling to the grass and water brooks._”
-
-  --_Athanase_
-
-
-The average city man gives little thought or attention to his vegetable
-neighbours, yet their continued existence is quite as vital to him as
-the air he breathes. Directly or indirectly he is utterly dependent
-upon them.
-
-Every time he sits down to a dinner table, he is paying an unconscious
-tribute to the food-producing abilities of plantdom. In a general
-way, plants are the world’s food producers and the animals are the
-consumers. Plants are able to build up living tissue from inorganic
-material. Animals must prey upon that elaborated structure to keep
-themselves alive. Plants separate oxygen from carbon dioxide and water,
-thereby storing up sunshine as potential energy. Animals reverse the
-process, and, re-combining oxygen with the plant tissue, liberate
-heat and power. In a desert region, animals soon perish, because even
-carnivorous species live on herbivorous fellows which in turn are
-eaters of plants. This is why the distribution of men and animals is so
-greatly influenced by that of plants.
-
-For clothing man depends partly upon such plant-products as Cotton and
-Flax and partly on plant-fed animals which yield him silk, wool and
-leather. The great plant structures of the forest give him the chief
-materials which go into the construction of his ships and houses, with
-all their appurtenances. The bodies of plants, recently alive or the
-bodies of plants long since dead furnish fuel for cooking, heating and
-power. Drugs are very largely of vegetable origin. In brief, the plants
-feed, clothe, shelter, and warm mankind.
-
-Man has made many plants his servants. His first attention was
-naturally given to such species as he could use for food. Two thousand
-years ago, the ancients were growing practically all the food plants
-that are known today. Maize, Potatoes, Rice, Beans, Dates and Bananas
-have been cultivated for an even longer period. Fodder plants,
-calculated to furnish food for man’s domestic animals, were the next to
-receive attention, and following those, medical plants, edible fruits,
-garden vegetables and aromatic leaves and seeds, such as Tea and
-Coffee, came to the fore.
-
-When we consider that plants display superior powers in so many
-directions and, as F. L. Sargent says, “do to perfection so many
-things we cannot do at all,” it is really remarkable that man has
-so completely subjected them to his will. Because of their static
-condition, they are quite helpless in his hands. He levels their
-grandest forests and burns their widest prairies. Certain plants he
-makes his pets, fighting their enemies and nurturing them in the most
-careful way. The tender Wheat would never be able to occupy the vast
-stretches it does through its own strength. Under man’s guidance and
-protection, its volume is increased a thousand fold.
-
-The vast changes which human efforts make in the surface of the earth
-have a correspondingly important effect on vegetation. Every time a
-tract of woods is cut down, every time a lake is drained, every time a
-field is plowed--whenever any alteration is made in the landscape--the
-vegetation is affected. Sometimes this disturbance of the natural order
-of things becomes a serious menace, as in the case of deforestation.
-The welfare of the world is bound up with the welfare of the plants.
-
-About a hundred years ago, a certain section of forest in France was
-levelled. It contained Oak, Beech, and Ash. The new trees to spring
-up were Birch and Poplar. After thirty years they too were felled
-and young shoots of the same species immediately came up, with a few
-descendants of the original growth reappearing. It was not until the
-third clearing or ninety years after the original cutting that the Oaks
-and Beeches began to regain their lost prestige. This is a good example
-of the effect that human operations have on the plant world. Wholesale
-cuttings tend to change the chemical composition of the soil by
-withdrawing certain elements, thereby causing other species to flourish
-which do not need this material.
-
-When it comes to plants grown in nurseries and conservatories,
-gardeners are often able to make almost unbelievable changes in floral
-and vegetable form and structure. There has been much experimentation
-of recent years in connection with the effect of light, both natural
-and artificial, on plant processes. In general, it has been established
-that it is just as injurious for a plant to have too much light as
-too little. Steady exposure to light makes for accelerated growth of
-tissue. Lessening light speeds up flowering and reproduction. Control
-over a plant’s light supply therefore means that the manipulator
-can produce at will either large, luxuriantly foliaged plants which
-flower late, or from the same seed develop small specimens blooming
-exceptionally early.
-
-Man is not content with merely controlling the external conditions
-which affect vegetation but often steps into their internal processes
-and moulds their life-forces at their very fountainhead. By the simple
-methods of selection and cross-breeding, he is able to work miracles
-with the laws of heredity, and bridge in a few years gaps which a plant
-would have taken centuries to span by ordinary evolutionary processes.
-
-Luther Burbank is the modern garden wizard who has attained the
-greatest distinction in this field. He says: “There is no barrier to
-obtaining fruits of any size, form or flavour desired, and none to
-producing plants and flowers of any form, colour or fragrance; all that
-is needed is a knowledge to guide our efforts in the right direction,
-undeviating patience and cultivated eyes to detect variations of value.”
-
-Burbank has many times shown that he has the knowledge, patience and
-cultivated eye in a superlative degree. He claims to only apply old
-methods in a new way, but his results have been phenomenal. In fruits
-he has produced many new varieties of Apples, Pears, Peaches, Apricots,
-Plums, Prunes, Cherries and Quinces. His Plumcot is a delicious cross
-between a Plum and an Apricot. Out of the Dewberry and a Siberian
-Raspberry he compounded what he calls the Primus Berry. A Dewberry plus
-a Cuthbert Raspberry equals a Phenomenal Berry. One Lawton Blackberry
-and one Crystal White Blackberry make one Paradox Berry.
-
-Among the Burbank floral creations the Shasta Daisy is notable.
-It combines strains from Europe, Japan, and America. A new giant
-Amaryllis has twelve-inch blossoms. The Tigridias is spectacular, the
-blue Poppies are odd and there are many extraordinary Lilies.
-
-The substitute for Grass developed by the California naturalist thrives
-through the most severe drought and so is of practical economic value.
-His improved Walnut Trees grow to a large size in a few years and his
-Chestnuts bear abundant crops when they are mere bushes. Spineless
-Cactus is a very valuable creation.
-
-All these results are obtained in what seems to be a very simple
-way, yet their successful outcome is only made possible by the
-mind of genius working with infinite patience over long periods of
-years. To select out of a group of plants a few individuals which
-show exceptional quality of a desirable type; to save the seed of
-these favoured few and make further selections among their progeny;
-to couple with this the cross-pollenizing of different varieties or
-species showing a tendency to greater variation or accentuation of
-characteristics--all this may seem only high grade garden practice,
-but only one man in two or three generations has the exceptional and
-sympathetic perceptive faculties which enable him to attain really
-striking results.
-
-On his experimental farms near Santa Rosa, California, Luther Burbank
-has made many thousand distinct experiments involving a wide range of
-plant species. It is said that at times he has had as many as three
-thousand tests, calling for observations on a million plants and
-flowers, under way at once. Probably no similar area of the earth’s
-surface has grown such a variety of vegetable products or had such
-infinite care lavished upon it.
-
-These are the practical aspects of the relations of plants to men. On
-the esthetic and pleasurable side they are equally important.
-
-The love of plants and flowers is a universal sentiment slumbering in
-the most prosaic breast. Plants are a perpetual source of joy. They are
-friends which never change. In youth, they give zest to our outdoor
-pleasures. In age, they bespeak the happiness of days gone by. In
-death, they strew our last resting place with fragrance. At all times,
-they stand for purity, beauty and peace.
-
-
-THE END
-
-
-
-
-INDEX
-
-
-  Acacia, 125
-
-  Acanthus, 103
-
-  Agave, 67
-
-  Aglaia, 139
-
-  Air Plants, 41
-
-  Alder, 25, 41, 99
-
-  Alfalfa, 56
-
-  Algae, 18, 19, 22, 24, 44, 60, 127
-
-  Almond, 56, 103, 182
-
-  Aloe, 93
-
-  Amaryllis, 221
-
-  Ampelopsis, 108
-
-  Anacharis, 49
-
-  Anemone, 97, 144
-
-  Antirrhinum, 75
-
-  Ant Nest Plant, 72
-
-  Apple, 61, 82, 220
-
-  Apricot, 51, 56, 220
-
-  Arrowhead, 47, 92
-
-  Arum, 146
-
-  Ash, 46, 218
-
-  Aspen, 181
-
-  Asphodel, 145
-
-  Aster, 97, 100, 103
-
-  Asterophyllites, 24
-
-  Azalia, 79, 97
-
-
-  Bacteria, 31, 55, 66, 135, 139, 190
-
-  Balm of Gilead, 150
-
-  Balsam, 181
-
-  Balsam Poplar, 78
-
-  Bamboo, 26, 56, 103, 121
-
-  Banana, 124, 126
-
-  Banibusa, 139
-
-  Barberry, 105, 126
-
-  Barley, 26
-
-  Barrel Cactus, 67
-
-  Basil, 151
-
-  Bean, 29, 35, 51, 66, 91, 116, 125, 164, 216
-
-  Beech, 62, 139, 208, 218
-
-  Beech Drops, 62
-
-  Beet, 37, 132
-
-  Begonia, 93, 98
-
-  Belladonna, 152, 158
-
-  Birch, 25, 41, 42, 78, 218
-
-  Birth-Wort, 76
-
-  Blackberry, 42, 158
-
-  Black-eyed Susan, 97
-
-  Bladderwort, 46, 131
-
-  Brambles, 192
-
-  Broom-Rape, 62
-
-  Butter-and-Eggs, 50
-
-  Buttercup, 37, 92, 96, 103
-
-  Butternut, 47
-
-  Butter-Wort, 75
-
-
-  Cabbage, 105
-
-  Cactus, 34, 66, 98, 132, 207, 221
-
-  Calamites, 24
-
-  Calceolarias, 97
-
-  Camellia, 97
-
-  Cardoon Artichoke, 49
-
-  Carrion Flower, 88
-
-  Carrot, 37, 109, 132
-
-  Castor Oil Tree, 41
-
-  Catalpa, 116
-
-  Cat-Tail, 116
-
-  Cecropia, 73, 81
-
-  Cedar, 116
-
-  Cherry, 51, 56, 72, 103, 175, 220
-
-  Chestnut, 42, 221
-
-  Chickweed, 171
-
-  Cinerarias, 97
-
-  Clover, 66, 165
-
-  Club-Mosses, 24
-
-  Cobaea Scandens, 79
-
-  Cockle-bur, 48
-
-  Cocoanut, 45
-
-  Coffee, 51, 52, 217
-
-  Compass-Plant, 172
-
-  Conifers, 25, 42
-
-  Corn, 116, 168
-
-  Cotton, 216
-
-  Cottonwood, 115
-
-  Cow Horn Orchid, 71
-
-  Cowslip, 78, 162
-
-  Cranesbill, 98
-
-  Crocus, 37, 108, 145
-
-  Cuckoo-Pint, 66, 88
-
-  Cucumber, 51, 82
-
-  Currant, 175
-
-  Cyclamen, 161
-
-  Cypress, 25, 175, 182
-
-
-  Daffodil, 37
-
-  Daisy, 104, 162, 220
-
-  Dandelion, 45, 47, 79, 102, 162, 171, 175
-
-  Date, 82, 216
-
-  Date Palm, 35
-
-  Datura, 171
-
-  Day-Lily, 171
-
-  Delphinium, 97
-
-  Devil’s Snuff Box, 159
-
-  Devil’s Thread, 62
-
-  Dewberry, 220
-
-  Diatoms, 127
-
-  Dodder, 58, 62
-
-  Duckweed, 46
-
-  Dutch Clover, 165
-
-  Dutchman’s Pipe, 106
-
-
-  Elder, 152, 159
-
-  Elm, 25, 26, 42, 46, 115
-
-  Enchanter’s Nightshade, 151
-
-  Epiphytes, 64, 72
-
-  Eryptogams, 24
-
-
-  Ferns, 22, 41, 43, 44, 190
-
-  Feterita, 56
-
-  Figwort, 87
-
-  Fir, 103
-
-  Fire Weed, 47
-
-  Flagellates, 18
-
-  Flax, 63, 216
-
-  Four-leaved Clover, 162, 165, 175
-
-  Fox Glove, 160, 161
-
-  Fuchsia, 79, 93
-
-  Fungus, 22, 34, 48, 58, 60, 62, 139
-
-
-  Gas Plant, 135
-
-  Gentian, 97
-
-  Giant Cactus, 67
-
-  Goat’s Beard, 171
-
-  Goldenrod, 184
-
-  Gorse, 86, 97
-
-  Gossamer, 161
-
-  Gourd, 210
-
-  Grape, 67, 104
-
-  Grass, 36, 41
-
-  Grass of Parnassus, 193
-
-  Groundsel, 146
-
-
-  Harebell, 161
-
-  Hawkweed, 80
-
-  Hawkweed Picris, 171
-
-  Hawthorn, 104
-
-  Hazel, 36, 78
-
-  Heliotrope, 181
-
-  Hemlock, 160
-
-  Hemp, 62
-
-  Henna, 151
-
-  Herban, 158
-
-  Herb-Bennett, 159
-
-  Herb-Paris, 160
-
-  Hollyhock, 79, 97
-
-  Hop, 35
-
-  Horse Chestnut, 104
-
-  Hortensia, 137
-
-  Hyacinth, 37, 97, 108, 192
-
-
-  Ice-Plant, 171
-
-  Imba-uba Tree, 73
-
-  Indian Licorice, 170
-
-  Indian Pipe, 61
-
-  Indigo, 93
-
-  Iris, 92, 103, 192
-
-  Ivy, 103
-
-  Ivy-Geranium, 108
-
-
-  Jessamine, 97, 175
-
-  Job’s Tears, 157
-
-  Junger Mania, 127
-
-
-  Lantana, 53, 54
-
-  Laurel, 26, 88, 97, 105, 159, 175, 182
-
-  Leek, 165, 184
-
-  Legumes, 26, 31
-
-  Lepidodendrons, 24
-
-  Lettuce, 99, 158
-
-  Lichen, 22, 42, 48, 60
-
-  Lilac, 34, 97
-
-  Lily, 79, 97, 103, 145, 149, 156, 175, 181, 221
-
-  Lime, 78
-
-  Linden, 26, 46
-
-  Liverwort, 19, 20, 21, 22
-
-  Lomatophylos, 24
-
-  Loosestrife, 77
-
-  Lotus, 103, 124, 144, 147
-
-  Love in the Mist, 193
-
-  Lucerne, 51, 93
-
-  Luck Flower, 160
-
-  Luminous Peridineas, 139
-
-  Lupine, 86
-
-  Lycoperdon, 159
-
-
-  Magnolia, 26, 99
-
-  Maiden-Hair Fern, 145
-
-  Maize, 26, 35, 51, 216
-
-  Mandrake, 179
-
-  Mani Blight, 55
-
-  Manioc, 26
-
-  Maple, 26, 47, 101, 103, 208
-
-  Mares’ Tails, 24
-
-  Marigold, 125, 162, 171
-
-  Melastroma Plant, 73
-
-  Melon, 82
-
-  Mermidones, 73
-
-  Mexican Grape, 66
-
-  Mildew, 61
-
-  Milkweed, 102
-
-  Mimosa, 122, 121
-
-  Mistletoe, 47, 65, 147
-
-  Molluka, 146
-
-  Monotropa, 61
-
-  Monstera, 191
-
-  Moonflower, 171
-
-  Moon-Plant, 151
-
-  Moonwart, 160
-
-  Morning Glory, 49, 128
-
-  Moss, 20, 21, 22, 42, 48, 190
-
-  Mountain Laurel, 88
-
-  Mulberry, 51
-
-  Mullein, 75, 101
-
-  Murderer Liana, 206
-
-  Myrtle, 182
-
-  Myxomycetes, 194
-
-
-  Naked Stalked Poppy, 171
-
-  Narcissus, 108, 145, 148
-
-  Nasturtium, 80, 108
-
-  Navel Orange, 56
-
-  Nephelium, 139
-
-  Nettle, 35, 76
-
-  Night-Blooming Cereus, 171
-
-  Night-Shade, 159
-
-  Nostoc, 22
-
-
-  Oak, 25, 42, 103, 139, 208, 218
-
-  Olive, 103, 175, 182
-
-  Onion, 156, 163, 164
-
-  Opuntia, 197
-
-  Orange, 56
-
-  Orchid, 60, 64, 74, 89, 97, 102, 126, 144, 146, 147
-
-  Oscillating Sainfoin, 126
-
-  Oxalis, 36, 116, 125
-
-
-  Palm, 25, 26, 41, 94, 100, 103, 105, 175, 182
-
-  Pansy, 108, 175
-
-  Papyrus, 103
-
-  Paradox Berry, 220
-
-  Parnassia, 127
-
-  Parsley, 164
-
-  Passion Flower, 76, 101, 103, 145, 197
-
-  Pea, 26, 51, 105, 163
-
-  Peach, 51, 61, 220
-
-  Pear, 51, 61, 220
-
-  Pelargoniums, 97
-
-  Peony, 97, 103
-
-  Persimmon, 26
-
-  Phenomenal Berry, 220
-
-  Pigweed, 49
-
-  Pimpernel, 160, 169
-
-  Pine, 26, 111, 114, 208
-
-  Pink, 145
-
-  Pistachio, 82
-
-  Plane, 26
-
-  Plum, 175, 220
-
-  Plumcot, 220
-
-  Poa Annua, 40
-
-  Polyanthus, 79
-
-  Polygalas, 93
-
-  Polygonums Tree, 73
-
-  Pomegranate, 103, 104, 151
-
-  Pond Lily, 91
-
-  Pond Weeds, 83
-
-  Poplar, 98, 99, 218
-
-  Poppy, 86, 97, 100, 144, 156, 181, 221
-
-  Potato, 26, 37, 55, 157, 216
-
-  Potentillas, 192
-
-  Prickly Pear, 67, 197
-
-  Primrose, 37, 79, 86, 174, 192
-
-  Privet, 105
-
-  Protozoa, 12
-
-  Prune, 220
-
-  Psilophyton, 24
-
-  Puff-Ball, 159
-
-  Purple Orchid, 146
-
-
-  Quince, 220
-
-
-  Rafflesia Arnoldi, 64
-
-  Ragwort, 160
-
-  Raspberry, 220
-
-  Rattlesnake Iris, 116
-
-  Red Anemone, 146
-
-  Redwood, 26, 101
-
-  Rhododendron, 79, 97, 99
-
-  Rice, 26, 216
-
-  Rock-Lichens, 75
-
-  Rose, 86, 95, 97, 98, 100, 103, 104, 145, 150, 156, 163, 175, 182, 184
-
-  Rose of Jericho, 146
-
-  Rose-blight, 61
-
-  Rosemary, 181
-
-  Rue, 159
-
-
-  Saffron, 51
-
-  Sage, 87, 116
-
-  Sainfoin, 126, 146
-
-  Scarlet Runner, 91
-
-  Sea Holly, 98
-
-  Sea Poppy, 160
-
-  Sensitive Plant, 130
-
-  Sequoia, 26
-
-  Service Tree, 191
-
-  Shamrock, 165, 184
-
-  Shasta Daisy, 220
-
-  Siberian Raspberry, 220
-
-  Sigillarias, 24
-
-  Silene, 78
-
-  Silver Fir, 26
-
-  Smilax, 116
-
-  Snowberry, 105
-
-  Snowdrop, 37, 182
-
-  Soma, 151
-
-  Sow-Thistle, 158, 171
-
-  Spanish Moss, 65
-
-  Spinach, 51
-
-  Spineless Cactus, 221
-
-  Spotted Persicaria, 146
-
-  Spruce, 26
-
-  Squash, 168
-
-  Squirting Cucumber, 116
-
-  Stapelia, 87
-
-  Star-Flower, 163
-
-  Stinging Nettle, 75
-
-  Strawberry, 146
-
-  String Bean, 105
-
-  St. John’s Wort, 150, 161
-
-  Sudan Grass, 56
-
-  Sugar Cane, 51, 116
-
-  Sundew 193, 197
-
-  Sunflower, 116, 128
-
-  Sweet Gum, 102
-
-  Sweet Pea, 80, 108
-
-  Sweet Potato, 109
-
-  Sycamore, 47, 78, 131
-
-
-  Tea, 217
-
-  Thistle, 47, 49, 159, 165, 175, 184
-
-  Thorn-Apple, 104
-
-  Thyme, 146
-
-  Tigridias, 221
-
-  Toadstool, 158, 162
-
-  Tobacco, 26, 62
-
-  Tococa, 73
-
-  Touch-me-not, 48, 181
-
-  Tree-ferns, 24
-
-  Trefoil, 86, 103, 165
-
-  Trumpet Vine, 97
-
-  Tulip, 37, 97, 104, 162
-
-  Tumble Weed, 46
-
-  Turmeric, 157
-
-  Turnip, 37, 132
-
-
-  Vallisneria, 206
-
-  Venus Fly-Trap, 130, 198, 200
-
-  Verbena, 97, 150
-
-  Veronica, 125
-
-  Vervain, 159, 160
-
-  Vetch, 66, 72
-
-  Victoria Regia, 91, 118
-
-  Violet, 36, 93, 100, 144, 181
-
-
-  Walnut, 42, 47, 51, 221
-
-  Water Chestnut, 92
-
-  Water Hyacinth, 52
-
-  Water Lily, 86, 118, 133
-
-  Watermelon, 51
-
-  Weather-Plant, 170
-
-  Weeping Willow, 100
-
-  Wheat, 26, 51, 56, 116, 217
-
-  Wheat-Rust, 61
-
-  Wild Anemone, 181
-
-  Willow, 42, 46, 99, 100, 115, 145
-
-  Wistaria, 48, 95, 97, 103, 108, 128, 176
-
-  Witch Hazel, 116
-
-  Wolffias, 46
-
-  Wood-Anemone, 162
-
-  Woodroof, 146
-
-  Wood-Sorrel, 146, 161, 165
-
-  Wormwood, 151
-
-
-  Xanthium Spinosum, 37
-
-
-  Yam, 26
-
-  Yellow Narcissus, 148
-
-  Yew, 160
-
-  Yucca, 90
-
-
-  Zoochlorella, 61
-
-  Zooxanthella, 61
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber’s Notes
-
-Page 14: “in the consciouness” changed to “in the consciousness”
-
-Page 24: “trees called Calamities” changed to “trees called Calamites”
-
-Page 25: “many excellent speciments” changed to “many excellent
-specimens”
-
-Page 26 and Index: “Manico” changed to “Manioc”
-
-Page 29: “herbacious annual” changed to “herbaceous annual”
-
-Page 42: “Chesnut and Elm” changed to “Chestnut and Elm”
-
-Page 51: “Cucumber, Lucern” changed to “Cucumber, Lucerne”
-
-Page 55: “propogation purposes” changed to “propagation purposes”;
-“objectional” changed to “objectionable”
-
-Page 62: “Prominate among” changed to “Prominent among”
-
-Page 64: “Rafflessia Arnoldi” changed to “Rafflesia Arnoldi”
-
-Page 78: “under the miscrope” changed to “under the microscope” “devoid
-of proturberances” changed to “devoid of protuberances”
-
-Page 79: “Azalias, and Fuchias” changed to “Azalias, and Fuchsias”
-
-Page 97: “Pelargoiums” changed to “Pelargoniums”
-
-Page 121: “_Sumatratran_ species” changed to “_Sumatran_ species”
-
-Page 125: “quite inconspicous” changed to “quite inconspicuous”
-
-Page 131 & 189: “carniverous plants” changed to “carnivorous plants”
-
-Page 132: “have aquired” changed to “have acquired”
-
-Page 148: “Whoever posseses” changed to “Whoever possesses”
-
-Page 152: “The Belladona” changed to “The Belladonna”
-
-Page 157: “Tumeric” changed to “Turmeric”
-
-Page 171: “marvelous aquaintance” changed to “marvelous acquaintance”
-
-Page 174: “Primose Schlüsselblume” changed to “Primrose Schlüsselblume”
-
-Page 175: “Olives, Jasamines” changed to “Olives, Jessamines”
-
-Page 190: “seed-animalicules” changed to “seed-animalcules”
-
-Page 202: “in Protoza” changed to “in Protozoa”
-
-Page 206: “giving away” changed to “giving way” “villian” changed to
-“villain”
-
-Page 208: “aristrocatic Pine” changed to “aristocratic Pine”
-
-Page 221: “is suectacular” changed to “is spectacular”
-
-The Table of Contents in the original was missing the chapter on
-Science in the Plant World, which has been added. The Music in the
-Plant World page reference has been accordingly corrected.
-
-*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERSONALITY OF PLANTS ***
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