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THe GARDEN “OF HEART EE
A Sub-tropic Garden.
FHE
GARDEN OF EARTH
A Little Book on Plant-life, Plant-growth,
and the Ways and Uses of Plants
BY
AGNES GIBERNE
AUTHOR OF
‘¢-THIS WONDERFUL UNIVERSE,” ‘' THE ROMANCE OF THE MIGHTY DEEP,” ETC.
“When Spring unlocks the Flowers to paint the
laughing soil.”’—Recinatp HEBER,
**O then indeed I knew how closely knit
To Stars and Flowers we are.””—ALtrreD Noyes.
With Coloured Frontispiece and Illustrations
LONDON
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING
CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1921
Uniform with this Volume—by the same
Author
tts
WONDERFUL UNIVERSE
A little book about suns and worlds,
moons and meteors, comets and nebule.
New edition completely re-written. With
coloured Frontispiece, and numerous other
Illustrations. Cloth boards. 6s. 6d. net.
LONDON « & P.C.K:
FOREWORD
Ir does not fall to the lot of most people to be able
to devote much time to Botany. This book does not
pretend to be even an introduction to that delightful
pursuit. Given, however, a certain admiration for
the beauties of the garden and countryside, Miss
Giberne’s book is calculated to enlarge it into a feeling
of friendship for the individuals of the vegetable king-
dom. The authoress gracefully draws aside the veil
and shows the wind, the bees, and the flowers at play.
The reader is encouraged to step among them, and to
look for himself.
Any one who had been content with the usual super-
ficial observation of Nature, and who is hereby intro-
duced into an intimate acquaintance with the game and
with its players, will have to thank this book for a new
and very charming friendship with the animated but
previously unnoticed world around him.
S. T. Dunn, B.A.
Formerly Official Guide in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
PREFACE
AN unpretentious little volume, on the subject of
Plant-life and the ways and needs and doings of Plants,
is all that my book can claim to be. It is, indeed, in no
sense a Manual of Botany; and it is meant for beginners,
whether older or younger, as well as for any who love
and are interested in trees and flowers.
In the writing of it I have gained needed information
from many different sources; more especially from
The Natural History of Plants, by Kerner and Oliver.
Also generous help has been given to me by Mr. S. T.
Dunn of the Kew Gardens Staff, for which I am sincerely
grateful. Nor can I refrain from a warm mention of
the debt which I owe to my Father’s early and unfor-
gettable teachings on this subject.
In addition I thank Mr. Alfred Noyes, Mr. John
Masefield, and other poets of the day whose names
appear in footnotes, as well as their publishers, for kind
permission to quote from their writings.
Many gardens, large and small, are in the world;
and our whole Earth may fairly be described as one
vast Garden, with its more beautiful and its more barren
parts. I have tried to bring some glimpses, some
visions, of that Garden and of what it really means,
before the imagination of my readers.
This is intended to be a companion-volume to another
Vii
Vili PREFACE
of mine, published a few months ago; nominally a
reprint from a small volume of the same name, but
entirely rewritten. I wonder whether, possibly, some
who have read This Wonderful Universe, may now turn
to The Garden of Earth with the feeling described by Mr.
Alfred Noyes in one of his poems :—
** We should come
Seeking a little refuge from the light
Of the blinding terrible star-sown Infinite,
Seeking some sheltering roof, some four-walled Home,
From that too high, too wide
Communion with the Universe and God,
How glad to creep back to some lane we trod,
Hemmed in with a hawthorn hedge on either side.”’
Yet the marvels and the mysteries to be found in
that hawthorn hedge are not less than the marvels and
- the mysteries of the Star-sown Universe, as seen and
known in ever so limited a measure by us on Earth.
AGNES GIBERNE.
ITI,
EV.
CONTENTS
PART J—IntTrRopuctory
THE SPRING AWAKENING
IN THE GARDEN
MANY PLANTS .
WHAT THE PLANTS ARE DOING .
GROWING SLOWLY
PART II
THINGS GREEN AND FAIR
A GOOD LOOK ROUND
PLANTS AND ANIMALS
THE PARTS OF A PLANT
THE PARTS OF A FLOWER .
PART III
A WIDE WORLD OF PLANT-LIFE
NAMES AND NATURES
SUCH NUMBERS!
A LADDER OF LIFE
SOME CURIOUS DIFFERENCES
ix
13
15
i7
21
26
29
82
89
ITI.
III.
CONTENTS
PART IV
FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS
PUT INTO CLASSES . : : ; P ‘
ROSES AND THEIR RELATIVES . : F ‘
‘““ BUTTERCUPS AND DAISIES” . : : :
PART V
THE WORK OF ROOTS AND STEMS
WHAT SOIL IS MADE OF
THE WORK OF WORMS :
GROWING UP AND GROWING DOWN
TIPS AND HAIRS
A PLANT’S BRAIN
PART VI
THOSE LITTLE WORKSHOPS
THE RISING OF SAP .
OTHER SUGGESTIONS
HOW MANY LEAVES ?
THE MAKE OF A LEAF— . ; : ‘ ‘
AND THE WORK OF A LEAF
GREEN LEAVES
PART: Vit
THE POWER OF SUNLIGHT
FLOWERS IN SUNSHINE
HOW THE WORK IS DONE .
PLANT MANUFACTURES
THE FOOD THAT WE EAT . :
OCEAN-FOOD . ; é : ° . .
100
103
105
110
138 & w
Vi.
Ii.
Il.
IV.
CONTENTS
PART VIII
THE WORK OF FLOWERS
WHAT FLOWERS ARE FOR .
PISTILS AND STAMENS
HOW THE SEEDS GROW
PLANT STORAGE
MAKING READY FOR SUMMER
SEED-SCATTERING
PART IX
THE WORK OF WINDS AND INSECTS
POLLEN TO THE PISTIL
HOW DOTH THE BUSY BEE
CURIOUS CONTRIVANCES
PART X |
SOME REMARKABLE WAYS OF PLANTS
PLANT MOVEMENTS
SENSITIVE AND MEAT-EATING PLANTS
THE HEALTH OF PLANTS
PLANT-LIFE IN GENERAL
Xi
PAGE
114
117
120
124
127
132
137
143
150
157
160
167
171
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
‘PAGE
A SUBTROPIC GARDEN : : Coloured Frontispiece
SCARLET PIMPERNEL , : ; , ' x 8
OX-EYE DAISY : : , : 9
YELLOW OX-EYE ; ‘ 9
BREAKING INTO LEAF : : : ” ; ; 11
DIAGRAM OF ROSE FLOWER : . : ‘ : 22
SECTION OF THE FLOWER OF HERB-ROBERT ‘ 23
LEAF OF ROSE WITH STIPULES P : : : 24
LEAVES . ; ‘ : ; ‘ : ; ‘ 28
MUSHROOM . : : F ‘ E : : 32
SEAWEED ? ; ‘ ; ; . : : 33
FERNS . : : ; : ; , ‘ 34, 35
WELLINGTONIA ; : : ' , : Y 37
DETAILS OF RED CAMPION ; F : 4 : 46
LEAVES . : : oar : . : ; : 48
WOOD STRAWBERRY : : . ; : : 50
POPPIES : : : : ; : E 54
SECTION OF FLOWER HEAD OF DAISY ; 56
HEDGE-PARSLEY : ; 59
PIN-EYE FLOWER LATD OPEN . - : ‘ ‘ 60
GRAND ST. BERNARD IN WINTER : ; : ‘ 62
TRANSVERSE SECTION OF OAK BRANCH, SIX YEARS OLD . 74
Xili
XIV LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
GOVERNOR ODELL AND PARTY. . : ; ; ve
SIMPLE LEAVES : ; : : ; : : 83
STOMATA : ; ; ; ; : ; ; 87
SUNFLOWER . : 3 ; : ‘ ; ‘ 97
SUGAR-CANE . ; : : . : : . 106
BANANAS AND THE SUGAR-CANE é : : ~ ae
COCOA.” . ; : : : : : : - 266
COTTON . : : , ; : : E . 109
RAFFLESIA FLOWER : : : . ‘ » Lis
FLOWER OF THE COMMON ASH; STAMEN, ANTHER, ETC. 121
SNOWDROP SHOWING STEM, FLOWER AND ROOT . > ae
VARIETIES OF FRUIT : : : ; é ae
FLOWERS OF OAK . : ; ‘ : p 2 » ie
ACORN. : ‘ : y F ; , . 1384
DANDELION . : : : : ‘ : -, | Mew
CATKINS OF THE OAK : : : : : . 140
STAMINATE AND PISTILLATE CATKINS OF A WILLOW. 141
POLLINATION BY BEE : : F : : . '46
VALLISNERIA SPIRALIS . : , : : « eet
BLADDERWORT ‘ : : : j ; 163, 164
PITCHER PLANT : P ‘ : ‘ ; .. Ha
SUNDEW : ‘i ‘ ‘ 5 ‘ - 166
THE GARDEN OF EARTH
PART I—INTRODUCTORY
THE SPRING AWAKENING
I—In THE GARDEN
SuPpposE that you and I are going into a large garden,
for the first time in our lives. It might be that we had
lived always in some huge manufacturing town, where
trees could not grow, and flowers could not flourish.
Or—if this were possible—that our lot had been cast
in far-north regions of perpetual ice and snow, where
vegetation would be only of the very lowest.
What, then, should we think of a fair garden, breaking
suddenly on our sight in spring? How much should
we understand, how much should we grasp, of what
would lie before our eyes ?
Picture it to yourself, and try to realise how things
would look. Come into the garden, in imagination,
and make yourself see as you would see under such cir-
cumstances, with eyes unused, with a mind unaccus-
tomed, to the surroundings. Countless marvels in this
world we accept with calm indifference, only because
we have always knownthemthus. Otherwise, we should
be perpetually stirred to wonder and amazement at
2 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
the sights around, the changes which take place, the
things which happen.
So here we are in a country garden, you and I together,
let us say, for the first time in our lives.
On our left lies a wide lawn, closely mown, but dotted
with hundreds of yellow-eyed Daisies, all sprung up
since the last mowing. On our right, divided off by a
dry ditch, is a reach of longer and coarser grass, mingled
plentifully with weeds; and it slopes downward to a
meadow, from which it is parted by a belt of shrubs and
bushes.
Trees grow in all directions; some small and slender,
swaying in the breeze; some lofty and wide-spreading,
with heavy, rugged trunks. Many are full of leaf,
though not yet so full as in the height of summer; for
this, though a warm and sunny day, is only spring-
tide. Others have still the first tender flush of green,
when the new little leaves have just begun to unfold.
Many again are quite bare, holding up against the
sky a lace-work of delicate twigs, branching off and off
one from another, each new departure more delicate
than the last.
You and I know well enough that plants and flowers
grow and bloom and die; that leaves fall off the trees
in autumn; that new leaves come in their place with
spring; that seeds are formed which develop into fresh
plants; and that those plants again produce seeds.
Everybody knows all this, because such facts are a
commonplace of our daily life.
But suppose we did not know it! Suppose we had
never seen, had never even heard of, such alternate
generations of plant and seed, seed and plant, each
THE SPRING AWAKENING 3
succeeding the other. Or suppose that, while in a sense
knowing it, we had never given the matter any serious
thought, had never cared to learn how such wonders
come about.
For, indeed, they are wonders. And to unaccustomed
eyes, the eyes of visitors who had never known aught of
the kind before, they would be simply amazing.
In either case, if we had not known, or if, knowing,
we had not understood or cared to consider—the first
step for us to take would be to look; to gaze hard, to
find out what there is that is worth seeing and thinking
about in the garden-world. This would not mean
idleness. Real looking, real watching, real thinking,
are often harder work than cutting or hammering or
digging or studying. It zs studying—trying to learn
from the Book of Nature.
That great Book of Nature is more difficult to read
than any printed volume; and naturally so. For the
author of such a volume is a man, but the Author of the
Book of Nature is God Himself.
It has easy pages, however, as well as hard ones;
and it lies always within our reach. Anybody may read
from it at any time. And that which we spell out for
ourselves is worth far more to us than what we have been
taught verbally by others.
II—Many PiLants
This is what we have to do in our garden. We will
try to make out a few sentences from the Book of
Nature, lying invitingly open; and then we will go on to
learn other facts, many of which we could not find out
for ourselves.
B
4 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
We all know that the trees around, excepting only
the evergreens, have been lately as bare as the barest
of those trees which still do not show any foliage.
Yet we may not have grasped the fact that each of
those dead-looking branches is not only alive, but already
is actively at work, putting forth a new array of spring
clothing. If we did not know it, how should we guess
that the tiny beginnings of leaves are now actually
getting ready inside the buds of boughs and twigs, so
as to come out into daylight at the earliest possible
moment, dressing the whole tree in sweet fresh green,
so giving it power to get through its summer work.
*<'What work? ”’ you may ask.
At the outset you may be sure of one thing. Not
only that each tree has some definite task to carry out,
but that each leaf has its own particular share in that
task. Roots, stems, flowers, one and all have their
appointed service. Every part of a plant has its own
especial work to do, for which it is especially fitted;
and no other part of the plant can, generally, undertake
that duty.
Wandering onward, we reach a wide border, crammed
with flowers. The rich, brown earth is damp from rain
in the past night. If we had never seen anything of the
kind before—perhaps if we had—we might know little
about the varieties of good food for plants, found in such
soil, without which they could not grow. A long
wriggling earth-worm half shows itself, and scurries
away. Only an earth-worm, yet a most useful person;
for he too, humble though he be, has his tasks.
Plants of many kinds are crowded together in the
THE SPRING AWAKENING 5
border. We note one that grows low, with small
purple-blue blossoms, modestly trying to hide them-
selves among heart-shaped leaves, while betraying their
presence by a sweet pervading scent. Close by are
other tiny star-like blooms of bright blue, several on
one stalk. Next comes a plant with crinkled leaves
and rounded flowers of pale yellow, lifting their faces
confidingly towards the sky.
These old friends we recognise at once—Violets,
Forget-me-nots, Primroses. But how wonderful they
would seem, if they dawned on our vision for the first
time !
Along the outer edge of the border grow many double
red and white Daisies; so unlike their cheery little
pink-tipped sisters on the lawn, that a stranger would
not call them by the same name. A patch of tall, early-
flowering Marguerite Daisies, standing hard by, really
have a look of cousinship.
Tulips flourish in abundance; large red ones, single
and double; little dainty yellow ones; and pure white
ones with golden centres. The many-hued Polyanthus
claims attention; and a silky Phlox with star-like pink
blossoms; and a white-flowered Candytuft; not to
speak of many more.
At the back grow bushes, laden with Lilac-blossoms,
mauve and white; and a Laburnum flings its long golden
tassels in the breeze; and on the hedge, behind the
Lilacs, where a wild Rose grows luxuriantly, one green
flower-bud has just begun to unfold itself, showing a
tiny streak of coral-red.
All these we see for ourselves. And how much of
them do we really understand ?
6 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
III—WHuaAT THE PLANTS ARE DOING
Wandering still through the quiet garden, gazing
at one plant after another, we come suddenly on the
gardener, a hard-working man of the olden type. He
is tying up some long trails of a creeper; and our presence
seems to make no sort of difference to him. Presently
we venture on a question—an attempt to draw him out.
He surely knows much about these garden wonders.
We try to intimate politely that he could tell us—things
—if he would.
He goes steadily on with his work, not answering
hastily. But after a pause, he says—
“Yes. I’ve seed a deal of their ways.”
‘Their ways!” That is rather a new idea. We
had not perhaps thought of plants as having ways like
human beings.
‘What sort of ways?” we ask.
He takes a good while to consider. We begin to
fancy that he has forgotten our question. But he
straightens himself, looks full at us, and remarks—
“You just keep a look-out, and you'll see. They’ve
got lots of ways—queer ways too, and no mistake.”
‘“‘ Tell us one—just one!’ we beg; for he has taken
up his basket, and is on the move.
‘You can see ’em a-lookin’ up at the sun, and follerin’
him along! ”’
Then he disappears inside a small glass-house, and
we exchange glances, deciding to take his advice.
That means careful study. Plant after plant, kind
after kind, we examine. Many flowers, unmistakably,
do not take any particular trouble to face the sun.
THE SPRING AWAKENING 4
Some turn carelessly another way. Some, like the
Violet, prefer to creep into shade. Some hang their
heads, either from modesty or from weakness of stalk.
But gradually it dawns upon us how very many do really
seem to face the sun, as if of set purpose.
Reaching again the large lawn, still with our heads
full of this thought, we are impressed by the fact that
Daisies are among the number of sun-lovers.
Hundreds of little white faces, with their golden
centres, are uplifted straight towards that part of the
sky where the King of Day shines in his brilliance.
We examine them carefully, first from one side, then
from another; and again and again we note how those
hundreds of slender stems slope in one direction, like the
bayonets of a regiment of soldiers, all in the same
direction.
No; not all. This begins to perplex us. A few here
and there fail to follow the rule. The idea occurs
that possibly those few are in weak health, which would
explain the fact.
Then again, several Daisy-plants are growing under
the shade of a mass of bushes, so that direct sunshine
is cut off. And since they are debarred from looking
up at the sun, they wisely do the next best thing in their
power, which is—to face towards the greatest amount of
light. This they practise quite as markedly as the
Daisies on the open space are facing the sun himself.
The slope of their stems, therefore, is different from that
of the other Daisy stems.
So much at least we have discovered for ourselves
in one afternoon, But later in the day, going back
8 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
to the same spot, we note something else, not less
interesting.
In the afternoon the Daisies were all wide awake,
gazing skyward. Now they have shut up their faces,
folding the outer white rays over the golden centres,
for all the world as if they were going to sleep.
ANAGALLIS ARVENSIS (Scarlet Pimpernel) and A. TENELLA (Bog
Pimpernel).
Another ramble round becomes necessary, to see if
other plants behave in a like manner. We come across
several which do. Tulips are plainly closing for the
night; and a dainty little Linum has done the same.
Also some tiny red Pimpernels, growing at the path-
edge—only weeds, but not less pretty for that—and the
bell-shaped Convolvulus follow their example.
Others might be noticed, not shutting up, but drooping
THE SPRING AWAKENING 2
on their stalks, with faces turned away from the darken-
ing sky. But many remain open, and one or two are
actually unclosing their flowers, which all day have been
fast shut.
‘* Of all the floures in the mede,
Than love I most these floures white and rede,
Soch that men callen daisies in our toun.” 4
mwas
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CHRYSANTHEMUM SEGETUM (Yellow
Ox-eye).
IV—GROWING SLOWLY
As we go on, day after day, studying the garden,
something else claims our attention.
1 Chaucer,
10 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
Certain trees which were bare and brown now show
a glint of green. Some which had boasted only a gentle
flush of that tint, have small leaves. Others, which had
displayed half-open leaves have abundance, fully open.
With lesser growths the same is seen. Plants which
had carried only buds have now full blossoms. Some
which had borne two or three flowers now bear many.
The Rose-bud on the hedge is a bud yet, but its coral
streak has so far widened that we feel any hour may see
it in full bloom.
All this is only to be expected. But we begin to
realise what it all means, and how wonderful are these
silent changes, perpetually going on.
Why should we not watch the actual working out of
such changes? Why not see with our eyes the growth
of a leaf—the opening of a flower-bud? It happens
incessantly, all around us. Flower after flower unfolds.
Leaf after leaf expands. Can we not follow the wonder
for ourselves, minute by minute, as it actually takes
place?
We do our best. We sit down, and fix a steadfast
gaze on the pretty Rose-bud, which seems just ready—
more than ready—to burst into bloom. We look—
and look—and look—steadily, persistently, till eyes
and brain are weary.
And it is in vain. Not the smallest movement can
be observed. Not the faintest alteration can be de-
tected. Tired of watching, we wander away, and in
an hour or two come back—to find that the bud has
opened; the Rose is in bloom.
Sometimes we have tried to see the movement of an
hour-hand in a small watch; and we have failed, The
11
THE SPRING AWAKENING
BREAKING INTO LEAF,
12 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
hand does move, but so slowly, so gently, that we
cannot detect its motion. So it is with plants and
leaves and flowers.
In some cases growth is far more rapid than in others.
A Scarlet-runner will in one night—if it is a good growing
night, warm and close—become four or five inches
longer. Hops are still more expeditious. A Hop-
shoot has been known in a single night to add eight or
nine inches to its length. Yet even then, if we sat up
with a lamp, and gazed continuously hour after hour,
it is more than doubtful whether we should actually
detect the growth.
As Keble wrote—
** Who ever saw the earliest Rose
First open her sweet breast ? ”’
But it is worth while to make the attempt. Looking
into such possibilities for ourselves is much more
interesting than only to hear what other people may
have done.
‘* A Rosebud by my early walk
Adown a corn-encloséd bawk,
Sae gently bent its thorny stalk,
All on a dewy morning.
Ere twice the shades o’ dawn are fled,
In a’ its crimson glory spread,
And drooping rich the dewy head,
It scents the early morning.
So thou, sweet Rosebud, young and gay,
Shalt beauteous blaze upon the day,
And bless the parent’s evening ray
That watched thy early morning.’’ +
1 Robert Burns,
PART II
THINGS GREEN AND FAIR
I—A Goop Loox Rounp
WHETHER a garden be large or small, whether it is
a town or a country garden, in any case it is sure to be
full of interest.
Somebody once spoke of her little town-garden as
“just the size of a pocket-handkerchief’’; which was
a modest way of stating the matter. But even the
very tiniest scrap of a garden, if well cared-for and
lovingly tended, may hold beautiful growths. And if
you have no garden at all, there is still something to be
done. You may have two or three plants in pots;
or, better yet, a wooden window-box full of flowers.
The commonest plants, the simplest blooms, are things
of wonder and charm.
We all know something of plant-life. Like the
visitors to a new garden, we do at least know that
plants grow, and bring forth leaves and flowers; and
that when the leaves die, fresh leaves come in their
stead; and that, when seeds have been formed, new
plants arise in time from some of those seeds.
But I wonder how many of us have begun to look on
plants as living things—as not only having life, but
having habits and ways of their own. I wonder how
13
14 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
many of us quite realise that, as living things, they -
breathe, they feed, they work; that they have what
seem to be likings and dislikings; that each kind of
plant needs a particular sort of place to grow in, and a
certain amount of warmth; that some plants do well in
one soil, while others must have a different soil; that
the climate which suits one does not suit another.
All this and much more is true. Plants can be said
to sleep and wake. Plants live out their lives, even as
we live out our lives. Plants carry on their especial
tasks. Plants may have good health or bad health.
Plants, in fact, are beings—living creatures. They are
a wonderful part of the vast creation of God. And
they have a marvellous work to do for Him—and for
us. Without plants, without the tasks that they
carry out, we ourselves could not live.
We depend upon them for our daily food. For
instance, for our vegetables—for cabbages and cauli-
flowers and potatoes; and for far more than these.
And they are such good faithful little servants. They
do not fail us. We shall hear more about this later.
Our World is made up of many lesser worlds, which
interlace and yet are separate. The World of Mankind;
the World of Animals; these we know. And also the
World of Plant-life; the World of Green Things; the
vast Vegetable Kingdom.
We cannot rightly speak of the whole Vegetable
Kingdom as a world of green things, because it contains
many growths which are not green; such as brown and
red seaweeds; and yellow and grey fungi; and countless
invisible specks of life. But in this book we have to
do chiefly with green and flowering plants.
THINGS GREEN AND FAIR 15
““'There was once a nest in a hollow;
Down in the mosses and knot-grass pressed,
Soft and warm and full to the brim—
Vetches leaned over it, purple and dim,
With Buttercup-buds to follow.” 4
JJ—PLANTS AND ANIMALS
What is the real difference between Plants and
Animals? That question comes first.
Why, of course—they are so very unlike. Animals
can feel and suffer; animals can love and hate; animals
can understand when they are spoken to; animals
can—well, not exactly talk, but they can make us
understand by signs and looks and sounds what they
want. Sometimes we say of an especial pet, ‘“‘ That
dear dog knows every word that is said to him.”
But this is true only of a few among the highest
and most sensible of animals. What we have now to
think about is—all animals of every kind, from the
highest to the lowest, as compared with all plants of
every kind, from the highest to the lowest.
Your little dog may be clever and affectionate, and
horses and elephants have extraordinary sense. But
will an oyster understand if you speak to it? Can you
win the love of a beetle? Is a cheese-mite intelligent ?
Could a worm do your bidding?
When we speak of a dog’s powers, we are looking at
the difference between higher and lower animals. What
we have now to see is—the difference between any kind
of animal and any kind of plant.
We can grasp in a moment the distinction between
an Oak-tree and a horse; or between a Wellingtonia
1 Jean Ingelow.
16 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
and an elephant. No one ever muddles up the one
with the other. A man never stands gazing, and
shaking a puzzled head, and saying: ‘ Well, on the
whole, I think the cow is an animal, and not a vegetable.
I really believe that the Elm must be a plant, and not
an animal.”
But when we get very low down in the two Kingdoms,
matters are by no means so easy.
When in the Animal Kingdom we leave behind us
elephants and horses, cows and dogs, four-legged beasts
of all sorts, birds, reptiles, fishes and insects. And
when in the Vegetable Kingdom we leave behind us
Oaks and Elms, Flowering Plants of all kinds, and
Ferns and Mosses. And when we get right down to a
wide borderland, just between the two Kingdoms,
where the very lowest and smallest of animals and of
plants are found—then perplexities begin.
For it is there that the line has to be drawn, dividing
the Animal Kingdom from the Vegetable Kingdom.
And that is just what is so hard to do. It becomes
most difficult to say which of the minute creatures there
is an animal, and which is a vegetable. Many mistakes
have been made in the past.
Some tiny creatures, long believed to be animals,
have turned out to be really very minute plants. And
other tiny specks, long believed to be plants, have
turned out to be really very minute animals.
You may think it odd that this puzzle should exist;
since, after all, we are sure of one thing. Plants remain
in one place, firmly rooted to the ground; while animals
are not rooted, but move freely about. So that there is
always one clear indication, by which to know them.
THINGS GREEN AND FAIR 17
Yes; if only the rule held good throughout. Strange
to say, it does not.
In that hazy borderland, between the two Kingdoms,
the test breaks down. Animals and plants, living there,
are very tiny, very simple in make, very much alike,
and very puzzling. Some of these minute animals will
fix themselves in one spot, and stay there, and behave
for all the world like plants. And some of these minute
plants will actually swim about in search of food, going
from one place to another, and behaving for all the
world like animals.
So it is not surprising that learned men should have
made a few mistakes, in trying to settle which was which ;
or that certain learned men do not believe that any clear
line at all can be drawn between the two.
IJI—Tue Parts oF Aa PLANT
We will go now for a little stroll around the garden,
and find out what there is to be seen. If you cannot
go into a real garden, you must picture one in your mind.
The first thing to be noticed is this—that plants, in
growing, follow a regular plan.
They do not come up anyhow, in a chance fashion,
so that nobody can tell what to expect. Unlike as one
plant is from another, still they are more or less built
after one general scheme.
Certain parts are found in the greater number. And
if one asks, ‘‘ Which parts are those that go to make up
a full plant?” the answer will perhaps be, “‘ Oh, that
is easy enough. There are roots and stems, branches
and leaves, flowers and fruits and seeds, and heaps
more.”
18 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
But we do not want to hear about “‘ heaps.” We
want to have all the different parts of a plant brought
under the smallest number of heads; under four heads.
The four chief parts of a plant are—
THE Root;
THE STEM;
THe LEAVES;
THE FLOWERS.
And under these four headings the whole plant is
embraced.
First, as to the Root. This is not commonly pretty,
though most useful and necessary. It burrows into the
earth, branching out generally in divers directions. It
does the work of an anchor, holding the plant firmly in
its place, and keeping it from being blown away by
gusts of wind. It drinks in water from the soil, to
support the life of the plant, and to keep it in good
health. Water and food, I might say. But all food
taken by a plant has to be liquid, or else in the form of
gas. Plants in general cannot, like men, eat anything
solid.
Then secondly, the Stem. In smaller plants it is
usually green. It acts as a backbone to the whole;
or rather as a body, like the body of a man. It is the
pathway by which all the water and liquid food, taken
in by the roots, travel upward and pass into the branches,
and thence into the leaves. In most cases the main
stem sends out branches or lesser stems to right and
left.
Thirdly, the Leaves. These are all-important. If
you were to do away with the leaves, you would soon
THINGS GREEN AND FAIR 19
put an end to the life of the plant. Just as the roots
drink in water and food from the soil, so the leaves
drink in food from the air.
But they do not only drink it in. They also work
up and alter that which they have received, together
with that which the roots have sucked up; and they
make it fit for food. Food, first, for the plant itself;
and then food for animals and men. Leaves are the
most wonderful little workshops, doing what nothing
and nobody else in the wide world is able to do.
Without the help of leaves, no plants could live or
grow: and so no human beings could live or grow
either.
Fourthly and lastly—the Flowers. These, too, are
little workshops, different in kind. They are the seed-
growers.
You no doubt look upon flowers as by far the most
important part of a plant, because of their beauty.
But they have this other use, and a very weighty use.
One chief work of a plant must always be to bring
forth fruits and seeds, from which new plants may grow.
If no fruits, no seeds, were brought into being, it
would soon mean an end of most of the vegetable-life
on earth. In time we should have no more herbage,
no more trees, no more grasses, NO More corn or grain
of any kind. All the old plants would die; and no new
ones would come to take their place. The world would
change into a vast rocky and sandy and pebbly desert,
where neither animals nor men could live.
Yet, while this is the special work of flowers, and
perhaps their most important work, we need not suppose
c
20 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
it to be the only object of their existence. If it were,
we might well wonder why they should be so lovely as
they are, when little plain green blossoms could produce
seeds just as well as beautiful and gorgeous ones. Many
large trees have plain green flowers; and they carry on
their task of seed-manufacturing most successfully.
True, a definite reason is known for the bright colours
of flowers, as we shall find later. They are believed to
act as a lure to insects, thus inducing them to do what
is a very important piece of work in connection with the
growth of plants.
But this does not cover the whole question.
May we not confidently believe that, when Our Father
in Heaven caused all these lovely forms and radiant
colours to spring forth, He had a loving thought for us,
and that He meant them to be a delight to His children
who were to inhabit this Earth?
We know well the words spoken by Our Lord, Who
Himself loved flowers, when He told His followers to
“Consider the Lilies of the field, how they grow,”
adding that ‘‘ Even Solomon in all his glory was not
arrayed like one of these.”
What an utterly different world ours would be, if
no blue and crimson, no golden or pure white blossoms
grew anywhere; no Roses, Pinks, Primroses; nothing
but small insignificant seed-makers. We can hardly
picture to ourselves such conditions.
Perhaps nothing speaks to us more plainly of the
kindness of Our Father than the care He has taken to
provide us with beautiful sights for our enjoyment.
Just as nothing tells us more clearly of the love for
beauty in the Divine Mind than do the flowers of earth
THINGS GREEN AND FAIR 21
in their endless and exquisite variety. Is not each
one an embodied Thought of God ?
** A thing of beauty is a joy for ever;
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore on every morrow are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the Earth,
Spite of despondence. .. .
Yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the Sun, the Moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
>Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms.” }
IV—Tue Parts oF A FLOWER
Suppose we find our way to a Wild Rose—to that
one which grew on the hedge in the garden which we
visited in the first chapter of this book.
Those were spring days, and now it is summer. Or,
if not, let us imagine that it is. We shall find that,
instead of one bud only just opening, the tree carries
a mass of delicate white pink-edged blossoms.
We will pluck one of them, and look at it carefully.
What you have to think about is—not the Parts of a
Plant, but the Parts of a Flower.
Notice first the small stalk on which it grows—an
off-shoot from the main stalk or stem, coming up straight
from the root. Then see where the flower meets its
1 Keats.
22 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
stalk; and you will discover what look like five small
pointed leaves, green in colour, joined at the bottom
into one. This is the Catyx, and the pointed leaflets
are SEPALS.
Sometimes a calyx is all in one; sometimes the sepals
are all separate; sometimes, as here, they seem to be
half joined into one and half separate. It is this green
part which covered up the bud safely before it began to
open, and kept it warm and sheltered. The sepals
really are leaves, though rather
unlike the regular leaves of the
Rose.
Within the green calyx we come
to another circle of leaf-shaped
things; not green, but white, with
rosy tips; the prettiest part of
the flower—its Prtats. These,
too, were folded protectingly over
the inner part of the bud, before it
aia: Se ala ce opened; being themselves pro-
FLOWER.
tected by the sepals.
In the Wild Rose there are usually five petals. All
the petals of a flower, taken together, are known as the
CoROLLA, or crown; and they, like the sepals, may be
either joined into one, or half separate, or quite separate.
They are, indeed, the crown of the flower, both in position
and in beauty.
And the petals also of a flower are leaves; different
in shape, different in colour, from the regular leaves
and from the sepals, yet neither more nor less than
leaves.
They are what we call modified leaves ; that is altered
THINGS GREEN AND FAIR 23
leaves, changed leaves; altered in shape, changed in
colour; but the same in actual origin.
Within the corolla we find a number of little dainty
things, standing upright, slender, and with golden tips ;
golden, because of a fine yellow dust on them, which
often comes off when touched. They are named
STAMENS; and the stamens again, though you would
not think it, are leaves ; different once more in form and
in tint, yet still leaves,
\ \ i Y } | ¥ ye
c~ \\ c \ \ \ I Vy y a
\N i HY I YP
SECTION OF THE FLOWER OF HERB-ROBERT, A SPECIES OF GERANIUM :
cc, calyx; p p, petals; st, androecium or stamens; 0, gynoecium or
pistil, composed of ovary 9, style sty, and stigmas s; ¢, thalamus.
FLOWER OF GOOSEFOOT.
The golden dust is called PoLLEN; and no other kind
of leaves, except stamens, has power to bring into being
this wonderful yellow pollen.
Within the stamens, and surrounded by them as by
a little bodyguard, are the tops of the Pistits. Some
flowers have one pistil; some have two or three;
some have many. The Rose has several. And the
pistil, like the sepal, the petal, and the stamen, is just
a modified or altered leaf.
24 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
The pistils and the stamens together carry out the
great task of SEED-GROWING. Stamens cannot do
this alone. Pistils cannot do it alone. They have
to work in company.
Perhaps you may find it hard to believe that those
lovely pink and white petals, and those little soft
yellow-tipped stamens, are not only one in nature with
the green leaves, but also are one with each other.
This can be made more plain. The Wild Rose which
‘ we have examined is what we call
“single.” But now let us get two
more Roses; not wild ones this
time, but a half-double! Rose, and
another that is fully-double.
What do we mean by “single ”’
and ‘‘ double ”’ ?
LEAF OF ROSE WITH Let us compare the three. The
STIP ;
the sheath.” “Pe* ° wild one has a single row of five
petals, and a large array of stamens.
The half-double one has a great many more petals, and
not nearly so many stamens. The fully-double one has
very many more petals still—it seems quite made up of
petals—and no stamens. They have entirely vanished.
Where can they have gone? And how is it that so
many more petals have appeared? Simply this—that
the stamens have turned into petals. Curious, is it not ?
Both being in their nature leaves, they can be made by
careful cultivation to change from the one form of leaf
into the other. Stamen-leaves can become petal-
leaves; and petal-leaves can change again into stamen-
leaves. 7
THINGS GREEN AND FAIR 25
This does not mean that a single Rose-blossom can
be so altered. It means that the plant which bears the
one kind may be gradually made to bear the other kind.
Any particular sort of Rose-tree can be so tended as
to bring forth Roses more and more double year by
year.
It is the gardener’s care which causes such a remark-
able transformation of stamens into petals. And if
for a long while a Rose-tree bearing double Roses is
neglected, and no further care is taken, then very often
the Roses will become smaller and less double, with
fewer petals and more stamens, each year. The plant
has thus begun to revert, as it is called, to the old form.
Pistils also can undergo this change from their natural
state into petals.
**In misty blue the lark is heard
Above the silent homes of men;
The bright-eyed thrush, the little wren,
The yellow-billed sweet-voiced blackbird,
Mid sallow blossoms blond as curd
Or silver oak-boughs, carolling
With happy throat from tree to tree,
Sing into light this morn of spring
That sang my dear love home to me.
Airs of the morning breathe about
Keen faint scents of the wild wood side
From thickets where primroses hide
Mid the brown leaves of winter’s rout.
Chestnut and willow, beacon out
For joy of her, from far and nigh,
Your English green on English hills ;
Above her head, song-quivering sky,
And at her feet, the daffodils.’ 1
1 From England and Other Poems, by Laurence Binyon; pub-
lished by Elkin Matthews. By permission.
PART III
A WIDE WORLD OF PLANT-LIFE
I—NAMES AND NATURES
WE will think a little now about the immense numbers
and varieties of Flowering Plants that are in the world.
Though the great mass of them are made, as we have
seen, after one general plan—with Roots, Stems, Leaves,
Flowers—yet there is every kind of difference between
one and another.
Look around in any garden where you may happen
to be, and see how many kinds may be discovered almost
at a glance; how many different trees, how many
different shrubs, how many different smaller plants,
what quantities of little weeds. And if it is so in one
garden, or in one place, what must it not be in the
Earth as a whole?
We may, indeed, picture our Earth as a vast Garden,
with rich beds and borders of flowers, with woods and
forests, and with dry and sandy parts where few things
can grow.
You might come across a man who has given his
entire life to the study of plants; and you would find
that he feels he has only begun to understand a very
little of their extraordinary numbers and kinds, their
ways of growing, their behaviour, their history. The
26
A WIDE WORLD OF PLANT-LIFE 27
more a man knows of Nature, so much the more he has
learnt what an immense amount lies still beyond his
power to understand.
And the true understanding of plants means a great
deal more than just being able to give their names,
either in English or in Latin.
It is useful to know their names, and still farther to
be able to say to which Divisions or Families in botany
each one belongs. But that is a small part of the
question. Many people who can give names glibly
enough know almost nothing of their real nature, their
true history. And some others, who are not at all ready
with their names, could tell you any amount about the
plants themselves, and about their curious wonderful
ways.
You know how, in the Animal Kingdom, we find an
enormous variety of creatures, ranging from the eagle
to the humming-bird, from the elephant to the mouse,
from the whale to a speck of floating jelly.
And it is the same in the Vegetable Kingdom. There
too, we have all kinds, all sizes. There too, we can
range from the vast Wellingtonia and the wide-spreading
Banyan, down to invisible vegetable-specks, living their
own tiny lives; and from huge flowers, a yard across,
down to blossoms so minute that they can only be seen
with a magnifying-glass.
Not all plants are equal; not all have the same
powers; not all are beautiful. And no two kinds of
tree, no two kinds of herb, no two kinds of flower, are
alike.
More than this, though one might not think it, no
THE GARDEN OF EARTH
28
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A WIDE WORLD OF PLANT-LIFE 29
two flowers on one plant, no two leaves on one tree, no
two blades of grass in one field, are absolutely the
same.
Here, again, is something which anybody may prove
for himself. Next time we go for a walk, or out into a
garden, we might try to find two Oak-leaves, or two Elm-
leaves, or two Rose-leaves, or two Grass-blades, which
are precisely the same; the same in size, in shape, in
markings, without the very smallest difference.
It will not be an easy task. And when we think we
have succeeded, we must put the question to the test
by looking at both through a magnifying-glass, or under
a microscope. If then we can still detect not the
tiniest difference, we shall have done something to be
proud of. But I hardly think we shall succeed. |
All the leaves of an Elm will be alike; very much
alike; just as the brothers and sisters in one family are
sometimes very much alike. Yet generally each leaf
will be slightly unlike all the other leaves, just as each
child in a family is different from all the rest.
II—Sucu NumBeErs !
We have been thinking so far mainly of the higher
kinds; those known as Flowering Plants; and we shall
go on thinking mainly about them.
But before making any farther advance, it is as well
to picture to ourselves, in some small degree, what is
really meant by the whole Vegetable Kingdom; the vast
World of Plant-life.
To do this we have to begin very low down, and to go
steadily upward. We have to make a start far below
30 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
the level of Flowering Plants. It will be like climbing
a long ladder. Only, instead of a ladder standing by
itself, we must picture in our minds a ladder surrounded
on all sides by enormous numbers of vegetable growths.
As we mount, step by step, we shall see one kind following
another; beginning with the smaller and simpler sorts,
and going on with those that are larger, less simple in
make, more complex and finished.
At the very bottom we find ourselves in the midst
of swarms upon swarms of those tiny vegetable-specks,
spoken of earlier; specks so minute as to be invisible
except under a microscope. Among them a great
number of varieties are known; but in them all we find
no trace of root or stem, of leaf or flower. In very many
cases each one is a mere tiny cell of living jelly; and
when they increase in numbers, it is done by the cell
dividing into two—the halves going off in different
directions as a couple of plantlets.
A whole book might be written about these specks
of vegetable life alone; their number is so _ great.
Only two or three kinds can be named here.
Sometimes on snow-clad mountains a curious sight is
seen in the shape of a patch of red snow. That snow is
not in itself red; for the colour is lent to it by multitudes
of minute plantlets; millions and millions of them
mixed with the snow; each one far too small to be seen
by the naked eye. And even their red tint is borrowed
from something else that is present; it is not actually
their own.
You may have heard of the famous little Diatom-
plants—exceedingly small, but important because of
their multitudinous numbers. Mere specks of life,
A WIDE WORLD OF PLANT-LIFE 31
they are so tiny that if a hundred of them were sprinkled
on a piece of clear glass, and you were to hold up that
glass against the light, you would see nothing. Yet the
Diatoms would be there.
Real living water-plants are they; each one enclosed
in a minute case or box, made of a flint-like substance,
in two halves which exactly fit one another like a box
and lid. The outside is decorated in all sorts of patterns ;
one kind having one pattern, and another kind another
pattern. About two thousand different species are
known; each particular species being marked with its
own special design, unlike all the rest. The beauty
and finish of these ornamental markings are marvellous.*
For thousands of years nobody knew anything about
the Diatoms and their wonderful little boxes. It was
not till men had learnt how to make microscopes that
the Diatom-cases could be seen at all.
Somehow these living specks travel about; and
probably it is by means of very fine lashes—called
cilia—put out through little holes, and used like oars
for rowing themselves along.
A step or two higher up the ladder brings us to the
small and dainty Volvox plant, which may be found in
many an English pond. It is greenish in colour, and
globe-like in shape; and it too moves about like an
animal, rowing itself along by means of little arms or
cilia. It really is not one plant only, but a whole
colony of plantlets, all pressed together and joined into
one, and surrounded by a kind of envelope.
1 For illustrations of these Diatom-cases see The Romance of
the Mighty Deep, by the same author: opposite pages 154, 156.
32 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
III—A LAppER OF LIFE
Now as we climb we have to leave behind us these
lowest and simplest forms of Vegetable life. Passing
up two or three more rungs, we find ourselves soon
among the company of Lichens.
Many a time, when looking at some old cottage or
barn, we have noticed on the roof a curious yellow
colouring. Also on some aged wall we have seen a
number of different tints, brown or grey or reddish,
looking like stains. All these were due to Lichen-plants,
and were actual vegetable-growths, flourishing where no
other kinds could find sustenance.
Sometimes in a wood we light upon a piece of grey
Lichen, looking much like a dried seaweed, and seeming
as if it were dead. But it is not a seaweed, and it is not
dead.
As we continue to mount the ladder, rung by rung,
A WIDE WORLD OF PLANT-LIFE 33
we pass innumerable Fungus-growths—Mildew and
Blight, Toadstools and Mushrooms—some of which are
poisonous, and some have unpleasant smells. But all
are in their nature vegetable.
Nor must we omit to
note, in passing, the
vast array of Seaweeds ;
real plants these also.
Most of us know well
the pretty little branch-
ing red ones; and the
wide brown ribbons;
and the slimy green
kinds; but enormous
numbers besides are
found in other parts
of the world.
All these — Lichens,
Fungi, Seaweeds—be-
long to the great Lower
Division of Flowerless
Plants.
Soalso dothe Mosses,
farther up; and the
huge brotherhood of TCR UGAR WEMMUBIUA Te?
Ferns, higher up still. ,
But when we get to the Mosses and Ferns, we see
that we have made a very important advance. They
come much closer to the Higher Division; for they have
roots and stems and something very like leaves. Practi-
cally, the fronds take the place of leaves, and also they
take the place of flowers.
34 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
At certain times of the year we may see on the back
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1. HARD PRICKLY SHIELD FERN (Polystichum aculeatum) (Upper Side).
2. ALPINE BLADDER FERN (Cystopteris regia) (Under Side). 3. ANNUAL
MAIDENHAIR (Gymnogramma leptophylla) (Upper Side). 4. ANNUAL
MAIDENHAIR (Gymnogramma leptophylla) (Under Side). 5. PARSLEY
FERN (Allosorus crispus) (Barren Frond). 6. PARSLEY FERN (Allosorus
crispus (Fertile Frond).
of a fern-frond curious raised brown markings, arranged
in rows. This is known as the “ fructification”’ of a
A WIDE WORLD OF PLANT-LIFE 35
fern. In other words, it is the “ spore-growing ”’ part
of the plant; and, like a flower producing seeds, it
produces “‘ spores.”’
LEAVES OR FRONDS OF MOUNTAIN FERN. LEAF OF OAK.
These spores are very tiny, and are much more simple
in make than seeds; but they serve the same purpose.
Their task is the same. They have to provide, not only
D
36 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
new ferns, but also new mosses, new fungi, new lichens,
to take the place of the old when the old die. Thus the
Earth is kept supplied with fresh generations of these
various growths.
And now, as we still mount our ladder, we find a
marked change, and we come to a new Division.
All the plants which we have so far noticed in our
upward progress belong to the vast Lower Division of
FLOWERLEsS PLANTS. But at last we have reached
the great Upper Division of FLOWERING PLANTS.
At the very beginning of this Division we come
across the large Grass Family, sometimes called the Grass
Order. There are many such big Families or Orders
or Tribes; and they include often such enormous num-
bers of distant cousins, that really they are more like
Scotch ‘‘ Clans ” than Families.
Here we see the plan followed of a regular structure,
built up out of Roots, Stems, Leaves and Flowers. Not
always pretty flowers, or brightly coloured, but still
flowers of some description, producing seeds.
All the Grasses belong to this Family; little low
ones and tall rank ones. The highest kinds in Britain
seldom rise above a man’s waist; but in tropical
countries they are often over his head. Wheat and
Barley, Oats and Rye, Rice and Indian Corn and the
Sugar Cane, are included in the same clan.
Presently we find ourselves in the midst of hordes
of Flowering Plants, such as grow in meadows and hedge-
rows, on hills and downs, in valleys and by rivers, in
gardens and parks; wild flowers and cultivated flowers ;
plants that we all know, and plants which none of us
37
A WIDE WORLD OF PLANT-LIFE
WELLINGTONIA.
38 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
have ever seen; thousands and thousands of them; some
beautiful; some curious; some sweet-smelling; some
interesting. But, indeed, we may say that in one way
or another all are interesting; and that very few are
without some touch of beauty.
And the Trees; first the Pines and the Firs—cone-
bearing—and the multitude of Palms. And then the
immense varieties of Forest trees; not perhaps most
of them really higher on the Ladder of Life than many
flowering plants of a smaller growth. Yet they are so
tall and stately that we might wrongly place them at
the top. Can anything be more beautiful or more
grand than an ancient Oak; or a great Beech, sweeping
its branches to the ground; or a splendid Cedar of
Lebanon; or a gigantic Wellingtonia with a trunk so
huge that a dozen people might sit down to dinner
within its bark; or a vast Indian Banyan-tree, with
its numberless root-trunks ?
Think of the extraordinary difference between one
of these and a rolling invisible speck of jelly in a pond.
Yet both are alive; both grow; both belong to the same
Vegetable Kingdom.
** Large streams from little fountains flow,
Tall Oaks from little acorns grow.” }
**T know a bank where the Wild Thyme blows,
Where Oxlips and the nodding Violet grows;
Quite over-canopied with luscious Woodbine,
With sweet Musk-roses, and with Eglantine.”’ 2
1 David Everett.
* Midsummer Night's Dream.
A WIDE WORLD OF PLANT-LIFE 39
I1V—SomeE Curious DIFFERENCES
We have learnt now a little about two great Divisions
in the world of Plant-life. Certain Subdivisions must
also be mentioned.
With the very first beginnings of growth from a
Seed sown in the ground or in a pot, we may notice
that two humble small green leaflets creep quietly up
above the soil. They are the Cotyledons or Seed-leaves ;
so-called because they are the first to spring from the
seed. Each day they get a little taller; and soon other
leaves grow up from between the two. In time the first
pair, having done their share of work, fade quietly away ;
and the later leaves are often unlike them in shape.
Great numbers of plants begin life thus, with the two
leaves. In some cases, however, as with the Oak and
other Forest trees, we do not see them, for they remain
underground, and the leaves which first appear are
not true ‘‘ Seed-leaves.”? Still, the fact is the same that
most of our trees, such as the Oak, the Beech, the
Elm, the Birch, the Sycamore, actually do begin their
careers with a pair of such leaves. And thousands of
lesser plants do the same.
A very unimportant matter, you may perhaps think.
What does it matter ? .
Well, in one sense, perhaps not much. But a good
deal that is interesting goes with it. |
Sometimes, in place of those two leaves a plant begins
life with only one Seed-leaf; and that makes a consider-
able difference; or rather, a considerable difference
goes with that arrangement. Plants which spring from
bulbs may be said to have only one Seed-leaf. The
4.0 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
Lily-of-the-Valley and the Narcissus grow thus; as
also do Rushes and Grasses and Orchids.
If this distinction of either One or Two Seed-leaves
stood alone, it might be of interest, though we could
hardly count it to be worthy of much attention. But
the number of Seed-leaves is not the only sign which
marks off one big Subdivision of Flowering Plants from
another. |
It is a curious fact that most of the One Seed-leaf
plants seem to grow—or, as one may say, to be built
up—in threes. 'Their flowers, for instance, have usually
three sepals and three petals, or else twice or three times
three; that is, six or nine of each.
But the Two Seed-leaf plants are hardly ever thus.
They are commonly found to be in fours and fives—
or in twice four or five, as the case may be.+
Any of us may put this to the test. We may count
the sepals and petals of a Lily and a Narcissus, and then
those of a Buttercup and a Primrose. And usually
these rules will be found true—that the Threes go with
the single Seed-leaf, and the Fours or Fives with the
double Seed-leaf. Once in a way a flower seems to have
made a mistake, and to have its numbers wrong; but
this is rare; and we have to examine several of a kind,
noting what the greater number are like.
1 These lesser Divisions of Flowering Plants are known as
Mono-cotyledons and Di-cotyledons; by which is meant Plants
with One Seed-leaf, and Plants with Two Seed-leaves. There
are also Plants which have several, called Poly-cotyledons, and
Plants which have none, called A-cotyledons. ‘‘ Mono” means
One; ‘Di’? means Two; ‘‘ Poly’? means Many; and “A”
means ‘‘No.’? But we need not trouble our heads with the
two last,
A WIDE WORLD OF PLANT-LIFE Al
A third distinction helps to mark these Subdivisions
as apart each from the other.
With a Two-Cotyledon plant, if we study the leaf
carefully, we shall nearly always find its markings—its
ribs and veins—to be netted. 'There may be a main rib
running up the middle, and there will be many lesser
ribs or veins branching off sideways towards the edges.
When we try to tear this leaf, it will not tear straight,
but only in a jagged way along the branching side-ribs.
This can be seen with an Oak-leaf or a leaf from a
Rose-tree.
But if we get a Lily-of-the-Valley leaf we shall at
once find that it is not netted or branched. A number
of long lines run all the way from the stalk to the leaf-
tip. And if we try to tear it, we shall see that it tears
smoothly down its full length. It is the same with
other Mono-cotyledon plants.
And yet again a fourth difference exists between
these two big Subdivisions.
If an Oak or an Elm is cut down, and we look at the
cut end, we may notice many lines running round, circle
within circle. These lines show the age of the tree.
Each year a fresh growth or layer takes place, between
the outer wood and the bark; and so the trunk gets
steadily larger year by year. That is the way in which
Di-cotyledon plants grow (see page 74).
But the Mono-cotyledon plants increase in quite
another fashion.
They do not grow by added outer layers. The wood
of a Palm-tree, for instance, when cut down shows no
circles, It does not increase by layer added to layer,
42 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
Its wood grows in bundles of fibre, scattered through the
trunk. Palms have slender smooth trunks, not rugged
and massive like so many of our forest-trees.1
But if somebody asks why straight-veined leaves,
stamens in threes or sixes, and inward-growing stems,
should belong to the single Seed-leaf—and why
branching-veined leaves, stamens in fours or fives,
and outward-growing stems, should belong to the two
Seed-leaves—no answer is possible. No sufficient reason
has been found. We can only say that we do not know.
We do know, however, that whether they begin life
with one cotyledon or with two cotyledons, it makes
no difference as to the sweetness of the flowers, the
beauty of the trees, or our enjoyment of them.
‘** Between the erect and solemn trees
I will go down upon my-knees;
I shall not find, this day
So meet a place to pray.
‘‘ Haply the beauty of this place
May work in me an answering grace,
The stillness of the air
Be echoed in my prayer.
‘*“The worshipping trees arise and run,
With never a swerve, towards the sun;
So may my soul’s desire
Turn to its central fire.
“With single aim they seek the light,
And scarce a twig in all their height
Breaks out, until the head
In glory is outspread.
1 These Divisions are often spoken of also as ExoGENs or
outward-growing and ENDOGENS or inward-growing plants,
A WIDE WORLD OF PLANT-LIFE 43
** How strong each pillared trunk; the bark
That covers them, how smooth; and hark,
The sweet and gentle voice
With which the leaves rejoice !
** May a like strength and sweetness fill
Desire, and thought, and steadfast will,
When I remember these
Fair sacramental trees.”
J. D. C. PELLow.!
1 From Georgian Poetry, 1918-1919, published by ‘‘ The Poetry
Bookshelf.’’ By permission.
PART IV
FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS
I—PuT INTO CLASSES
In a small book of this kind it will not be needful
to say very much about the way in which Plants have
been sorted or classified by botanists. Still a few clear
ideas on the subject, before going on to the make and
the ways and the habits of plants, are desirable.
Plant-lovers recognised that certain groups more or
less closely resembled one another; and it became
convenient to have names for such groups, so that
the nature of any particular one might be quickly
conveyed to gardeners or botanists. If these groups
could be arranged in some definite order, it would then
be fairly easy for a gardener to make a methodical
list of his stock, and for another to find any given plant
in that list. He would look for it under the name of
the group to which he knew it belonged. The question
was—How to carry out such an arrangement ?
Suppose we wished to classify Mankind into divisions.
We might make one class of tall men, another of short
men. Or one class of stout men, and another of thin
men. Or we might sort them by the colour of their
hair; those with black hair, those with brown, those
with red, those with yellow.
44
FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS A5
This would not be a good mode, because in other
respects the men in one class would often be so utterly
unlike. A far more sensible plan would be to sort
them by their descent; by Race and Relationship.
Many points of real resemblance—of inherited likeness—
would then be found in large numbers of men, belonging
to one family or to one race.
Several different methods were tried for plants,
without much success. Then a learned Swede, named
Linneeus, took the matter up.
His scheme! was a very simple one. He placed all
the Flowering kinds in Classes by means of their stamens
and their pistils. First came ten classes: of plants
with one stamen only in each flower, plants with two
stamens, plants with three stamens, and so on up to
ten stamens. Then a class with many stamens; and
then some classes with stamens growing in particular
ways. All these were again divided into lesser classes
by means of their various kinds of pistils.
People were delighted with the plan; it was so easy
to grasp; and it was taken up far and wide.
But in time botanists grew dissatisfied. The scheme
was not good enough. It was too much like classifying
men by their height and size, or by the colour of their
hair. Such utterly diverse kinds came into one class,
only because they happened to have the same number
of stamens, when perhaps hardly another point of
resemblance could be found in them.
Gradually that simple system fell out of general use,
and another took its place.
This other is known as the Natural System; and in
+ Known as ‘‘ The Linnean System,”
46 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
it plants are arranged according to what seem to be
their actual relationships. They appear to be related,
because of their marked likeness one to another, not
in one respect only, such as the number of their stamens,
but in many respects; such as the way in which they
grow, the forms of their leaves, the manner in which
they produce seeds, and so on.
DETAILS OF RED CAMPION.
1. Pistil and Styles. B. a petal to show attachment and Corona C.
2. Stamens. The anthers of the long ones have opened to shed the
pollen.
3. Capsule.
By “ relationship ’’ we commonly mean descent from
the same more or less recent ancestors. This we know
to be true with men. And though we cannot abso-
lutely declare that it is true with groups of plants,
there is every reason to believe that it may be the real
explanation.
It seems to be with them as with ourselves. Some
FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS AT
people are very nearly related, such as brothers and
sisters. Others, such as first-cousins, are not so near;
and others, such as second and third cousins, are more
distantly of kin. Many more, again, are united only
by the tie of belonging to the same race, the same
country; while countless numbers can only be called
connected because they all belong to the great Family
of Mankind in general.
We have already heard something of the first main
division of all plants into two very large classes—
Flowerless Plants and Flowering Plants. Our business
now is with Flowering Plants only; and chiefly with
those which begin life with either one or two little
Seed-leaves. These are separated into lesser classes,
under various titles, as follows—
All Flowering Plants are divided into Natura
ORDERS, sometimes called FAMILIEs.
Each of these Natural Orders or Families is divided
into groups called Genera. One such group is called a
Genus.
Each Genus is divided, again, into different Species.
This word is the same in the singular and in the plural.
We speak of a species and of many species.
Lastly, each species may be divided into many
Varieties ; more or less alike, yet with differences.
The word ‘ Tribes” is sometimes used as a title for
a lesser division or class belonging to one of the Natural
Orders. And, as stated above, the relationship here
spoken of is believed to be a real thing; to come from
actual descent. Plants which we look upon as near of
kin are, in all probability, descended from one common
ancestor.
48 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
TI—RosEs AND THEIR RELATIVES
‘** Loveliest of lovely things are they
On earth that soonest pass away.
The Rose that lives its little hour
Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.” 4
We have noticed earlier the make of a Wild Rose.
It was white, with pink tips; and it had five green
sepals, partly joined into one, and five tinted petals;
and many delicate gold-tipped stamens.
ound the slem.
WooodRuFF
We might have seen that the leaves of the plant
grow alternately ; not in pairs, just opposite, but first
one on one side, then another higher up on the other
side. Also we might have noted the tiny leaflets, called
Stipules, growing at the bottom of each leaf-stalk.
Now we will look at a very near relative of the Rose;
a first-cousin. This is the Strawberry Plant. If we
examine the flower, we shall find not indeed only five,
1 W. C. Bryant.
FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS AQ
but twice-five sepals and five white petals, and a
great many stamens; also stipules, but not alternate
leaves.
Another near relative we might find, if it is the right
time of the year, in the hedge-rows. Its name is Poten-
tilla or Cinquefoils; and it has a pretty little pale
yellow flower, with again ten sepals and five petals and
many stamens. One kind has soft white undersides
to its leaves.
These all belong to a great Order or Family, named
RosaceE#; and that Order is divided into three Sub-
families: the Rose Sub-family; the Pear Sub-family ;
and the Almond Sub-family. Sometimes the whole
large Order is spoken of as the Rosr Famtry. But while
each of the Sub-families really is rather like a very big
Family of innumerable cousins, the whole Order is more
like a huge Tribe or Scotch Clan.
_ And think what a useful Tribe this is to us. What
should we do without the Strawberries, the Raspberries,
the Blackberries, the Cherries, the Apples, the Pears,
the Almonds, the Plums, the Peaches, and many other
fruits, which its different members manufacture for
our use?
Or, again, what should we do without the multitudes
of lovely Roses, and of numberless other beautiful
flowers, belonging to it?
We have already seen some of the general signs by
which we may recognise many members of this very
fascinating clan. One other characteristic must be
mentioned : that, with hardly an exception, its members
do not manufacture anything hurtful or poisonous to
man.
50 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
The question of their seeds is interesting, because
from them come many of our favourite fruits. And
though they are so nearly related, they differ oddly in
the manner in which those fruits grow and ripen.
For instance, with the Strawberry flower. Within
its clustering stamens are several pistils, each of which
ae
\
“a
=
~
is, Sa ;
\\\
\
IS
FRAGARIA VESCA (Wood Strawberry).
has its own stigma, its own style, its own ovary, the
last-named holding one tiny beginning of a seed.
As time goes on, the petals having done their work
fade and drop off, and the sepals close in around the
young fruit. This fruit really is the receptacle of the
flower; a sort of tiny cushion, from which the pistils
grew. It begins to swell, and gets gradually larger and
larger. Later on it also gets rosier and rosier.
FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS 51
Meanwhile, those parts of the pistil which contain
each one its little seed get harder, but not bigger. And
as the berry increases in size they slowly separate,
going farther and farther apart, till at last they are
scattered all over the crimson surface, as you will see
in any ripe strawberry. Those small, yellow, seed-like
things are really dried-up pistil-remains, each having
its own seed inside.
The Raspberry follows quite another plan. Here we
find not ten, but five sepals, and also five petals. And
here again—as with many flowering plants—there is
the receptacle from which the pistils grow. But in
this case it is not the receptacle which swells into a
luscious fruit.
If you look closely at a ripe Raspberry you will see,
rising from its rather lumpy surface, a number of tiny
threads. They are the remains of the pistil-styles;
and so the ripe parts of the Raspberry are actually the
pistils, which have changed into this soft state, pressed
closely together. And the hard part within, from
which you pull the ripe berry, is the dried-up remains
of the receptacle, which has given up all its juices to
feed the growing fruit.
With Apples and Pears we have again a different
structure. In their flowers also are found the five
calyx-divisions, and the five petals, and the many
stamens. When an apple is fully ripe, you see at the
end farthest from the stalk a dried-up something,
which is just the remainder of part of the sepals. But
part of those same sepals has united with the pistil,
to grow into a beautiful and refreshing fruit, in the
E
52 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
middle of which—if you cut it open carefully—you
may find five divisions, and one or two seeds hidden
snugly in each.
Then, again, there is the mode followed by stone-
fruit trees, belonging to this Family : such as Plums and
Peaches, Apricots and Cherries. These also have their
five sepals, their five petals, and their many stamens.
But with them we find only one pistil, which grows and
changes into a soft eatable fruit, containing inside a
single seed, shut firmly up within a hard protecting stone.
Countless lesser differences run through the number-
less varieties of this great Order, to which we owe so
much. We have gone more fully into the ‘“‘ ways ”’ of
the Rose Tribe than will be possible with others. But
it is well to gain a clear notion of what is generally
meant by such an Order or Family, and by its Sub-
families and relationships.
It might make us think of the Tribes of North-
American Indians, which in olden days used to wander
over the country; each separate Tribe being divided
into Families, the members of which were closely
related, while the whole Tribe was connected, but more
distantly.
“Ye Violets that first appear,
By your pure purple mantles known,
Like the proud virgins of the year,
As if the spring were all your own—
What are ye when the Rose is blown?’ ?
** What does it take to make a Rose,
Mother-mine ?
The God that died to make it knows;
It takes the world’s eternal wars,
1 Sir Henry Wotton (A.D. 1600).
FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS 53
It takes the moon and all the stars,
It takes the might of heaven and hell,
And the everlasting love as well,
Little child.’’ +
IlI—‘“‘ BuTTERCUPS AND DAISIES ”’
Next we have to think about two or three more
such Orders or Families in the Kingdom of Plant-life.
Suppose we begin with a Buttercup. [If it is spring
or early summer, and if a field happens to lie near,
we may easily find one. In examining flowers a small
magnifying-glass is very helpful, though much can be
done without it.
About half-way down the flower-stalk one or two
little leaves will be found, not unlike the other leaves,
only not so large, and these are called Bracts. Many
plants have no bracts.
We shall see once more five small green sepals,
and five bright yellow petals, and many stamens; and
in the centre, growing up from a little cushion-like
receptacle, several pistils. In these points a Buttercup
is much like the flowers of the Rose Order. But there
are differences.
The stamens of the Butterceup—and of many other
plants belonging to the same Order—grow from close
below the ovary, instead of, as with many of the Rose
Family, from around or above it. This may seem to
be a very slight matter, yet with it appears to go a
distinction which is far from slight.
The plants belonging to the Rose Tribe manufacture
1 This and other quotations from Mr. Alfred Noyes in this
volume are from his Collected Poems, published by William
Blackwood, and are used by permission.
54 THK GARDEN OF EARTH
with hardly an exception only food that is good and
wholesome. But plants belonging to the Buttercup
Order have, in many cases, fruit that is very unwhole-
some and even poisonous; and in their stems are some-
times found acrid and burning juices.
We do not in the least know why wholesome fruit
LR Common Red fppy. Rough-headed foppy.
Sty (Ip 7
wat
”,
Be.
ss;
a,
should go with stamens that spring from above the
ovary, and unwholesome fruit with stamens that spring
from below the ovary. We only know that so it is.
Many travellers with some knowledge of botany, when
going through a wild and strange country, have trusted
to such tokens as a means of telling safe from unsafe
fruit, and have found the plan to answer.
The Buttercup Order, often spoken of as “ The
Crowfoot Family,’! contains many flowers familiar
1 Order, RANUNCULACE.
FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS 55
to us all, such as the Anemone, the Hepatica, the
Larkspur.
In some respects the Poppy Order or Family,! comes
rather near to it. Many of the plants in this Order
also manufacture fruits unwholesome and even hurtful
in kind. From the Poppy itself comes that stupefying
and deadening Opium, which works such terrible harm
in Eastern countries.
A Poppy flower has many stamens, but only two
sepals and four petals. Its pistils are joined together,
and do not grow separately, as with a Buttercup. Its
juice is often milky in character.
Now let us turn to one of our oldest and commonest
and dearest little friends, the Daisy, beginning with
what a poet of to-day has said about it—
‘“*T know why the Daisy is white, my dear, I know why the skies
are blue;
I know that the world is a dream, my dear, and I know that
the dream is true;
I know why the Rose and the Toadstool grow, as a curse and
a crimson boon—
Hey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over
the Moon.” 2
With which unexpected ending we will take a Daisy
in hand and examine it.
The golden centre is there, which we often call the
Daisy’s “eye,” because with it the flower seems to
gaze so cheerfully upward. And around this golden
centre—which you might take for a mass of stamens—
are pure white rays, or white rays tipped with crimson,
1 Order, PAPAVERACEZ. 2 Alfred Noyes.
56 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
standing out in a circle, and you might suppose them
to be the petals of a single flower.
But the golden centre is not made of stamens, and
the outer rays are not ordinary flower-petals. We talk
of the Daisy as “‘a flower,” yet really it is not one
flower only. It is a whole bunch or collection of tiny
flowers or “‘ florets,”’ as such minute blossoms are called.
And only in a sense can we speak of the whole as one
flower.
Those pa ns stamen-like things in the centre
are florets ; each having
<a its own corolla and
AN stamens and_pistil.
And the white rays
surrounding are florets
also, different in shape,
yet each again having
its own corolla and
stamens and _pistil.
Altogether there are
between two and three hundred of them in a single
Daisy.
The florets have no green sepals of their own, however.
Instead of this, there are little, green, sepal-like leaves
surrounding the entire collection of yellow and white
florets. These we might call the “ calyx,” though the
right word for them is Involucre—a word something
like envelope. They really do ‘“ envelop” or cover up
the young Daisy bud.
A Daisy is a Composite Flower, for it is composed
or made up of many florets, all growing together and
behaving like a single flower. It belongs to the “ Com-
SECTION OF FLOWER HEAD OF DAISY.
FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS 57
posite Order,” ! sometimes spoken of as the ‘‘ Sunflower
Family.”
We all know the big Sunflower, with its soft central
cushion of yellow florets, and the large outstanding
yellow rays. This is an important member of the
Family; and, indeed, a great Sunflower looks as if he
had an extremely good opinion of himself.
Then we have Dandelions, and Thistles, and Chry-
santhemums, and China Asters, and many more; though
it must not be taken for granted that every plant with
‘* composite flowers ’? belongs to the same Tribe. Other
marks beside those already named distinguish its
members. But we have not space to go farther into the
matter here; though I think we may spare room to quote
what our northern poet of past days had to say about
a Daisy-plant, which stern duty forced him to demolish.
“Wee, modest, crimson-tippéd flower,
Thou’s met me in an evil hour;
For I maun crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem;
To spare thee now is past my power,
Thou bonny gem.
*Cauld blew the bitter biting north
Upon thy early, humble birth;
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
Amid the storm;
Scarce reared above the parent earth
Thy tender form.
** The flaunting flowers our gardens yield,
High shelt’ring woods and wa’s maun shield,
But thou, beneath the random bield 2
O’ clod or stane,
Adorns the histie ? stibble-field,
Unseen, alane.
1 Order, ComPosiItTz. 2 Shelter. + Dry.
58 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
‘** There in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snawy bosom sunward spread,
Thou lifts thy unassuming head
In humble guise ;
But now the share uptears thy bed,
And low thou lies!” +
Another plant, neither pretty nor sweet but very
common, may have a moment’s attention, the Wild
Parsley. It grows in fields and waste grounds, and a
second name for it is ‘‘ Fools’ Parsley.” It looks so
like real Parsley that children have sometimes eaten
and have been made ill by it or even poisoned.
The manner in which this plant grows should be
noticed. Several flower-stalks branch outward from
one centre, and often lesser stalks branch outward again
from these. In each case the stalks, springing from one
spot and bearing tiny white flowers at their tips, stand
out somewhat in the fashion of an open umbrella held
upside down. So the Order to which the Wild Parsley
belongs is described as ‘‘ Umbel-bearing.”’ ? The flowers
are said to “ grow in umbels,” like an umbrella.
To the same Family belong the Carrot, the Parsnip,
and Celery, also Hemlock, which is poisonous. It is
curious that Celery which when cultivated we find so
good to eat, is unwholesome when in a wild state.
Certain plants, branching out much after the same
fashion, such as the Elder-bush and certain Geraniums,
do not belong to this Order.
These few examples will be enough to give some
little idea of what is meant by Orders and Families,
1 Robert Burns 2 Order, UMBELLIFEBZ,
FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS 59
and also of the way in which plants are grouped in
Classes.
But the subject is such an enormous one that it has
CAUCALIS ANTHRISCUS (Upright Hedge-Parsley).
to be studied by itself. There are numberless books,
large and small, written about the Divisions and
Classes.
It is a good plan to hunt out the various flowers
60 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
which may be found in one’s neighbourhood; and then,
with the help of a book about wild flowers, to learn
all that one can about them. Not only their names,
but the principal marks by which they may be known
again, and by which some of their near relatives can
be recognised. All this, as one goes on, becomes
exceedingly interesting.
Stamens
AY
Y);
yi
SS. QW
neye flower
aid open.
PART 'V.
THE WORK OF ROOTS AND STEMS
I—Wuat SOIL IS MADE OF
We all know from early childhood that plants grow
out of the earth, for it is a fact constantly before our
eyes. But not everybody thinks seriously about what
he sees, and not everybody considers and wonders how a
plant thus comes; what is in the ground to make it
grow; why it should appear; and why, having appeared,
it should continue to gain in size and height.
People are so used to these marvels, so used to
having small plantlets push their way up through the
soil, and bring forth leaves and flowers and fruits, that
they take it all as a matter of course and forget to feel
any surprise.
Yet it is by no means a matter of course !
Why should plants come up? And why should they
increase in size? And why should they bear leaves
and flowers, and produce fruits? If we did not know
that things are so, we should never have expected such
extraordinary happenings. For though they seem to
us quite ordinary, they would not be so to one who
had never before seen anything of the kind.
What can there be in the soil which does so much?
61
62 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
It does not do all, for air and rain and sunshine all
share in the work, but it does a great deal.
You have noticed often the different kinds of soil
found in different places. Here it is yellow and sandy;
there it is white and chalky. Here it is red; there it is
grey. Here it is coarse and stony; there it is fine and
Ce gas -
GRAND ST. BERNARD IN WINTER.
soft. And if we go to the top of a high mountain we
come upon great spaces of solid rock, with no soil at
all worth mentioning.
At the Grand St. Bernard for instance, in Switzerland,
where the monks live and go out with their big dogs
to hunt for travellers lost in the snow, it is all hard
granite rock with no covering of earth. Nobody can
dig there, for you cannot dig rock.
THE WORK OF ROOTS AND STEMS 63
Earth’s soils are largely made from rocks. The hard
rock has first to be split and broken and crumbled,
and then gradually mixed with other materials; and
at length soil is formed, in which plants can grow.
More powers than one go to this work of soil-making.
It is tremendously important work, and it takes a good
deal of time.
First King Frost steps in. He splits the rocks, and
breaks up the stiff earth-clods, and does no end of good.
Where a little water happens to lie in a crack, it
presses the sides of the crack as it freezes farther apart,
and so begins to demolish the mass. Bitterly cold
weather, though unpleasant, is much needed each year
for the soil.
Frost acts quickly and strongly; but another power,
which is gentle and slow in its methods, does as much
if not more inits own way. This is—Rain. One would
hardly suppose that small falling raindrops could help
to destroy solid rocks; to ‘‘ decompose”’ them is the
right word, and to ‘‘ decompose”? simply means to
‘“‘ unmake.”’
That which gives raindrops this power is the presence
of certain gases, such as nitric and carbonic acid gases,
in the water. If enough of these is present it can
eat its way gradually through the hardest rocks. At
the same time, such gases unite with other substances
found there, to form salts which are required for the
growth of plants.
When the soil is so far ready that certain of the
simpler kinds, such as lichens and mosses, can begin to
grow in it, and when spores have been brought by wind
or water or animals, then such plants themselves will
64 ' THE GARDEN OF EARTH
soon lend help. Their roots creep down quietly into
the cracks and force the sides more widely apart, and
as they die and decay they become part of the soil,
fitting it for use.
Then as the soil goes on improving, and plants of a
higher make can thrive there, these also shed their
‘leaves and the leaves decay, and by and by the plants
die also. All this enriches the earth more and more.
Soil that is formed only or chiefly of broken and
crumbled rock may be spoken of simply as “ earth ”’ or
‘“‘ earth-mould,”’ but when a large amount of leaves
and dead plants have been added it becomes “‘ vegetable-
mould.” It is then of far greater value.
Many different kinds of food required by plants—
such as potash, soda, magnesia, lime—are found in soils;
and each particular kind of plant must have its own
especial kinds of food, to keep it in good health. What
suits the constitution of one will often not do at all for
another.
II—TuHE Work OF WormMS
A curious fact comes in here about the manner in
which earth is changed into good mould. Some way
back it was remarked that worms have a certain work
of their own to carry out, and very important work too.
Many of us have perhaps looked upon worms as ugly
slimy, useless creatures, unpleasant to handle. Well,
they may be ugly, and they certainly are slimy. But
useless they are not.
It is believed that they have no power of sight,
though light does faintly affect part of their bodies;
so far as is known, they have no means of hearing;
THE WORK OF ROOTS AND STEMS 65
their sense of smell at best is very feeble; and they
do not seem to have any great amount of sense. So
we cannot look on them as gifted creatures. Yet they
have their task to do, and they do it perseveringly.
A part of it is the dragging of fallen leaves under-
ground. Have you ever remarked how the piles of
autumn leaves gradually disappear? They are not all
swept up and carried away by gardeners. In a garden
or a park this may account for a good many, but not in
fields and woods. Yet there, too, in time they silently
vanish.
And the worms have a hand here. They are believed
to swallow a certain amount of the softer parts of
leaves; and they draw goodly supplies into the soil
for stopping up the holes of their burrows. If you
keep a look-out you may sometimes find a twisted leaf
sticking out of the ground only half pulled under by a
worm.
Besides supplying the soil with dead leaves to serve
as manure they take in large quantities of the soil itself
as food. And this is all cast out again by them, enriched
and improved and fitted for use. It has been said,
indeed, that the whole of the soil in a garden or a field
passes in time through the bodies of the worms, being
thus prepared for its work.
One would never guess what numbers of worms are
in the ground; sometimes as many as tens of thousands
in one acre, or in one garden or field. Birds are per-
petually after them, yet still multitudes remain.
One day I saw a blackbird that had just found a
long fat worm. He had, no doubt, four hungry little
ones at home, for he proceeded scientifically to cut the
66 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
worm into four pieces, all the same in length. Then
he tried to get the four into his mouth to carry away.
The first two were easy enough, and the third was not
difficult. But with the fourth he had hard work, for
his beak really was too small. Perseverance, however,
won its reward, and at length all four were firmly
gripped, sticking out on either side like huge moustaches.
Then he flew happily away to his family. But what the
worm may have thought of the proceeding—if a worm
ean think !—is another question.
IJI—Growinc UP AND GRrowinc Down
A Root taken out of the ground seems a plain, dull,
brown thing, not attractive. The leaves of a plant are
pretty, and the flowers are often beautiful, and the
fruit may be good to eat. But the root—who cares for
the ugly root, buried out of sight? Useful, no doubt,
since a plant without a root could not grow. But
interesting—no !
Yet roots in their way are just as wonderful, and
just as interesting, as any other part.
To give in few words the difference between a Root
and a Stem is not quite easy. The stem comes from
the root; and the two are so joined together that at a
certain spot they are one. Often it is difficult to say
exactly where the one ends and the other begins.
Some one may say, ‘‘ Oh, that is easy! A root is
brown and a stem is green.”” But many stems of trees
are brown, and some roots are green—such as those of
certain Orchids which grow in the air, and never go
under ground.
It has been said that stems may be known apart
THE WORK OF ROOTS AND STEMS 67
because they send out buds which grow into leaf-bearing
shoots, while roots cannot do this. But here again the
distinction fails. It is commonly true; yet roots are
known, though they are rare, which do produce such buds.
Or again, we may say that a root is under ground
and a stem is above ground. Only, as we have just
seen, some roots grow in the air. And some plants—
especially ferns—have their stems under ground. What
you see in a fern is usually not the stem with leaves
on it, but the leaves alone. And you might easily
take the underground stems for roots.
These, however, are exceptions. More frequently we
do know a root when we see it; and we seldom make
the mistake of supposing a root to be a stem, or a stem
to be a root. A botanist knows that the two are quite
different in their actual make.
Have you ever thought how singular it is that the
roots should always go creeping under the soil, while
the stems always rise upward into air and light—with
just those few exceptions ?
Why should they do so? Why may not the roots
sometimes for a change try to come above ground, or
the stems once in a while try for a change to go burrow-
ing below ground? We never see this happen, with all
the hundreds and thousands of garden-plants and
forest-trees known to us. Such a thing is unheard-of.
And why?
No explanation can be given except that which has
been offered before: that it is their nature so to grow,
and that He Who gave them life gave also to each its
own particular nature and character.
F
68 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
“The earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the
blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.”
Those words, spoken nearly two thousand years ago,
still hold mystery. We have been trying to see some-
thing of how the soil is first made ready, by one means
and another, so that it may be able to “ bring forth ”
plant-life. But—like the roots growing under ground—
we are still feeling our way very much in the dark with
such difficult questions. We see what takes place,
we ‘know not how” it happens. Only so much as
we do see is full of interest.
Most of us can recall how Tennyson, studying a tiny
plant, touched on these mysteries—
** Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies ;
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand;
Little flower—but 7f I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all—
I should know what God and man is.”
IV—Tirps AND HArRs
And now we have to think again about how roots
behave under ground.
As they climb cautiously downward, into the dark
moist earth, they send out branching side roots. When
we pull up a plant we seldom fail to find such branching
rootlets growing from the main root.
And if we examine them closely we may be able to
make out a few tiny hairs near the tips of the rootlets ;
though most likely these could only be seen with the
help of a magnifying-glass.
THE WORK OF ROOTS AND STEMS 69
It is very largely through these hairs that the roots
take in food from the soil. All the young soft tips
drink in moisture, but it is the tiny hairs which do
most of the work.
A great deal of food is needed by the growing plant,
and especially a great deal of water. You would hardly
believe what a quantity of the latter has to be taken in.
Those plants which live entirely in water have really
very little that is solid in their make; and even with
land-plants at least half of their substance is in most
cases water, and often as much as three-quarters. So
we can easily imagine what supplies of it a plant must
drink to keep itself going.
In fact, a plant can in its way be just as hungry
and thirsty as a man; and if food and water fail or
become scanty it droops and gets limp and weak, just
as a human being would do. This drooping of leaves
and stem is often called ‘ wilting.”
Sometimes only a few root-hairs are to be found.
Sometimes such numbers of them are crowded together,
round about the root-tip, that it seems to be clothed
in a kind of thick velvet. Their business is to suck up
water, and at the same time they receive whatever
of solid substances may be dissolved and floating in the
water.
Root-hairs are really cells on the outside of the
root-tip, and it is when need arises that some of the
cells lengthen into hairs. Not only do they become
long and thin, but also they gain a curious power to
suck, so that they can draw away water and salts
clinging to specks of soil: clinging, indeed, so fast that
force is often needed before they can be dislodged.
70 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
We have already heard something about living cells,
in connection with the lowest forms of vegetable-life,
and more must be said later.
Just now it is enough to observe that a cell is a very
minute bag of living liquid. We could not by any
possibility see one, unless in a most powerful microscope.
But the whole root and all the smaller root-branches are
simply made up of masses and masses of such cells—
as, indeed, is the entire plant. They grow and change
and alter their shapes, and gain fresh powers, and do
different kinds of work, as may be required.
A word here about the food of plants found in the
soil. Some mention was made earlier of “ mineral
salts,”’ as they are called, which a plant must have
if it is to carry out its proper work, and some of the
most needful of such “‘ salts’? contain soda and potash,
iron and phosphorus. These substances, taken in
through the roots in liquid form, are worked marvellously
into the living substance.
Among the pressing needs of all plants—we are
thinking now of the higher kinds, such as grow in field
and wood and garden—they must have a large amount
of carbon, and they must have a large amount of
nitrogen.
The carbon they get out of the air easily enough.
And one might expect that they should get their supplies
of nitrogen from the same quarter, since enormous
quantities of nitrogen float in the atmosphere, much
more than of any other gas.
But, strange to say, they cannot take and use nitrogen
straight from the air. They cannot feed upon it at all
when it is in what we call a “ free’”’ state—that is, by
THE WORK OF ROOTS AND STEMS 7”
itself alone. They can only feed on it when it is wnited
with some other substance. And plants in general have
no power to bring about this union.
So the work has to be done for them. The “ free”
nitrogen is made ready for their use in the soil by
numberless tiny specks of living creatures—the very
lowest and smallest and simplest kinds of life, either
vegetable or animal. They are called “ Bacteria,” and
weak and tiny as they are they have this task to carry
out. They have to capture the nitrogen gas, and to
unite it with some other substance, so that it may
become fit to be food for plants and animals.
It is only certain kinds of these minute “ Bacteria ”’
which have the power; and more particularly certain
kinds that feed largely on the roots of beans and clover
and other growths belonging to the same family, though
not on those alone.
_ So the living specks of which we are thinking, hidden
away in the soil, are doing two things. They are feeding
on the roots of bean-plants or clover-plants; and at the
same time they are busily making ready the food which
those bean-plants and clover-plants must have to keep
them in health.
You see now what an important question it is—
what kind of soil we put seeds into, year by year, whether
in gardens or on farm-lands.
And now to come back to roots in general.
The root grows downward away from the light, and
as it does so, gradually lengthening, its tip travels
gently round, hunting for food like a live thing. And,
of course, it is a liye thing. The plant has life.
72 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
All parts of the soil are not alike. Here may be found
more water; there, less water. Here are more of such
salts and other foods as are needed, dissolved in water;
and there are smaller quantities. And the business of
the root is to find out where it can get just that kind
of food, and just that amount of water, which the
plant must have if it is to grow and be in good health.
So, as the root gets longer and longer, its tips go
steadily circling onward, making their way towards
what is wanted.
If a root-tip touches a part which has the wrong
sort of food, or not enough water, what do you suppose
it does? It simply turns aside and tries elsewhere.
And when it draws near to a part where there is
abundance—what then? Why, it goes in that direc-
tion, and the tips on arriving at the place send out
tiny root-hairs to suck in food and water.
Far away in the cold north the ground is always
hard-frozen a little way below the surface, not only
in the winter, but all the year round. Many shrubs
and fir-trees manage to flourish even under such
difficult conditions, helped by the sun. And the roots
of these plants start off just as do others farther south
to travel straight downwards.
But before long they come near to the hard frozen
under-soil. What do you think they do then? Would
you expect them to go steadily, doggedly, boring onward
into the ice?
Not they! As soon as they get near to the frozen
soil, and before they reach it, they make a sharp bend,
and journey along keeping to the same level, going no
THE WORK OF ROOTS AND STEMS 73
deeper down, and so remaining in ground which, through
the summer, is not frozen hard.
V—A PLANT’S BRAIN
In all that we have been discussing with regard
to the roots of plants, one thing is clear, that they
certainly behave as if they had some sort of dim sense,
or at least as if the plant as a whole had.
More than this we can hardly venture to say, for it
is a very difficult question altogether. But so wonderful
are the roots in the way they go prowling under ground,
not only hunting for food, but apparently choosing
just the right food for their own particular growth,
that they have even been named “ The Brain of the
Plant.’’ So a plant’s brain seems to be, not as with
us at the top of the structure, but down at its feet.
We need not, indeed, imagine that a plant can really
think and understand. |All we know is that it certainly
has wants ; and that it can respond to—can turn towards
—that which will satisfy those wants.
When root-tips are spoken of as travelling round and
round, no rapid movements are meant. If we were
watching ever so long and so carefully we could not see
those movements. They are real, but they are very
slow, very gentle, very gradual.
Now what do you think becomes of all the water and
liquid food sucked in by the roots?
It passes first through the hairs into the side roots,
then on into the main root, and thence it journeys
upward by way of the stem or trunk. Its name at this
stage is “raw sap” or “crude sap.” It is thus far
74 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
only the ‘“‘ raw material,” not yet fashioned into what
it is meant to be. It has to go higher still before it.
can be altered and moulded and shaped.
And here we come to one of the chief uses of the stem
or trunk—the ‘‘ body ” of the tree. Just as your body
is used for the carrying of blood to every part of it and
of its limbs, so the trunk of a tree is used for the carrying
of raw sap to every part of it and of its branches; and,
later, for the carrying also of the
manufactured and finished sap to
wherever it is needed.
While winter cold reigns over
the land the life of a tree is at a
low ebb, and all outer active
growth has come to a standstill.
But this does not mean complete
idleness. Within the trunk, and
bg ee OL Gas cee En a branches, preparation
YEARS OLD: m, pith or for spring has not only begun,
SUN oe ie ys, but may be far advanced. If
leaf-buds and flower-buds are not
actually formed—and each kind of plant does differently
in such respects—they are slowly taking shape, and they
“will be ready in time for warm spring sunshine. For
the present all is quiet, and growth is sluggish, and the
roots have not nearly so much to do as they will have
by and by.
It is very much the same with a tree in winter as
with ourselves when we are asleep at night. All day
long while we are on the go, actively employed, we
need plenty of food and water; but in bed we can sleep
for many hours wanting neither. Yet all night long
THE WORK OF ROOTS AND STEMS 75
we are alive, and the beating of our hearts and the
taking in of air by our lungs go on as usual, though
the body is quiet.
All through the winter a tree is alive, and work is
going on inside it, though it needs little food or drink.
Not till the beginning of spring, the first arrival of
mildness, are active growth and change seen by us;
very early in the spring with some kinds of plants, and
not till almost summer with others, but always with
the coming of sun-warmth. |
Then, indeed, the root-hairs start upon their task
with energy; and quantities of liquid are sucked in to
find their way upward through the roots into the
trunk and branches.
And thus comes about one of the greatest marvels
known in Nature. But of this we must speak in another
chapter.
** Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy.” !
** Lo, here the gentle lark, weary of rest,
From his moist cabinet mounts up on high,
And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast
The Sun ariseth in his majesty:
Who doth the world so gloriously behold,
The Cedar-tops and hills seem burnished gold.” ?
1 Shakespeare. * Ibid.
PART VI
THOSE LITTLE WORKSHOPS
I—Tue RISING OF SAP
AT the end of the last chapter we had just come upon
one of the greatest wonders known in Nature. ;
All the water that is drawn in by the roots of a tree
does not stay there. It passes from the hairs into the
root-branches, and then by way of the main root into
the trunk. After which it mounts up and up, through
tiny channels, till it gets to the lower boughs.
And it does not stop there. It sends out a side-
supply into each bough in turn as it passes; while still
the chief amount goes on, climbing higher and higher,
till the top of the tree is reached and every part has
had its share.
Sometimes the sap—as yet in its “‘ crude”’ or unfinished
state—has a long journey. Many of our forest trees
are fifty feet, eighty feet, a hundred feet high, and
often much more. ‘Trees in other parts of the world,
such as the Wellingtonia in America and the Eucalyptus
in Australia, rise to a height of two hundred or perhaps
even three hundred feet. Yet the supplies of sap rise
to the very topmost twigs.
Think what a marvel this is, this steady upward
climb of the raw sap which takes place each springtide
in every plant that lives and grows, in each herb,
76
THOSE LITTLE WORKSHOPS 17
GOVERNOR ODELL AND PARTY PASSING THROUGH A WAWONA
TREE, CALIFORNIA.
each shrub, each tree, in garden and field, in wood and
forest, throughout the whole world.
78 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
We know that things are so. But how does it come
about? That is no easy question to answer.
Water and all liquids pour downward, never upward.
Not once in our lives have we ever seen a stream run-
ning uphill. If we tried to any extent to make it travel
thus we should fail. For the strong attraction of our
Earth, perpetually at work, draws everything towards
the ground, from higher to lower levels; and water
because of its fluid make responds quickly to that pull.
So it always flows downward to lower levels.
Except in this case! And here we find just the
opposite. Here we have water in large quantities,
taken in by the roots, mounting steadily to the tops
of the highest trees, going as it seems to us right in the
teeth of that tremendous earthward pull which we call
‘“‘ Gravitation ’’ or “‘ Gravity.”
No easy matter this to account for. Many explana-
tions have from time to time been given, but even
when taken all together they cannot be said to explain
fully what goes on.
It was long believed that the rise of sap was due to
a certain form of attraction which is found in very
small tubes. If you hold upright in water a tiny glass
tube, you will see that the water inside rises just a
little higher than the water outside. For the sides of
the tube, attracting the water inside, draw it slightly
upward. With a very minute tube indeed, the water
would rise much higher.
Now a tree-trunk contains millions of most slender
tubes. Some of them may be as much as two or three
feet in length, and they lie wp and down the trunk,
THOSE LITTLE WORKSHOPS 79
not across it. Such tubes have been named “ channels ”’
and ‘‘ water-pipes ’”’ and “‘ water-mains,”’ because of the
quantities of water filtering through them.
In a tree which has begun its growth with two small
seed-leaves these delicate water-pipes lie chiefly between
the bark and the wood. But in a tree which has begun
its growth with only one small seed-leaf they run
throughout the whole trunk.
It was argued that the sap, reaching each of these
tubes in turn, would be naturally drawn upwards by
this particular kind of attraction, which is known as
‘“‘ Capillary,”? from the Latin word for “hair.” Each
of our hairs is really a tiny hollow tube. But though,
no doubt, there is truth in the explanation, it is not
enough by itself, not nearly enough, to account for the
mystery.
IJ—OTHER SUGGESTIONS
A different idea, more lately put forth, is less easy
to make clear. It has to do with the ‘“‘ make” of the
cells and tubes of a tree.
Both cells and tubes, little round cells and long slim
tubes, are clothed in a most fine and delicate skin,
which is called by the same name as the thin outer skin
of our bodies—the ‘“‘ cuticle.”” And the tubes are not
open at either end like a glass tube. All these cells and
all these tubes are closed at both ends.
As the sap rises in the tree it has to make its way
right through this skin before it can go from one cell or
one tube to another. It finds no tiny open doorways.
The whole tree-trunk is divided into millions and
millions of little compartments, and in every few feet of
80 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
its upward journey the sap has to pass into and out of
countless multitudes of them. This is a very different
matter from a clear run through one long channel,
and it is impossible fully to explain.
The subject as a whole is far too difficult to be gone
into here. All I can tell you is that the sap does so
journey from cell to cell, from tube to tube, filtering
gently through the enclosing skins. Not only in spring-
time upwards to the leaves, but later on, when it has
been fashioned into the completed sap, it travels again
in like manner, away from the leaves to all parts of the
tree, both above and below, wherever it may be needed.
One other fact, which bears on this question of the
rising sap, is easy to grasp. You have heard how
the roots suck in liquid and send it upward. Such
constant pressure from below of more and more sap
ever rising must, it is thought, help the forward move-
ment of that which is in front, very much as people
in a dense crowd are pushed on in front by the pressure
from behind.
Also the constant giving off by the leaves of quantities
of water is believed to lend some little assistance.
Water vapour is poured into the air from tiny leaf-
passages, and as it goes, more and more water is needed
from below to take its place.
So we may say that probably both the roots and the
leaves do, to some extent, lend their aid in the upward
journeying of the raw sap. But with all these proposed
explanations it cannot be said that the rise of the sap
is fully understood.
Perhaps hardly anything is more surprising than the
THOSE LITTLE WORKSHOPS 81
energy with which the small root-hairs suck in water
and despatch it on its upward climb. Still, one naturally
asks why this remarkable energy, begun in the roots,
should last unbroken until the mounting sap has gained
a height of one or two hundred feet or more above the
ground? Why does it not die down, long before then,
under the ceaseless drag of Earth’s attraction? And
again, what is it which gives such energy to the tiny
hairs ?—a force which, it has been said, goes beyond
that of a boiler in a steam-engine !
One great cause, and one alone, may be spoken of
as meeting the entire difficulty. Not as explaining it,
not as showing precisely how the work is done, but
simply as stating to what it is due.
All this wonderful energy, this force of movement,
this persistency of work, this growth and change and
development, spring from the Lire of the tree. That
Life is in its very nature active, energetic, aspiring—
which means that it must climb upward. It cannot
rest content where it happens to be. It must strive
after something ahead. It works and it must work,
just because it is Life.
But we can no more explain fully the ‘‘ how’? than
we can tell exactly how it is that the life in your body
keeps your heart and lungs working, day and night
unceasingly, without any effort of your will. We only
know that things are so.
In the same manner we know that the life of a tree—
the life that is in the tree—accounts for the work of the
roots, for the energy of the root-hairs, for the rise of the
sap, and for countless other wonders.
82 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
Il1I—How Many LEAVEs?
The sap, having reached the boughs, passes into the
twigs, and thence onward into each separate leaf.
For this purpose it has climbed the trunk—that it
may get to the leaves. They have a great task to
carry out, which they could not possibly do without
the raw sap to manipulate.
Each leaf by itself may be regarded as a small work-
shop; this has been said earlier. And the “ crude sap”
brought to it by the channels of trunk and branches is
as the ‘‘ raw material ’’ brought to a manufactory.
‘“* Pig-iron,” for instance, is taken to great ironworks,
to be there transformed by many complicated methods
into all kinds and varieties of iron and steel goods.
Or, again, a different class of raw materials may be
conveyed to a soda manufactory, and after many pro-
cesses the finished article, soda, is produced for uses
innumerable.
In like manner the raw sap is brought to the leaves
of a tree, to be transformed into many diverse substances,
needed by the tree itself for its own use, and needed
also by human beings.
These ‘‘ workshop ”’ leaves are always green, except
when they first open out in early spring and when they
fade in autumn. In the spring many of them show
pink and salmon tints, but that is before they begin
their real business. And in the autumn they often
turn yellow or red, but that is when their task is done.
The life of a leaf is both short and busy. No idlers are
they, these useful little friends of ours.
83
THOSE LITTLE WORKSHOPS
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84 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
They take in hand the raw materials, which are
dissolved in water and brought to them from the soil,
together with the gases which they receive from the air;
and they work up these materials and gases into what
is known as “‘ Organic Substance ’”’—that is, into such a
substance that LIFE CAN WORK IN AND THROUGH IT.
Life cannot work through all kinds of substance. It
cannot, for example, through marble or granite. But
when the leaves have prepared this “ organic sub-
stance ’’ it has become fit for food of animals and men,
for Life can enter into it and can use it.
Each day with early dawn the toil of the green sub-
stance of leaves begins. At night, in hours of darkness,
it rests; but no sooner does sunlight return than it is
once more hard at work.
How many leaves would you imagine to be on a tree?
Counting is no easy matter with one of any consider-
able size, they cluster in such dense masses. But a
reckoning was made with an Oak, probably a large
tree, for the result gave about seven hundred thousand
leaves! What, then, must be the multitudes in a wood,
in a forest, in the whole world ?
Not only are their numbers enormous, but their
kinds and shapes and varieties are endless. Some are
large, some small; some are thick, some almost trans-
parent ; some are strong, some fragile; some are long and
narrow, some short and broad; in fact, every imaginable
description of make may be found.
And they grow so differently: some in pairs, one
opposite another; some alternately; some in circles or
‘* whorls ” around the stem.
THOSE LITTLE WORKSHOPS 85
A few years ago, when I paid a visit to the Kew
Gardens, I came across remarkable leaf-specimens.
Near the main entrance was a bed of plants, stand-
ing about eight or ten feet high, with very big sub-
stantial leaves, handsomely veined and ribbed, many
of them measuring a good two feet across and the same
in length. This was the “ Kiri”? plant. But others
go far in size beyond those of the Kiri.
In one of the houses was a lovely fern from the
tropics, the ‘‘ Dicksonia.”’ It has a woolly protective
covering for its stem, and graceful fronds or leaves,
fully ten feet long.
And yet another great tropic plant—the ‘‘ Cohune
Palm ’’—hboasted a leaf actually thirty feet in length. It
was deeply cut down to the mid-rib, but still the whole
was one leaf.
Such a specimen can hardly be spoken of as a small
workshop. It is more like a large manufactory.
** The leaves of the winter wither and sink in the forest mould,
To colour the flowers of April with purple and white and
gold.” 1
IV—TuHE MAKE oF A LEAF—
Now as to the make of a leaf: how it is built up or
put together.
It is said to be in three parts: the Blade, the Foot-
stalk, and the two Stipules, which look like small leaflets,
just where the footstalk begins. But often no stipules
are found; and often, too, is seen no footstalk. The
really needful part, without which we should have no
1 Alfred Noyes.
86 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
leaf, is the blade, the wide green portion. This reminds
one of an oar, the chief part of which is called “ the
blade.”’
A leaf, like all the rest of a plant, is formed of countless
tiny cells, pressed and growing together; and the mass
of these, green in colour, is known as the ‘“‘ cellular
tissue” of a leaf. This word ‘‘ tissue’ means strictly
“that which is woven’; and here it stands for the
kind of substance which may become part of a living
body, either of plant or of animal.
The ribs and veins of a leaf—its skeleton—are also
formed of cells; but these cells have hardened into a
tough substance, which is fit to act as a strong frame-
work for the soft tissue. And over the whole is a fine
transparent skin or cuticle, both above and below, through
which the green tint can be clearly seen.
In this skin are numbers and numbers of extremely
minute openings; tiny pores or holes, so formed that
they can open or close according to the needs of the
plant. They are indeed so tiny that they cannot be
seen at all without a powerful microscope. If you were
to prick a hole in paper, with the point of the very
finest needle, that hole would be simply huge side by
side with a single leaf-pore.
By far the greater number of them are on the under-
sides of leaves. No doubt this is because the under-
side is the more sheltered, and not nearly so much
exposed as the upper-side to rain and wind and dust.
And each of them is the doorway to a minute channel or
passage, leading to and from the inside of the leaf.
No one would guess how great is the number of these
THOSE LITTLE WORKSHOPS 87
little pores—or stomata, as they are called. A single
Oak-leaf, for instance, was reckoned to have on its
under-side alone more than two millions. Some of the
largest known are on the leaves of Orchids, and some of
the smallest are on the leaves of Water Lilies. But all
Sa
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are tiny. They are most useful, most necessary, for
the life of the plant. They have to let in and to let
out supplies of both air and water-vapour.
A plant—any kind of plant—must do three things,
not unlike what we have ourselves to do. It has to
breathe. It has to digest. It has to transpire. This
88 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
last word means that it has to get rid, through its skin,
of water not wanted for its own use.
Would you have thought of a tree being obliged to
breathe? But indeed it must. It cannot live without
breathing. Like a man, it must have oxygen gas, or
it will die of suffocation; yes, of actual slow suffocation.
A tree breathes day and night; summer and winter.
A man breathes by means of his lungs. But a tree
has no lungs; and it breathes in all its parts that are
actively alive—its roots, its green stems, its seeds, its
fruits. If the roots cannot find enough air in the soil,
then the whole tree suffers. It also breathes by its
leaves.
When a man’s lungs receive the air which he has
drawn in, they make use of it for his body. A kind of
burning goes on within him, much as when fire burns
away wood. The oxygen of the air is united with some
of the carbon of his body, to make carbonic-acid gas;
and this is poured out again into the atmosphere. It
has to be got rid of quickly; for if not, the man would
die.
And the same thing goes on in a tree, in any kind of
plant. There too, the oxygen of the air, which has
flowed in through countless little pores, is united with
some of the carbon of the tree, and carbonic-acid gas
is formed, ready to be poured forth into the atmosphere.
V—AND THE WoRK OF A LEAF
Thus far the tree does much the same as we do. Here
we come to a difference.
It has to digest, as well as to breathe. That is, it has
to take in food, and to make that food a part of itself.
THOSE LITTLE WORKSHOPS 89
Like ourselves again! But a man digests his food by
means of his stomach; while a tree digests by means of
its leaves.
So the leaves have to carry on two separate tasks at
the same time. In breathing, they capture air with its
life-supporting oxygen, and get rid of carbonic-acid gas.
But in digesting, they again capture air, and do just
the opposite. They keep for food the carbonic-acid
gas—which is more strictly known as carbon-diowide—
and they get rid of the oxygen. Green plants and all
green portions of plants feed very largely on carbonic-
acid gas; for it is much needed in building up the
substance of a tree.
Both men and plants in breathing make the air around
less healthy, because they keep taking away from it
oxygen gas, and adding to it carbonic-acid gas. And
if this went on perpetually, with nothing to undo the
harm, our whole atmosphere would in time become
impossible for us to breathe.
But there is a something, and a very big something,
to undo it. There is the work of leaves, of grasses, of
countless millions of them in all parts of the world, taking
in carbonic-acid gas as food, and pouring out enormous
quantities of oxygen gas, so needful for life. While
they breathe like ourselves, thus helping to render the
air unfit for us to breathe, they also by their digestion
set the matter right, and keep the atmosphere pure and
good.
They are doing it always; but not all plants in the
whole world incessantly. Day after day, and month
after month, they carry on this work in relays. Each
90 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
plant works thus only in daylight. The breathing of a
plant goes on, as with us, both by day and by night.
The digesting takes place only while it is light. After
dark, it stops. The tree then just breathes as we do;
keeping the oxygen of the air for its own use, and getting
rid of the carbonic-acid gas.
And so soon as morning light returns, they are once
more at their useful work; and while they still breathe
out carbonic-acid gas, they catch it up again as it leaves
the little pores, and use it anew as food for the plant
to which they belong.
You would never guess what accumulations of
that important but suffocating gas are being manu-
factured, day and night, through breathing. Putting
aside what plants and animals do, and reckoning only
what is done by men and women and children throughout
the world, it is said that each day more than one million
tons of carbonic-acid gas are poured into the atmosphere.
So no wonder the daylight task of plants is needed,
to undo the mischief which we ourselves are perpetually
working.
** Small service is true service while it lasts;
Of humblest friends, bright creature, scorn not one.
The Daisy by the shadow that it casts
Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun.” 4
Something has already been said about a tree having
to transpire. This really is a kind of perspiration.
When a man perspires, drops of water are seen on
his face; water that has oozed out through tiny pores
in his skin. When a plant “transpires” the water
escapes through its skin-pores, as invisible vapour. But
1 Wordsworth.
THOSE LITTLE WORKSHOPS 91
a man really transpires, as well as a tree. All day long
water-vapour is escaping through the pores of his skin
—about as much as one pint in twenty-four hours. This
is sometimes called ‘‘ insensible perspiration,’’ because
we do not see or feel it.
Plenty of water, as you now know, taken in by the
roots, mounts upward by way of the tree-trunk into
the leaves. And in each drop there may be, at the
least, a few specks of some other kind of substance,
needed by the tree.
Such tiny specks !—the very smallest that we can
imagine !—so minute, so light, that they float in the
water unseen, and can pass with it through the delicate
skins of the cells and tubes. Yet, tiny though they
are, the tree must have them, if it is to carry on its work.
As they pass they are caught hold of and kept back
and made use of by the leaves. And all the water that
is not wanted is sent on to the leaf-pores, to escape as
vapour into the outside air.
This is yet another work done by the leaves. Not
only do they help to make the air more pure, but also
they help to keep it well supplied with moisture. Here,
too, we have to do with large quantities. Immense
amounts of water travel thus, from the soil upwards
through the tree-trunks, then out by way of the tiny
leaf-pores, into the air which we breathe.
It has been reckoned that a well-grown Apple-tree,
in the course of a single spring and summer, may part
with something like two hundred and fifty pounds’
weight of water. If we count the trees growing in one
large orchard, we can soon find out how many tons of
water are poured through them in a year. The total
92 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
is astonishing—all the more if we picture to ourselves
the weight of a single ton.
And since one orchard alone can do so much, what
must be the supplies which are in this manner got rid
of by all the orchards—all the gardens—all the woods
and forests—in our country? For not only are trees
engaged in the task, but plants of all descriptions as
well, including grasses, ferns, and mosses.
VI—GREEN LEAVES
We have now seen that these little ‘‘ workshops ”’
have their “raw material” brought to them in two
ways. First, from the roots upward through the stem;
and second, by the leaves themselves inwards from the
air. First, water, with invisible specks of many kinds
floating in it; and second, air, with its mixture of
different kinds of gases.
From these two sources the leaves are able to work
up or to manufacture many “ finished articles,” as we
may call them; such as sugars and starches, and fatty
and oily substances, perpetually needed by men;
many of which can be obtained in no other way.
Two wonderful powers work together for this end;
each helping the other.
One of the two is in the leaf itself. It is, the Life
in that leaf. We have noticed earlier the extraordinary
vigour found in life; and here we find it again—the
power to work, to grow, to do.
Throughout the whole tree, in all the active cells of
which it is or has been made—‘ has been” because
parts are always dying as fresh parts grow—in these
THOSE LITTLE WORKSHOPS 93
active cells a certain something is found, the presence
of which means the presence of Life. Where that
something is, that part of the plant is alive. Where
it is not, that part is practically dead.
This something is also in those specks of vegetable-
life, the very lowest kinds known, of which you heard
some time back. Each little plantlet by itself may be
only one single cell; a mere bag of liquid. But it has
in it this mysterious substance—soft, slimy, colourless.
It holds the germ of life; and so it is a living, breathing
plant. And every active cell in every plant has in it
the same; without which it would not be alive.
Such living cells, whether each one is a separate
plantlet or whether it is part of a larger plant, have
power to work, and to shape and mould other sub-
stances. As has been said of them—they not only
** provide the building materials, but they are themselves
the builders.”
And what marvellous building it is !
Plants by millions throughout the world, all of them
living, growing, working. Yet each plant, no matter
how great, has always begun its life as one tiny cell.
From that cell came others, shaped first inside itself,
and from each of those more and more cells, till at
length a seed has taken form; and from the seed comes
a new herb or tree.
And now to go back to the leaves; our busy little
workshops.
They, too, are built 1 up of multitudes of cells, each
of which is lined with this living substance. But now
we touch upon something else, not always found with it.
94. THE GARDEN OF EARTH
For here are numberless tiny green specks, which lend
their colour to the leaves. All through the green leaves
of plants, and the green blades of grasses, and young
green stems and shoots, they float in vast hordes.
They are found also, to some extent, in the petals of
flowers, in seeds and fruits, and even in roots; but
not nearly so abundantly.
And it is only where these little green specks con-
gregate, that the work can be done of which we have
been thinking—that particular work which is given to
leaves; the taking up of lifeless materials from earth
and air, and so changing and fashioning them into new
substances, that they are fitted to become food for
animals and men. |
A curious fact is that the living cells in a leaf first
make this leaf-green; and then, having manufactured
it, they use it for their tremendously important work.
*“* How can they possibly do all this? ’? you may ask;
and indeed you may well ask it! In one sense I can
give no clear answer. In another sense I can. For
here comes in the second great power; and that power
is—Sunlight.
Sunlight and leaf-green work together in a happy
comradeship. Without the Sun, the leaf-green could
do nothing; and without the leaf-green } the Sun could
not carry out this task. Each apart from the other is
powerless to break up the carbonic-acid gas of the air,
keeping the carbon for the building up of the tree, and
setting loose the oxygen for us to breathe. Each,
apart from the other, is also powerless to provide in
1 The “leaf-green ”’ is known by the name of “ chlorophyll,”
from two Greek words for “‘ green”’ and “‘ leaf.’’
THOSE LITTLE WORKSHOPS 95
enormous quantities that ‘‘ finished material ’? without
which neither we nor animals could feed and live; without
which the whole world would soon become one vast
desert of death.
But why, and how, and in what precise manner, the
great blazing Sun and the tiny invisible green granules
work together to bring about such grand and world-
wide results, no man living can fully explain.
** We on this earth are servants of the Sun,
Out of the sun comes all the quick in me,
His golden touch is life to every one,
His power it is that makes us spin through space.
What we may be, who knows?. But every one
Is dust on dust, a servant of the Sun.”’
1 From Lollingdon Downs, by John Masefield, published by W.
Heinemann. By permission.
PART VII
THE POWER OF SUNLIGHT
I— FLOWERS IN SUNSHINE
You remember how the Daisies on the lawn lifted
up their faces towards the Sun. And Daisies do not
stand alone in their seeming love of sunshine. Many
other flowers depend even more upon it.
For example, Sunflowers are looked upon as great
Sun-lovers. Some of them really are too huge for
beauty; such thick yellow masses! The name was
given to them because of their devotion to light. It
has been said that no Sunflower is ever seen with its
back to the Sun.
This perhaps is not quite correct; for if the plant
were not in good health, and if in consequence the stalk
were weak, the flower might not be able to carry out
such movements. But no doubt it would do its best.
A gardener told me that, one day many years ago,
he saw in Kew Gardens two great beds of these flowers,
in full bloom. And among them all, large and small—
some plants standing ten feet high—he found not one
single bloom that did not face the Sun.
The same thing may be seen with the curious rolled
leaves of an Onion-plant—not a Shallot.
If we should examine a row of them in the evening,
towards sunset, we should probably find the greater
96
THE POWER OF SUNLIGHT 97
number of leaves pointing towards the west, where soon
the sun will go down. But if we pay them another visit
next morning, not too early, when the Sun has been
some hours up, a change will have taken place. Many
if not most of the tube-like leaves will have probably
managed to turn over more or less towards the east,
where the Sun arose. Generally there are a few weakly
or sickly ones, not able to do this.
For plants, like men, are by no means always in good
health. They suffer from weakness, and from various
diseases, partly due to bad air or bad water or not
enough food, just as with ourselves.
The same apparent love of sunshine is shown by other
kinds also. Some time ago I came across a Viola-plant
98 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
in a garden, growing in a narrow bed which ran beside
the drive. It was fully in bloom, with a crowd of pretty
mauve-blue faces, turned smilingly upward.
They were marvellously arranged, so that each one
might obtain as much light as possible. No attempt
had been made to follow the Sun in his journey across
the sky; for it would have been useless. The hedge
behind, and a wall in front, cut off much of the direct
sunshine, except at one certain time of the day. But
the plant had plainly done its best so to place its blooms
that, when the sun did come, they could make the very
most of him. And when he was gone, they would still
be in a position to get all the light that might be obtained
in that position.
It was so cleverly managed! Of all the seventy or
eighty flowers—I forget the exact number—not one lay
behind another.
Many were touching at their edges, because there was
not too much space for them all. But they had so
spread themselves out as to find enough; making a
lovely pattern of delicate blooms, side by side or one
above another, close together, yet each one clear of the
rest. Only in one spot, I think, did I find a single
small corner of a petal behind the next flower, and that
was because it really could not be helped.
And all this was worked out by the plant itself. Is
it not wonderful ?
Of course I do not mean that the plant thought it out,
as you or I might do. It is more like what goes on
perpetually in our own bodies—the living, the growing,
the putting-on of flesh, the breathing, and so on, without
any conscious effort of our own wills to bring it about.
THE POWER OF SUNLIGHT 99
A plant cannot think, or reason, or resolve what it
will do. But certainly it does often act as though
after a fashion it knew what is good and needful for its
growth and health. The way in which it manages to
gain all possible sunshine for flowers and leaves, and the
way in which it takes in and uses materials gathered
from earth and air and water—are very marvellous.
It was pretty to see how gently matters had come
about in this particular instance. If a party of human
beings were all together, wishing to be in full sunshine,
and if the space in which they could move were small,
they might be tempted to think first of themselves,
and to push others into the shade.
But the Violas had done no such thing. They had
just spread themselves softly out, as far as they could,
without any pushing. It really did look almost as if
each one had tried, not only to get plenty of light for
itself, but also not to hinder its neighbours from doing
the same.
On one other occasion I remember noticing this eager-
ness of Violas for sunshine. It was on Sunday, in the
country and in early morning. On my way to church,
I saw a little grave in the churchyard full of them, in
full bloom. And though it was so early, and the Sun
had risen no long time before, yet each little face was
turned towards the east, right upwards in his direction,
as if rejoicing in his beams.
‘The heart that has truly loved never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close—
As the Sunflower turns on her god, when he sets,
The same look which she turned when he rose.” ?
1 Thomas Moore.
100 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
II—How THE WoRrRK IS DONE
It must not be supposed that all plants need the same
amount of sunshine. Just as with ourselves, that which
is good for one is not always good for others.
Some can hardly have too much, while others droop
quickly under heat and glare. Some flowers, like the
Viola, lift their faces upward towards the Sun, while
others, like the Violet, creep under sheltering leaves.
A Viola is more like the sunshine-loving Heartsease.1
But, taking the question as a whole, we may say
that plants in general undoubtedly do need, not only
light, but sunshine also. Without warmth there can
be no growth; and more warmth, though not too
much, means usually more rapid growth. For the
special work of green leaves, sunshine is particularly
needed.
As with flowers so with leaves, you may note if
you will how carefully they often seem to arrange
themselves, that they may get the greatest possible
amount of light. In a plant it can be seen frequently
that the leaves—like the Viola blossoms—have most of
their upper surfaces turned towards the Sun, spread out
level to catch his beams.
With a large tree, where the foliage grows in dense
masses, many parts must be more or less in shade;
yet the same result is here aimed at. Each leaf at
least tries to obtain its share of sunlight.
Something else is worth noticing, in the way that
leaves are arranged. Very commonly they grow in a
1 All three are species of Viola.
THE POWER OF SUNLIGHT 101
kind of pent-house style, sloping gently outwards, one
above another, so that rain, pouring on them, is guided
away from the trunk.
A reason for this may be conjectured. Do you
remember that it is the soft tips of the roots, where they
are clothed with hairs, that suck in moisture from the
soil? But in a tree, with its widely spreading roots,
those tips are far away from the trunk, often many
yards distant. Rain, falling close to the trunk, is not
needed; while at the root-tips it is much needed. So
when the sloping leaves throw it outwards, it falls
where it is wanted.
At times we may see leaves doing the opposite. If
on a rainy evening, after a dry day, you pass a patch
of potato-plants, some of the leaves may be tilted up,
standing on end and twisted as one might twist a piece
of paper, to form a channel for water. Thus again
they guide the falling drops to the roots, which in a
small plant are not far from the stem.
However, this curling of the leaves may arise from
another cause. Many leaves, which all day long have
turned their upper surfaces broadside to the sun, will
droop and curl at the coming of night.
For at night heat pours quickly away from the ground,
and from all upturned surfaces; and the leaves in that
position might suffer from cold. So, perhaps, it is
mainly on this account that they no longer face up-
wards. Such drooping and turning away has been
called “the Sleep of Leaves.”
It is not real sleep with them, as with us. It is
simply a movement, placing the leaves—often also the
flowers—so that they may keep a little of their warmth
102 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
until the morning. Yet their so doing may be of use
to the plant in the two ways named above.
Leaves, as we have seen, are called upon to carry
out many and varied tasks. But of all that they have
to do, not one is more necessary for ourselves than the
wonderful way in which they transform the raw sap
into all kinds of food and other useful substances.
A very remarkable part of the matter is that each
kind of plant should always make its own especial
material, and should always go on making it. Through
years, through hundreds of years, still plant after plant,
shrub after shrub, tree after tree, manufactures alwaysand
only its own particular ‘‘ brands,” and never any others.
Different plants may grow side by side, using the
same air, the same earth, the same water; and yet the
‘‘ finished article ’’ turned out by each is not the same.
One kind brings forth poisonous berries. Another
brings forth a delicious fruit. Another brings forth a
remedy for illness. Another brings forth something of
use in our household work. Another brings forth that
which we need for clothing. But always, always, the
same thing is made by the same kind of plant.
And this means that each plant uses for its work
exactly the right materials. It chooses out those sub-
stances, from the various supplies which travel to it in
air and in water. It refuses the wrong ones and keeps
the right ones, handing over the latter to the leaves—
its small workshops. And the leaves, busily toiling
through the few months of their brief existence, always
turn out that particular article which they and their
kind alone are able to produce.
THE POWER OF SUNLIGHT 103
The make of the soil is thus of great importance.
It may be good or bad for the plant. It may be too
dry or too damp. It may be lacking in just that de-
scription of food which is necessary for the particular
manufacture of that plant. If the soil be good, the
plant will be healthy, and will work with vigour; if
bad, then the plant must become sickly and feeble.
But still in every case each one produces, and can
produce, only its own especial materials.
** Ask me why I send you here
This firstling of the infant year ;
Ask me why I send to you
This Primrose all bepearled with dew.
Ask me why this flower doth show
So yellow, green, and sickly too ;
Ask me why the stalk is weak
And bending, yet it doth not break ;
I must tell you, these discover
What doubts and fears are in a lover.” +
III— PLANT MANUFACTURES
By far the greater part of this complicated work is
carried on by the Green Leaves of plants, though not
the whole of it.
One exception is in the matter of Wood. Our larger
trees contain masses of wood. In the trunk is the
softer sap-wood, close to the bark, full of tiny channels
through which the sap journeys. And also there is
the heart-wood, filling up the centre with hardened
remains of channels, through which the sap no longer
passes; and that part is nearly dry.
1 Thomas Carew (about A.D. 1600).
104 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
‘“* How does the wood come to be there at all? ” one
may ask; and perhaps you would answer, “‘ Why, it
grows! It is the trunk itself.’ Yes, it is; but it has
to be made. It has to be built up, year by year, within
and by itself, layer upon layer. And even there,
though in a sense the leaves do not carry on the work,
it is more or less due to them. For if they did not
faithfully perform their share, by changing the raw
sap into finished sap and sending it back through count-
less channels to nourish every part of the tree, no wood
could grow.
Other materials, such as rubber, are made in the
stems of trees, and not actually by the leaves; and
the same may be said of seeds and fruits, formed in and
by the flowers. Yet in all these cases the leaves lend
a hand.
From early morning till evening they are at it inces-
santly; gathering air and water; choosing the materials
that they need; working all up under the sun’s rays;
and turning out in the end that which it is their duty to
produce.
Then at last the completed sap is ready. And
the different uses of it, made by different plants—the
varieties of substances brought forth—are simply
amazing.
Some serve for the food of the growing plant itself.
Some are meant for the support of young plants in the
future. Very many are food for animals and men.
Indeed, the greater amount of food, upon which our
lives depend, comes to us in this way. We get it straight
from plants by eating fruits and vegetables, roots and
THE POWER OF SUNLIGHT 105
stems, either cooked or uncooked. We get it by eating
bread and pastry, cakes and puddings, made from the
flour of wheat or oats or other such growths. We get
it by eating animals which have lived on vegetable-food.
We get it by eating animals that have fed on other
animals which have lived on vegetable-food.
So again and again we come back to the work of
leaves. Such numbers of substances, needful for the
support of life, have to reach us thus !
For neither we ourselves, nor animals in general,
have any power to take food-materials out of the soil,
or out of the atmosphere, and to use them as food.
Until they have been worked up by plants, and made
ready, we simply cannot use them. We depend entirely
on the Vegetable Kingdom to prepare them for us.
IV—TueE Foop THat WE EAT
Let us think of some of the different things that we
commonly take at breakfast or dinner, and try to find
at least one or two that have not been made ready for
our use by any plant.
Somebody may suggest, “‘Salt!’? And we do get
that out of the sea or from rocks in the earth, ready
made. But though salt is good, we can hardly call it
*“‘food.”? No one could live on salt for even a very
short time.
What about Bread? That comes from Corn. The
raw materials, gathered out of earth and air by millions
and billions of Wheat-plants, are worked up by each
one separately into nourishing grains; and these are
ground to fine flour, and the flour is made into loaves
106: THE GARDEN OF EARTH
of bread. But if the Wheat-plants failed to do their
part, we might cry out in vain for bread.
What about Butter? That comes from the milk of
cows, churned into butter by man. And cows feed
largely on grass and hay; either green grass, each
blade of which has worked up the raw materials from
earth and air into a form which cows can digest; or
hay, which is simply dried grass.
Wt Me
sh
SUGAR-CANE,
What about Beef and Mutton? Just the same.
Cattle and sheep live mainly on grass. Without it they
would die, unless some other vegetable-food should take
its place.
What about Cheese? That, again, is made from milk
or cream. Without the right vegetable-food for cows
we should have no milk, no cream, no cheese.
What about Sugar? Immense supplies of it come
THE POWER OF SUNLIGHT 107
from a kind of grass, the Sugar-cane, which grows to a
height of from eight to fifteen feet, with thick jointed
stalks. In these stalks the sugar ripens, being manu-
[Photo: J. da Luxe Perestrella.
BANANAS AND THE SUGAR-CANE ON CANARY ISLES.
factured there by the plants themselves. A. large
amount also is made from ‘‘ Sugar-beet ”’ plants, nearly
related to Beetroot; and we all know what a sweet
vegetable beetroot is,
108 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
What about Rice? One of the most important of
foods; not so much in Europe as in Eastern lands. The
Rice-plant, like the Sugar-cane, is a kind of Grass; and
it grows in water, and only in very hot countries, such
as India. Its work is to manufacture those small
grains, which we know well in puddings. Enormous
supplies of Rice are needed; for it is the principal food
of the people of India, China, and elsewhere. It has
been said that more than half of the people in the world
are fed mainly on Rice. And each tiny grain, of all
. these enormous quantities, is made
and shaped separately by the
Rice-plant.
What about Tea? It also is
grown largely in India and in
China. Two or three hundred
years ago tea was a luxury, used
only by the very rich. Now
everybody, even the poorest, must
have his or her cup of tea. And
it comes to us entirely through the work of leaves. In
fact, as we know, tea is leaves.
What about Cocoa? The Cocoa or Cacao plant grows
in warm countries, especially in Ceylon and the West
Indies. It has clusters of small flowers, growing straight
from the trunk, or from the larger branches, not from
twigs or stalks. When the fruit ripens, a large pod,
several inches long, hangs where the flowers were; and
this pod holds rows of seeds or ‘‘ cocoa-beans.”
What about Fruits? Apples from the Apple-tree;
pears from the Pear-tree; oranges from the Orange-
tree; dates from the Date-palm; bananas from the
THE POWER OF SUNLIGHT 109
Banana-plant; strawberries from the’ Strawberry-
plant; currants from the Currant-bush; plums from the
Plum-tree; peaches from the Peach-tree;—but the
names are endless. All these and many many more are
the work of the Vegetable Kingdom.
Then, too, the vegetables that we eat—potatoes,
cauliflowers, turnips, carrots, cabbages, beans, peas,
asparagus, onlions—are numberless, and each one is manu-
factured by its own kind of
plant, and by no other.
Nor is this all. When we
turn to clothing, we find the
same thing over again.
What about Cotton?
Huge supplies of cotton are
used by mankind, woven
into all sorts of materials.
Where does the _ cotton
come from? Why, from the
Cotton-plant, which grows
abundantly in the plains of penta
India and in other sultry
regions. The cotton itself is a sort of soft down or
fine hair, clinging to the seeds when they ripen.
What about Wool? We make from it all kinds of
warm stuffs for winter wear; cloth, flannel, merino, also
blankets and shawls, coats and comforting wraps of
every description. The raw wool comes to us from the
backs of sheep; and those sheep have fed on vegetable
food. But for that food, but for the work of each small
grass-blade, the wool would never have grown.
110 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
What about Silkk? It is woven by the Silkworm,
which feeds entirely on green leaves. What about
Linen? It comes from the Flax-plant. And the list
might be widened to any extent in other directions.
What about Bass for the use of gardeners? It is pro-
cured from the Lime-tree. What about Camphor? It
is distilled from the wood of the Camphor-tree.
So we see, just a little, what an immense debt we owe
to the manufacturing work of plants. And I have not
named a hundredth part of the whole; no, nor a
thousandth part.
Not all useful to us, you may say. Very likely not.
Man is not the only being on Earth to be considered.
Certain growths, which are useless for ourselves, may
have other uses, not known to us. At the least, when
they die they help to enrich the soil.
And some which we might hastily condemn, counting
them worse than useless, are not really so. There are
plants which manufacture berries full of deadly poison;
and if a child eats one or two of those berries, he will
die. Yet that same poison, given in very tiny quan-
tities at the right time and in the right manner, to
some one who is dangerously ill, will act as a powerful
medicine, and may save his life.
V—OcEAN Foop
One thing more. How about Fishes, Crabs, Lobsters,
Shrimps? Do we here owe anything to our vegetable
friends ?
Yes, a great deal; though we cannot speak in quite
such certain. terms with regard to ocean-creatures as
with regard to land-animals. Ocean-life is so enormous,
THE POWER OF SUNLIGHT Th
so different from life on land, that we are only beginning
to understand a little about it.
So far as we know, however, the creatures there also
which belong to the Animal Kingdom are not able,
generally, to get their food straight from air or water
or soil. They too must—generally—wait until it has
been worked up for them by beings that belong to the
Vegetable Kingdom. Only we cannot venture to say
that with them it is always so.
You may smile at the idea of a fish having to do with
air or with soil. But there is air in the sea, or a fish
could not breathe. And there are soils at the bottom
of the ocean, where hordes of animals live; many and
curious kinds of soil.
On dry land animals feed largely on vegetables. But
in the sea very few fishes feed on seaweeds. Just a
small number do; while by far the greater number live
entirely on animal-food.
The strong devour those that are weaker; and the
weaker prey on those that are weaker still. So, stage
by stage, we get down from the larger inhabitants of the
ocean to those that are known as the “‘ lower animals ”’
of that vast region. Numberless hordes of small live
things throng the middle and upper reaches; many of
them of the Crayfish kind; very many only the young
of bigger creatures dwelling below. And these serve as
food for teeming millions of fishes; perhaps especially for
such as herrings, which again nourish the larger kinds.
And on what do these ‘‘ lower animals” feed—these
multitudes of little restless beings? Do they depend on
vegetable growths ?
112 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
Not on such seaweeds as we all know. But the
whole ocean, down to a certain depth, is thronged with
immense supplies of another kind of vegetable—tiny
tiny specks of life, which were spoken about earlier in
this book.
Do you remember the Diatoms, and their minute
ornamented shells? Small as they are, and invisible
to our eyes, they yet are true plants, real vegetables.
Being plants, they can only live where some amount of
sunlight is able to reachthem. Deep below, where utter
darkness reigns, they cannot exist. But in the upper
reaches of the ocean they throng in hundreds of billions,
serving as food for untold myriads of animals, both
small and great.
It has been curiously said in a recent work that:
‘““Diatoms are the pastures of the seas;’’? that, in
fact, they take that place in ocean life which is taken
on land by “‘ the grass of the fields.”” And not Diatoms
only, but many other kinds of tiny one-celled plantlets
help to crowd the ocean.
But how about lower depths still, the floor of the
deep, where all is darkness? Diatoms cannot live
there; yet sea-creatures flourish.
As Diatoms die, their little bodies in tiny shells sink
by millions to the bottom, and there form a fine ‘‘ ooze ”’
or mud. And the creatures that live on and near to
ocean’s floor are believed to swallow quantities of this
muddy ooze, which is largely made up of Diatom remains.
So in this way they also may come in for vegetable
food.
Only—once more—we cannot say with the sea, as
1 Conditions of Life in the Sea, by J. Johnstone, p. 77.
THE POWER OF SUNLIGHT 113
with the land, that it is always thus. Some odd creatures
are known to exist there—animals—which seem to
have the power to prepare food for themselves, just
like plants, out of the “raw materials.”” And they
actually have in their bodies some of those curious
little green particles, which on land are found in plants
alone.
Other such instances may in time become known to
us also. But on the whole, in the sea as well as on land,
men and animals owe a heavy debt to plant-life.
PART VIII
THE WORK OF FLOWERS
I—Wuat FLOWERS ARE FOR
Now at last we come to Flowers, and to their work
in life. All that we have heard so far about Roots and
Stems and Leaves leads up to those lovely blooms,
which are—at least in our eyes—the crowning part of
the strueture. Not that they can be looked upon as
its highest aim; for it is they who have to work out
that aim; it is they who have to bring about the chief
end and object of the plant’s being.
We love them for their beauty, their wonderful forms,
their colouring, their delicacy, their tenderness, their
grace, their perfumes. They seem to belong to us; to
be what S. Francis of Assisi would have called “‘ Our
little Sisters.”
Great as is the variety found in kinds and sizes and
shapes of leaves, the variety in flowers is even more
astonishing.
They range in size from some so tiny as to be almost
invisible, to others which are enormous. Some of
these huge specimens are never to be seen in Britain;
a fact that need not trouble us, for the largest are by
no means always the most beautiful.
In the tropical parts of America grows a plant
1 An Aristolochia.
114
THE WORK OF FLOWERS 115
which bears balloon-like flowers, so big that children
sometimes draw them over their heads, for fun, like
caps.
But the one which carries away the palm for size
is a ‘“ Rafflesia’’?1 found in the island of Sumatra.
RAFFLESIA FLOWER.
This plant is a parasite; it does not draw its nourish-
ment from the soil, but sends its roots into the trailing
stem of a vine, and feeds on it. Living upon another
is not a fine manner of life; and we all speak with
contempt of ‘* parasites.”’
The flower blooms close down on the Vine-stem, with
no stalk. It is very thick and fleshy; and is said to
1 Raffiesia Arnoldi.
116 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
be in shape not unlike an enormous Forget-me-not
blossom. When fully open it measures three feet across.
It has a most disagreeable smell; and we should hardly
care to have one in our rooms.
One day, when walking on the Surrey Downs, I
caught sight of a minute floweret at my feet, growing
low in the grass. Plucking it, I had a good look
through a magnifying-glass; and in a moment the wee
thing, so tiny and insignificant, had changed into an
exquisite flower, delicate and lovely, with pure white
petals, beautifully marked, just like some grand _ hot-
house bloom.
It is strange what shoals of lovely things are all
around us in Nature, which we do not notice; which
indeed often we cannot see without help from a micro-
scope. And yet, no matter how small or how hidden
away such things may be, their make and their finish
are perfect. Nothing in Nature is ever ‘“‘ scamped ”
or done anyhow in a hurry, because “‘ nobody will see! ”’
Between these two extremes among flowers, the very
big and the very little, lhe immense numbers of kinds,
far beyond our power to reckon.
If we began only to talk of their shapes, their colours,
their markings, we might go on for hours. And then
their scents! Not all sweet, certainly. But many are
delightful—such as those of Roses, Carnations, Violets,
Lilacs, Heliotropes, Jessamines, Mignonettes, Lilies-of-
the-Valley.
At least five hundred different scents are known, one
and all manufactured in little Plant-workshops.
It seems clear that Flowers are meant to be a joy to
THE WORK OF FLOWERS 117
us. Though it is by no means only for admiration that
they exist, since they like the leaves have an especial
work to carry out—still they might have done that work
without being so beautiful as they are. Many flowers
which are not beautiful do the same work as their fairer
sisters, and do it well.
But what a different world this would be, if we had
no sweet little ‘‘ Sister-blooms ”’ to love and tend; if
we had all that we need in the way of food and clothing
through the Vegetable Kingdom, but nothing to satisfy
the craving that is in our minds for beauty of form and
of colouring.
‘** There in a meadow, by the river’s side,
A flock of nymphs I chancéd to espy,
All lovely daughters of the flood thereby,
With goodly greenish locks all loose untied
As each had been a bride;
And each one had a little wicker basket
Made of fine twigs, entrailéd curiously.
In which they gather’d flowers to fill their flasket,
And with fine fingers cropt full feateously
The tender stalks on high.
Of every sort which in that meadow grew
They gathered some—the violet, pallid blue,
The little daisy that at evening closes,
The virgin lily and the primrose true,
With store of vermeil roses,
To deck their bridegrooms’ posies
Against the bridal day, which was not long;
Sweet Thames; run softly, till I end my song.” }
IJ—PIsTILs AND STAMENS
In an earlier chapter we heard about the different
Parts of a Flower. They were: the Flower-stalk; the
1 EK. Spenser.
118 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
Calix or Sepals; the Corolla or Petals; the Stamens,
with their Pollen; and the Pistils. /
Stamens are usually in two parts; the Filament and
the Anther. The word “ filament” is from the Latin
for ‘“‘ thread ’’; and the filaments or stamen-stalks are
often so fine and delicate as to be very much like
threads.
But the really important part of a stamen is the
anther; precisely as the really important part of a leaf
is the blade. A leaf is still a leaf, though it has no
footstalk and no stipules. And a stamen is still a
stamen, though it has no filament. But a footstalk
without any blade would not be a leaf; and a filament
without any anther would not be a stamen.
Inside the Anther is the Pollen; and without this
curious golden dust the flower could not do its work.
A Pistil, like a stamen, has more parts than one;
generally three—the Stigma, the Style, and the Ovary.
Some plants have only one pistil to each flower; others
have two or many pistils; but each pistil may have
these three parts.
By the style is meant the little stalk. The stigma is
on that stalk; and the ovary is down at the bottom of
it, often embedded within the flower, out of sight.
That small hollow ovary is one of the necessary parts
of the whole. It and the stigma are as important as
the stamen-anther.
Sometimes a pistil has no style; and that does not
matter. What does matter is that there must be stamens
and pistil. Without these two the flower—nay, the
plant itself—would be a failure. They need not, how-
ever, be always on the same flower. The pistil may
THE WORK OF FLOWERS 119
grow on one flower, and the stamen on another. But
both are needed.
Sepals and petals have their task to do, in sheltering
and protecting the stamens and the pistils. Yet without
either sepals or petals the flower might still be a flower.
And why?
Because the true work of a flower, that for which it
lives, is—not merely to be beautiful, not merely to give
forth a sweet scent, not merely to win admiration, but—
to bring forth fresh life, to start new plants, which in
time may take the place of the old ones which die.
Seeds, it is true, are not the only mode by which
plant-life can be carried on. A gardener is able to
produce new plants by other means. A slip from a Rose-
tree, cut in a certain way and put in soil of the right
kind and carefully tended, will send out roots and in
time will become a Rose-tree. Or a leaf-bud may be
taken and put into the stem or branch of another
kindred tree, and it will grow there, sending forth a
shoot, and in time bearing roses like those of the tree
from which it was taken.
Such modes are called ‘“‘ growth by cuttings’ and
‘budding’; and “ grafting’? is another plan, not
unlike the last.
But these are and must be the work of a gardener.
No plants can carry out such methods for themselves.
In a wild state their only way of bringing fresh plants
into existence is, generally, by seeding. So the manu-
facture of seeds really is the prime work of flowers. It
is that for which they are made, and that for which
they die.
120 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
Yes; they not only live for it, but also they die for
it. Until the flower fades and falls, the seed has no
hope of beginning its life as a new plant.
You may remember what Keble wrote, on the subject
of the work of flowers, when describing a day in early
November—
“Why blowest thou not, thou wintry wind,
Now every leaf is brown and sere,
And idly droops, to thee resigned,
The chaplet of the year ?
** Now quiet shows the woodland scene;
Each Flower and Tree, its duty done,
Reposing in decay serene,
Like weary men, when age is run.”
So each tree, each leaf, each flower, may be looked
upon as just doing its duty.
IlJ—How THE SEEDS GROW
Inside the small ovary of the pistil are tiny bodies,
called Ovules; sometimes many, sometimes only one or
two. And since it is they that are meant to grow into
seeds, the question of new young plants depends on
them.
The word “ovule” means ‘little egg”; and an
ovule is, in a sense, as much the beginning of a future
plant as a bird’s egg is the beginning of a future young
bird. The ovary is a kind of case which holds the
ovules.
Each of these has to begin life as a single small cell,
with its lining of living substance. That cell has power
to grow other cells; and when they are formed, the one
THE WORK OF FLOWERS 121
divides into two, and each of those two again into two
more. As the numbers thus increase, they remain
firmly pressed together, gradually taking shape as a
tiny living ovule.
Next, the ovule has to grow into a seed. But the
pistil cannot manage the whole of this work alone. It
must have help.
True, it has help already. There is the eager Life of
FLOWER OF THE COMMON ASH.
A STAMEN OF THE WALLFLOWER: f, filament; a, anther; p, pollen.
VERTICAL SECTION OF THE OVARY OF THE BARBERRY : 0, ovary; 0v,
ovules attached to a projection called the placenta; st, stigma; a, anther.
the Plant. There are the air and water and food, taken
into roots and stems, and worked into condition by
the green leaves. There is the great sun, shining down
by day, and giving that warmth without which no seed
could ever come into being.
Yet these are not enough. Something else must
happen, if the ovule is ever to become a real seed; a
seed which shall have in it, not only life, but exactly
that kind of life which may grow later into the same
kind of plant as the one in which the seed itself grew.
Sunshine, and water, and air, and food, and the
122 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
prepared sap passing through the plant—all these must
fail, unless a certain something takes place.
A little of the golden pollen from one of the stamen-
anthers must somehow reach the stigma of the pistil,
and must send a slender tube-like growth down the
style or stalk, to reach and touch the ovule below.
And then, from this meeting, this union, of a pollen-
grain with an ovule, a seed is formed; and in time,
under right conditions, a new young plant—child of
the old plant—may be expected to spring from it.
It might at first sight seem rather curious that, while
this union of the two is so vitally needful, all sorts of
difficulties seem to be put in the way of its coming about.
Matters would be so easy, if only the stamens of a
flower were always nicely arranged just around and
over the pistil of that flower. Then, when the pollen
is ripe and the ovules below are ready for it, and the
anthers are opening, a passing breeze and the swaying
of the plant would shake down some of the loosening
golden dust upon the pistil-tip, exactly where it is
wanted.
But that is by no means what usually happens.
Perhaps the pistil grows very tall, standing up and
away from the stamen-tips. And ‘when the pollen
falls, it drops down below, wide of the stigmas, and is
blown away by the wind.
Or the stamens themselves grow long, leaving behind
the short pistil-tips, and the plant droops over on one
side; and again, when the pollen escapes it does not
touch the pistil.
Sometimes a plant has two kinds of flowers growing
THE WORK OF FLOWERS 123
on it; one kind having stamens only, and no pistils;
the other kind having pistils only, and no stamens.
This is the case with Pines; and with them the pistil-
flowers grow high up, the stamen-flowers low down.
So the pollen as it falls, is likely to be borne away by
the breeze, and none of it may reach the pistils above.
When, as often is the case, the stamen-flowers grow
on one tree, and the pistil-flowers on another tree, the
difficulty becomes still greater.
Yet all this is only perplexing until we find the true
reason for it. A right good reason exists.
The main object throughout is clearly that pollen
should reach the pistils. But—not the plant’s own pistils.
That makes all the difference.
For the sake of the plant itself; for the vigour of the
seed; for, if I may say so, the growth of character in
the plant-race—we know it to be better that a plant
should not use its own pollen, but should receive some
from another plant of the same kind. And who may
assert with authority that “‘ character” is not a thing
aimed at in the life of plants, even as in a far greater
and higher degree it is aimed at in the life of human
beings? True, in their case it is perhaps character
rather of the type than of the individual. Yet even
with them there is individuality; since no two plants
of the same kind and under the same conditions ever
grow precisely alike, or respond in precisely the same
mode to their surroundings and their opportunities.
Therefore, deliberately and purposefully, and not by
chance, all kinds of difficulties are put in the way of a
plant using its own pollen; so that, for its own good,
it is driven to seek some from elsewhere.
124 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
And since it is tied to one spot, and cannot possibly
travel for what it needs, it is compelled to make use
of other means. How this is done will come later.
Many years ago the Variegated Laurel was introduced
into our country from Japan; but only the pistil-
bearing kind came. So none of the bright red berries,
admired by travellers, were seen here. After a while
the other and stamen-bearing kind was brought too;
and speedily red berries made their appearance all over
England. This illustrates the absolute necessity for
pollen, before the pistils can produce seeds.
IV—PLANT STORAGE
As the young seed grows it needs food; and the
parent-plant has to see that the hungry young ovules
and seeds are properly supplied. Shut up as they are
inside the ovary, unable to get out, they can do nothing
for themselves. So the roots and leaves must keep them
going.
Three different kinds of plants are commonly known :
those which live one year only and then die, called
Annuals; those which live two years and then die, called
Biennials; and lastly those which live many years,
called Perennials.
The two first are alike in a single respect, that they
flower only once. But the one-year kinds have a much
shorter time in which to complete their task; so they are
obliged to “ hurry up ”’ with it.
All that they have to do must be done in one season—
the growth of the plant itself from a seed; the forming
of roots, of stems, of leaves, of flowers, of seeds. The
roots have to gather in food; and the leaves have to
THE WORK OF FLOWERS 125
prepare it; and the finished sap has to make its way
through cells and channels to every part, that the tiny
beginnings of seeds may get their full share. And at
the end of the summer the plant dies, quite worn out.
But the seeds remain alive, ready for the next spring.
Two-year plants manage differently. In their first
season they grow roots and short stems and leaves, but
no flowers. They are indeed much too busy, laying in
stores, to have any leisure for flowering. Thus far, their
work is one of preparation. They are gathering together
a supply of nutriment, ready for use in the year follow-
ing; food for the flowers, food for the seeds.
With some plants much of this food is piled together
in the roots, as with a Radish; the long red root of which
we all know so well. But the plant did not mean it for
you! It meant that nice little reserve-store for its own
use next year—if we may say that a plant in any sense
‘““means ” anything—and you have spoilt those plans,
by stealing the deposit.
When nobody interferes and the plant is left to its
own devices, it goes on with its preparations through the
first summer. And when the following spring arrives,
it begins to bud and flower. Then the root slowly shrinks
and gets thinner, as its carefully husbanded provision is
used for present needs.
With many plants the bulb may be said to take the
place of a seed; as in the case of Crocus bulbs, Snowdrop
bulbs, Hyacinth bulbs and others, which begin life with
only one small seed-leaf. These bulbs also are packed
full of hidden provender, enclosing the little bud from
which the new plant will spring. And as the young plant
126 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
grows, the bulb will gradually give up its stored supply,
becoming smaller and smaller.
Sometimes the storage is in the leaves, instead of in
roots or bulbs. We find this with a very commonplace
though useful plant—the Cabbage. You know what
large strong leaves it has, and how wholesome they are
said to be. No wonder !—for
A the leaves are real reserve-
| stores of food, laid by for the
| | plant’s own use.
In other cases, again, the
storage is in the stem, instead
of roots or leaves, as with the
brown “‘ tubers ”’ of the potato-
plant. Many people suppose
them to be roots, because they
are dug out of the earth. But
they are really more in the
YAY WI NYI LS
Vi JF
Yj & nature of swelled portions of
Nr» oY" underground stems, as they
/) LARS have buds—the “‘ eyes.” They
Ze are big with a fine hoard of
te, ipa si ghibs stem, starchy nourishment, which
would later have been most
useful for the plant itself, if some one had not stepped
in and eaten the ‘“‘ potato.”
These storages are found, not only in biennials, but
in plants of longer life. And there are also special little
stores, carefully put by for the feeding of the seeds when
they begin to grow.
By that time the seed will have separated itself from
the parent-plant, which may or may not have died. But
¢
THE WORK OF FLOWERS 127
the living seed has its own little private store, packed
neatly inside its hard outer coat.
Sometimes the stock of food is in the ‘‘ cotyledons,”’
and usually it is folded close about the tiny beginning of
life in the seed. Either way it is at hand, ready for use,
so soon as it may be wanted.
4
** Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early rising sun
Has not attained his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the Evensong ;
And having prayed together, we
Will go with you along.
‘*‘ We have short time to stay as you,
We have as short a spring,
As quick a breath to meet decay
As you or any thing;
We die
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer’s rain,
Or as the pearls of morning dew
Ne’er to be found again.” }
V—MAKING READY FOR SUMMER
Even in the cold dark days of winter, when growth
is more or less at a standstill, when the plant is in a kind
of chrysalis state, when nothing seems doing, even then
we must not suppose that the seed is perfectly idle.
Inside that hard outer coat, preparation is going on.
Through the winter months the seed is living, breathing,
1 Robert Herrick (about A.D. 1600).
128 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
getting into the right condition. Changes are taking
place in its make, without which it would be unable
later to carry out its appointed task.
This silent winter-work of seeds, of bulbs, of plants in
general, is very wonderful. All outside looks dead and
lifeless. No one would imagine how much activity
lies beneath.
Some plants are more asleep—more like a chrysalis, in
fact—than others. We know how all but lifeless a
chrysalis may seem; yet it is not dead. It is only
preparing for a happier future. And in the same manner
the trees are not dead; the bulbs and seeds are not
dead.
Many among them are already at work, very quietly,
very noiselessly, yet not less truly. Down in the dark
earth with some, inside the dead-looking boughs with
others, leaf-buds and even flower-buds are being
manufactured, are being shaped and put together, in
readiness to burst out joyously when the right hour
shall arrive.
By some people winter is counted a rather sad
season. Not by girls and boys who do not mind cold,
who can race and slide and skate. But for older
people, and for lovers of gardens, it does perhaps seem
rather melancholy.
Yet it is not really so. It is only Nature’s night;
and night is needful for those who work hard. Winter
is Nature’s time for rest in her Vegetable Kingdom, and
for gaining fresh strength to work anew. The world
around may look grey and dull and chilly; but actually
it is full of hidden life, full of hope, full of growing readi-
ness for the lovely time coming.
THE WORK OF FLOWERS 129°
Bulbs look very dead when taken out of the ground,
and placed upon a shelf, or put back into the earth.
Kither way they have to wait, silently and patiently.
To wait for what? Why—for the coming of the Sun
in his power, that he may call them to a new life.
Meanwhile, though buried, they still live. They are
being made ready for the presence of the Sun. They are
growing, under ground, their new and glorious spring
garments. When spring is here, they will be ready to
respond; ready to say to the Sun: “ Yes, here I am
—waiting !”’ ready to send forth new roots, new stems,
new leaves, new flowers.
This work of preparation, which goes on under ground
or above ground, with seeds and bulbs and branches,
takes time. Certain alterations, - certain developments,
inside the seed or bulb or branch, have to come about
before the new growth can begin to show itself.
It was at one time thought that bulbs and seeds
might start growing much earlier than they do, if only
they were in the right soil, and had the right amount of
warmth and moisture. It was supposed that they
waited for the spring, only because of the checking cold
of winter.
But this, with the greater number, was found to be
a mistake. The experiment was tried; and they did
not respond. They would not begin growing until the
spring.
Much the same was noted with potatoes. Some
potato-tubers were dug up in the autumn, and were put
in a warm sheltered cellar, where the air remained
always at about the same degree of warmth. For many
130 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
months, through mild autumn days and cold days follow-
ing, they lay there quietly; doing nothing that could be
seen. Then spring came. In that sheltered cellar no
sunshine could enter; and the air was found to be
actually colder than it had been through the winter.
Yet, strange to say, those tubers began to sprout, began
to send out slender shoots, bearing leaves.
Now why and how was this? If they grew then, when
there was no added warmth to make them, why should
they not have begun earlier ?
Simply because they were not ready! They needed
the winter months for all that had to be done first; for
the changes that had to go on in them, before such growth
could become possible. Warmth at the right time would
help them. But warmth before they were ready to
sprout was useless. They had to get through their
preparatory work; and then—and not till then—could
they carry out those tasks in life, which would be
their duty to do.
It is the same with hundreds of plants, which scatter
their seeds on the ground in autumn days.
There the seeds lie, to be gradually washed into the
soil, where they often find at once plenty of warmth and
moisture; quite enough, one would think, to make them
“* germinate ’? without delay. Yet they do not. They
send no roots downward, no leaves and stems upward.
They lie hidden; making ready for their future.
And perhaps a cold spring comes, much colder than
the autumn was. Such cold must and does hinder
advance. Yet, in spite of it, many seeds and bulbs
start active life, though slowly, and begin to send forth
leaves, sometimes even flowers. For now they are
THE WORK OF FLOWERS 131
ready; they have had their time of preparation; and
that makes all the difference.
In this, as in other respects, plants vary greatly.
Some seeds take much longer than others in preparing.
Some are more readily affected by warmth. Some will
spring up at almost any time, like Mustard and Cress,
under certain conditions. And the above is true of
bulbs, as well as of seeds.
Spring is really a time of Resurrection.
Each bare and lifeless tree, which in the autumn
“seemed to have died,” + has only been asleep; and
now, with the coming of spring sunshine, it leaps into a
new and glorious life. Each bulb which “ seemed to have
died ’’ and was buried in the earth, forces its flowers
upward to a fresh and lovely existence. Each little
seed, which looked so cold and lifeless, is found in some
new form of beauty and fragrance, while still remaining
itself. The individuality is unchanged. If that seed
had never been sown, that plant would never have
grown.
Nature holds for us many symbols, many parables, if
only we will read them, as surely we are meant to do;
and none more striking than this. Perhaps the most
wonderful part of it is that, while so buried, while still
so seemingly “* dead,” the bulbs and the seeds are actually
at work, fashioning their own resurrection bodies in
readiness for the coming springtide. May we not find
_ here a suggestion, if not an actual prophecy, full of
promise for our own future, and for the future of those
who still belong to us, though out of sight—who are
*“ not lost, but gone before ”’?
1 Wisdom of Solomon, iii. 2.
K
132 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
VI—SEED-SCATTERING
A few words must come in here about another part of
the matter; and that is—the way in which seeds are
scattered about and carried from place to place.
It is easy to see that if the plant—any plant—had
Box
Head of dry fruits Winged | LE
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Berry @)
Cul open
Fruit with Core Stone frut cut open Fulpy with surface seeds
VARIETIES OF FRUIT.
to manage this work alone and unaided, failure might
commonly result. The seed, on becoming ripe, would
just fall from the flowers to the ground, close at hand.
How could they do otherwise? Then, when the young
plants grew, they would crowd round about the old plant,
and would soon choke one another to death.
THE WORK OF FLOWERS 133
Imagine what would happen, if all the acorns of a
great Oak were to drop down within a few yards of the
trunk, and all were to take root and growup. Hundreds,
FLOWERS OF OAK.
6 Male. ¢? Female.
if not thousands, of young Oaks might be fighting for
life at one time, under the shadow of the parent-tree.
And they could not thrive. Space and light and food
would all be lacking. Fortunately, acorns do not so
134 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
easily find a footing. But with many other plants ©
‘* germination ”’ is a quicker and more easy matter.
Thus the pressing need comes in that seeds should
somehow travel or be taken elsewhere. And then arises
the necessity for help from outside.
All do not need such help equally, since many plants
can do a good deal for themselves.
A large number come under the
heading of “‘ Sling-fruits’”’; a name
used for those that possess a curious
‘““expulsive force,’ by means of
| it, which they can sling or fling their
FOUL /)/"_—sseeds to a distance. With some,
~2T if the seeds are jerked away; or they
“UYY J are shot off as from a catapult; or
JE); Y},/ pune
be %X
4
the enclosing envelope, when it
breaks open, does so with an energy
that tosses the contents violently to
right and left.
Many plants, however, are gifted
with no such clever mechanical de-
vices, and they have to depend on
outside assistance.
The winds of heaven step kindly
in, and make themselves useful, especially with smaller
and lighter seeds, easily carried about. Not a few are
so formed as to float in the air; and one of these
we all know—the Dandelion-seed, with its soft downy
‘** attachment.”” Dandelion “ clocks’? as the children
call them will rise high and fly fast before the gentlest
breeze.
Seeds of this description may travel to almost any
ACORN.
THE WORK OF FLOWERS 135
distance; and there are many others more or less like
in kind. Some have light growths of hair, serving the
same purpose; some have tails or wings or feathers;
all making it possible to rise lightly.and to journey far.
Water lends a hand in the work, though not so
largely as wind. Naturally, the seeds of water-plants
ES FANS Fh
Sy
»
TARAXACUM OFFICINALE
(Common Dandelion).
are carried off by currents; and land-plants some-
times drop theirs into a river. Swept down towards
or into the ocean, they may voyage to a distant shore,
before finding a soil in which to root. But this can only
happen with those which have an outer coat hard
enough to keep the inside perfectly dry, from the begin-
ning to the end of their excursions. Cocoa-nuts floating
in the sea have been known to travel to far-away resting
places,
136 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
Animals also give some help. When sheep and cows
and many smaller beasts press against bushes and hedges
in autumn days, seeds are apt to cling fast to their hairy
or woolly or furry coats, and to be carried to a good
distance. Ducks, disporting themselves at the edge of
a pond, and becoming half-clothed with mud, will bear
away seeds in that mud, to deposit them elsewhere.
Even birds flying—even some insects—give their aid in
much the same fashion; one and all helping to scatter
seeds broadcast.
PART IX
THE WORK OF WINDS AND INSECTS
I—PoLLEN TO THE PISTIL
S1IncE anthers really are transformed leaves, and
since pollen is manufactured in the anthers, these
again may perhaps be called small workshops; different
in kind from the green-leaf ones, yet not less important.
At one time pollen was often spoken of as * Flower-
dust’; a pretty name! But with many plants, in
place of being a fine powder, it was found to be sticky
and in lumps, far too tiny lumps to be seen as such
without a microscope.
When ripe and ready for use, the pollen has to make
its escape; and this comes about in many ways.
Frequently a tiny slit or hole appears first in each small
sac; and the pollen-grains are no longer imprisoned.
Yet even then, though the prison-door is actually open,
they have no power to walk out; so they must wait for
something else to happen, completing their release.
And here we touch on a very interesting matter; that
of Cross-FERTILISATION.
In an earlier chapter something was said about the
difficulties put in the way of a plant supplying its own
pistils with pollen ‘‘made on the premises,’’—pollen
from its own stamens; and about the need that it should
137
138 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
not, for its good, for the sake of its health and vigour, be }
allowed to do this. It is in every way better that the
pollen which reaches its pistils should come from some
other plant of the same kind. If not from one of pre-
cisely the same variety, it must at least be a very near
relative; otherwise the golden dust or sticky little lumps
will be useless.
And just as plants, because they are fixed in one
place and cannot possibly travel about, have to use
outside help in scattering their ripened seeds, so at
an earlier stage, they must from the same reason use
outside help in exchanging their pollen, one with another.
We sometimes hear of what is called “ Crossing ”’ by
gardeners. That is to say, the gardener takes pollen
from one plant—from an Orchid, for instance—and puts
it on the pistil of a second, not precisely the same in kind
though closely connected... And from the union of these
two may spring a third Orchid, partly like the one and
partly like the other.
Cross-Fertilisation on the contrary is done, not like
Crossing by gardeners but by the plants themselves,
with outside help. Such help is commonly given by
Winds, by Water, and by Insects.
A child may accidentally share in this important work,
though it happens rarely. You may have seen a little
boy thrust his nose into a Tiger-lily, with its gorgeous
striped petals; and when he moves away—1f it is the time
of ripened pollen—he may have a yellow tip to his nose.
Then if he should go to another Tiger-lily plant, and
should put his nose into a second flower, he would prob-,
ably leave a little of the yellow stuff there, on a pistil-tip.
THE WORK OF WINDS AND INSECTS 139
So, unconsciously, he would have given his tiny help in
the world-wide work of Cross-Fertilisation.
One of the chief friends of plants, as just stated, is
Wind.
In some trees the catkins or stamen-flowers, with
their stores of pollen, grow long and hang low; while
the pistil-flowers, with their ovules, are perhaps higher
up; so that the pollen from the former would not easily
reach the latter. And the reason why it should be so
we know: It is better for the trees that each should pass
on its stores of golden dust to other trees, and should
receive what is needed for its own use from those others.
It is better, in fact, that each tree should not live a self-
centred and selfish life, merely to supply its own needs,
but that all should “ freely receive and freely give.”
As their pollen is very light and dust-like, the most
gentle of breezes can lift the whole supply above the
tree-tops. Then, when it slowly descends, all the pistils
have a fair chance of capturing enough for their require-
ments; while no tree is likely to receive pollen of its
own manufacture, since that would soon have been borne
away by the breeze.
Pollen-grains are very tiny; and the amount con-
tained in each stamen is small; therefore naturally we
do not realise what huge supplies are grown every year.
In the majority of cases it quits the little enclosing sac
in so gentle and unobtrusive a manner as to draw no
attention.
But when a great number of trees of the same kind
grow together, and when they all shed their “ dust ”
at the same time, the effect is much more in evidence.
140 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
For example, in a vast Pine forest, immense clouds
of pollen may be seen, swept along by the wind, not only
through the forest itself but far beyond, falling like a
fine golden rain on trees and grasses. Of such abundant
quantities only a few specks here and there may arrive
on the waiting pistil-tips of kindred trees; few, that is
CATKINS OF THE OAK.
to say, compared with the tens of millions which drop
where no pistil-tips are waiting. They sink to the
ground, unwanted; useless failures, one might say.
The matter may, however, be viewed from another
standpoint.
Suppose that only just enough pollen were manu-
factured each year to meet the needs of all pistils, not
allowing for failures. Much of it still would not reach
the right spots; and this would mean many less seeds
THE WORK OF WINDS AND INSECTS 141
brought to perfection, which in time could hardly fail
to diminish sorely the numbers of our forest-trees. We
usually find in Nature this wonderful fulness of supply ;
far more of each kind of growth than may seem to be
STAMINATE AND PISTILLATE CATKINS OF A WILLOW.
actually needed, so as to make sure that there will
always be enough.
It means something else that is beautiful. It means
that Our Father in Heaven gives with a Royal abundance.
He gives like a King.
Large numbers of our trees depend almost though not
quite entirely, for this work of scattering pollen, on the
help that is given them by Wind, One curious instance
142 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
is that of the Hazel-tree, the pollen of which is not ripe
at the same time that the stigma is ready for it. So
the pistils’ only chance is the bringing of pollen from
other Hazel-trees by friendly winds—from stamen-flowers
which happen to have ripened a little earlier.
Oaks and Beeches, Poplars and Birches, Walnut-trees
and Plane-trees, most of the Conebearing-trees and most
of the Palms, have their pollen conveyed in this way from
one to another, with very little other assistance. The
same may be said of Grasses generally, of Rushes and
Reeds, of Wheat and Oats and Barley. All these manu-
ture pollen fine enough and dry enough to be carried
with ease by moving air.
On a warm and fairly still evening in late summer, at
a time when pollen is ripe, clouds of it may sometimes
be seen floating over a meadow; the stigmas being then
ripe to receive it. Each kind of grass must have its own
particular kind of pollen; and when supplies are dealt
out thus by the breeze in wholesale fashion, they natur-
ally get a good deal of the wrong kinds. But this does
not matter; for when the wrong kind is dropped on a
stigma it simply takes no effect. Some of the right kind
is pretty sure to find its way thither also.
Each passing breeze, as well as stronger winds, takes
a share in the task; helping first to stir the flowers, thus
loosening the imprisoned powder; and then carrying it
where it is wanted. The number of different kinds of
plants, thus regularly assisted by the winds, is said to be
as much as ten thousand.
But Wind is only one of the kind friends which come
to the help of plants. We have next to think about the
doings of INsEcTs.
THE WORK OF WINDS AND INSECTS 148
‘** We were a million grasses on the hill,
A million herbs which bowed as the wind blew,
Trembling in every fibre, never still;
Out of the summer earth sweet life we drew.
Little blue-flowered grasses up the glen,
Glad of the sun, what did we know of men?’ !
IJI—How Dortu tHE Busy BEE
The story of Cross-Fertilisation, through generous
offices of Bees and other Insects, reads curiously like a
tale of friendly co-operation between them and Plants.
Between Plants, earth-bound, fixed immovably in one
spot for the term of their natural lives; and Insects,
free to range hither and thither at will.
Plants require help in the work of supplying their
pistils with the right pollen; and Insects require food for
themselves and their young. So plants manufacture
and offer tempting supplies of honey and pollen; while
insects, creeping or flying in to secure that food, give
the needed assistance by carrying pollen from one plant
to another.
Books to any extent might be written, and in fact have
been written, on that one topic alone. In this small
volume no more can be attempted than to point out the
general mode pursued, with a few slight instances given
as examples of what goes on perpetually at flowering-
time throughout the world. The subject is one well
worth studying. 3
For, indeed, it is a marvellous story of mutual inter-
course and mutual help; unconscious, we may say, on
both sides; though that which is done often looks
1 From Lollingdon Downs, by John Masefield, published by
William Heinemann. By permission.
144 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
strangely—like many other things in insect-life and even
in plant-life—as if both insects and plants knew in a
manner, dimly, what they are about.
In any case, one fact becomes clear with daylight
clearness, that all the vast work of Cross-Fertilisation is
part of a great plan—a Divine plan—not, as once was
imagined, putting needless hindrances in the way of
success, but working steadily and systematically towards
beautiful ends and ever fuller developments. The
reading of it recalls to mind certain words spoken in
earliest days of our world’s history—‘‘ And God saw that
it was good !”’
That each helps the other is a truth undeniable.
A plant cannot stir; but it can manufacture food. A
bee can flit to and fro with ease, but it cannot manufac-
ture the sweet stuff which forms the foundation for
real honey. The raw material is in the flower; and
the hive-bee has in its own little body a small apparatus
which can transform that raw material into food for itself
and for human kind.
So the plant does all it can to attract the bee—and
other insects. And the bee does its utmost to satisfy its
own needs, while performing friendly offices for the plant.
Most of us must often have watched a big humble-bee
bustling from flower to flower; diving in and out of
blossom after blossom; blundering into this one and
that one in her eager search; till one is almost forced to
the belief that bees are not quite so clever as one had
imagined. She keeps forgetting which flower she has
tried before, and she rushes again and again into the same,
coming out with what sounds like a “ buzz ”’ of indigna-
THE WORK OF WINDS AND INSECTS 145
tion at not finding what she expected. Whether all
are equally dense it is difficult to say; but certainly I
have at different times watched several acting thus.
Sooner or later she generally meets with success.
Then she remains for some seconds, gathering the nectar
that she loves. And while so occupied, something else
POLLINATION BY BEE.
is apt to happen. If the pollen is ripe, part of it sticks
to her legs, and probably to her body as well. This she
carries away to the next flower into which she plunges ;
and as she buzzes and squirms about, a little of it is
rubbed off, to remain on the pistil or pistils of the second
flower.
Such is the mode in which bees and numberless insects
carry on the work which winds undertake with grasses.
146 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
They, too, are helping forward “fertilisation,” not
knowing or caring about that object, any more than do
the winds, but intent only on getting their food.
Through all the warm fine days of summer months
this goes on. Humble-bees, honey-bees, insects in
countless numbers, fly or creep and dive into flowers of
all descriptions; and as they search for what they Want,
they carry off the loosened pollen, and give it over to
other plants.
What the hive-bees want and search for is not always
the same. Two especial needs have to be supplied:
pollen, for what has been called ‘* bee-bread,” and
sweet nectar, to be made into honey. When the workers
leave their hive in the early morning, they seem to be
‘told off’ for different tasks. One goes in search of
pollen; another in quest of a supply of nectar; but
never both at the same time.
A pollen-gatherer loads her little baskets—a curious
arrangement of stiff hairs on her back pair of legs—and
often gets her whole body covered as well with the golden
stuff, before she returns to the hive. No light weight
this, for so small a creature. Yet so soon as she is
relieved of the burden by her sister-workers, she is off
again for more.
But a nectar-gatherer has a lighter task. Her little
baskets are useless when she goes hunting, not for
honey, but for that which is to be transformed into
honey. We all talk conventionally of insects getting
“honey ” from flowers. But honey, as we know it, is a
‘‘ manufactured article ’’; + and the “‘ nectar ” which the
1 Tickner Edwardes.
THE WORK OF WINDS AND INSECTS 147
bee procures is a thin, sweet, watery liquid, only the raw
material on which she has to work. The manufactory
which does what is necessary is within her little body.
She has two small stomachs—so-called—one being
the true stomach, while the other is a minute reservoir
or ‘‘ honey-sac,”’ into which the sweet nectar which she
sips is passed through a tube traversing her body. When
she goes home with her sac full, having probably by the
way used some as food, she gives over the contents to the
empty sac of another bee; and by the latter it is stored
in a cell. During such transferrings certain changes
take place in its make, altering it from the original
thin liquid into genuine honey, good for food of men.
In both these expeditions, which the bees are said to
undertake by turns, perhaps on alternate days, they
constantly help forward fertilisation, bearing pollen
_ from plant to plant.
The question has been asked, ‘“‘ How is it that bees
always carry away the right kind of pollen?” It
naturally stirs up a counter question: ‘‘ Do they,
always?’ At all events, they sometimes carry home
honey-dew, instead of the right kind of nectar, for
honey.
Authorities are not quite at one about this pollen-
gathering. It has been confidently stated that they
always carry one kind only at a time, and never mix
different kinds; and that during a single excursion a bee
will visit only one kind of flower, passing by all others.
But a precisely opposite statement, founded on personal
observation, is made in another and most weighty
quarter. Again, in one direction we are told that, when
they reach the hive the various kinds and colours of
L
148 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
pollen are still kept separate in the cells; while in another
direction we are informed that all the care of the bees is
useless, since the different kinds of pollen are packed
indiscriminately together in the cells.
A suggestion may perhaps be hazarded here that bees,
or rather communities of bees, may not all follow the same
plans. Some possibly may act in one way; some in
another. It would be interesting to know if any evidence
could be found of this.
In an earlier chapter something was said about the
beauty of flowers, and the reasons why they may have
been made so beautiful. Of one reason we need feel no
real doubts; which is, that they might bring gladness and
joy to us who live on the Earth.
But another and a very important reason, if not for
their actual loveliness, yet certainly for their gay colour-
ing, is that they may draw the attention of insects. If
no insects came to visit them, we should have a sad dearth
of pollen where it may be most urgently needed.
Though we can hardly suppose that insects love
beautiful things as we do, simply for their loveliness,
they are no doubt attracted by bright tints. Some of
them are believed to possess what is called a “‘ colour-
sense.’” In other words, they seem to know blue from
yellow, pink from green. More than this, they even
show signs of preferring one colour and _ disliking
another.
It is said that a honey-bee loves a deep violet-blue,
and has no objection to green or yellow, while she shows
a marked avoidance of scarlet or orange-red. Whether
any feeling of actual distaste is in question cannot be
THE WORK OF WINDS AND INSECTS 149
known with certainty. All we can be sure of is that,
for some reason, she does not usually tackle flowers of
those tints, but seems to keep away from them.
Somebody has suggested, as a possible explanation,
that bees may suffer from “ colour-blindness.” Men
are often more or less ‘* colour-blind,’’ and cannot
distinguish certain hues, such as red from green. Possi-
bly bees may have some such defect of vision, so that
they cannot see red or orange-red blossoms; in which
case, naturally, they would not go to them.
In a general way gay flowers do undoubtedly draw
many insects. It is interesting to notice that those
trees which depend chiefly on winds to carry about their
dusty pollen, and which therefore do not need the help
of insects, have usually small and dull flowers, easily
overlooked. While plants which depend mainly on
insect-visitors, have generally larger and brighter blooms.
Bees seem long ago to have discovered that what
they want is more often to be found in the gayer flowers.
How far this really has been due to “ finding out for
themselves,”” and how far to simple “instinct,” it is
impossible to say.
With most insects a large amount of instinct is found.
By this we mean a kind of knowledge which is born
with them, inherited by them, and not knowledge which
is gained later through experience. But with such
possession is also found a certain amount of power to
learn from observation and practice. 'To decide in any
particular instance exactly how far action has arisen
from blind instinct, and how far from “‘ finding out,”’ is
very difficult.
150 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
Perhaps the only case known of Cross-Fertilisation
being carried on by a warm-blooded animal, not an insect,
is that of Humming-birds.
IlI—Curious CoNTRIVANCES
Thus it becomes clear that, in the various plans found
in Nature for the carrying of pollen from stamens to
pistils, a good deal may be seen of hindering and of
helping: of hindering the pollen from getting to the
wrong pistils; of helping it to get tothe right ones. That
a flower should be fertilised by its own pollen is bad;
therefore hindrances are placed in the way. That the
pistils of one plant should be supplied with pollen from
other similar plants is to be desired; therefore helps are
provided.
A certain plant belonging to the south of Europe
grows abundantly in ponds or in shallow waters of a
lake; and with it may be markedly seen both the hinder-
ing and the helping. Like many others, this—the
Vallisneria spiralis—has two kinds of flowers, the pistil-
bearing and the stamen-bearing. Its pollen is of a very
sticky nature.
In mud at the bottom it has its roots; and long
slender leaves grow upward, still under water. There
too, the flowers quietly take shape; both kinds, pistil-
flowers and stamen-flowers, being sheltered safely inside
sacs or bladders. Each pistil-flower is alone within its
sac; and on a lengthening stem it rises and rises till
the surface is reached. Then it opens out, with large
petals and wide-tipped hanging pistils, to wait for the
pollen which has to be brought to it.
THE WORK OF WINDS AND INSECTS 151
After quite another fashion behave the stamen-flowers.
They also take shape out of sight far below, encased in a
bladder through which no damp may penetrate. But
instead of only one flower, the sac contains many;
and when they gain a certain stage, the enclosing sac
opens to set them free. Then, in place of growing
upward on a long stalk, they break short off and spring
VALLISNERIA SPIRALIS.
to the surface, at the time when their pollen is just
ripe.
On first arrival at the surface they are fast shut,
and rounded like little globes; but soon they open, to
float as tiny boats on pond or lake. Wonderful little
boats, too—three flowers joined together forming one
boat—supported by three outspread sepals, and so
constructed as not to overturn even when blown
about somewhat roughly. They have power to right
152 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
themselves, and so to keep their precious pollen dry for
use.
For use—but not for the use of those pistil-flowers
which were grown on the same plant with themselves.
In time these triple-boats, only two of the three having
out-standing ripened anthers, as they are wafted about
or even if no breeze stirs, are sure to gather round some
of the pistil-flowers standing out of the water. Floating
objects always do tend thus to draw together, through
mutual attraction.
Some of the pollen-grains on board a tiny boat will
then come into touch with one of the long drooping
pistils, and will reach a waiting stigma; and, being
sticky, will remain on it. Thus the needed work is
done—so gracefully done too!—and Fertilisation is
secured.
Nor is this all. We have seen how the pistil-flower
grows upward from the bottom to the surface of the
water, that its needs may be met. That being accom-
plished, its presence above is no longer called for. So
the long stalk acts in an extraordinary manner. It
shortens, coiling in a spiral, till the flower is again close
to the bottom; there to ripen its seeds at leisure for
the next year.
Did you ever watch a humble-bee trying to make her
way into a Calceolaria flower? The entrance is rather
complicated; but the bee, quite naturally, sits on the
lower lip, and opens a door to herself by light pressure
against the upper lip. A hidden “ nectary,”’ with plenty
of sweet juice, then springs to view, “ presented to the
humble-bee, just like a spoon.” When she has had
THE WORK OF WINDS AND INSECTS 153
enough and departs, “‘ the lower lip snaps to, and the
nectary disappears from view.” !
But here also something else is pretty sure to happen.
If the pollen within is ripe, she will be dusted over with
it, and will leave some in flowers of a neighbouring plant.
We need not imagine that the bee understands the
make of the flower, or knows that a certain pressure will
cause the store of sweet stuff to come within her reach.
Matters are so planned that she, taking her position at
the entrance and trying to get in, will naturally exert
such pressure. Still, when she has done it often, it is
not impossible that she may remember how she got in
before.
In much the same manner bees creep into the flowers
of Foxgloves and Snapdragons. With the Wild Mustard
a curious scheme is followed. The anthers are first
bent towards the pistil; which might seem all right for
the depositing of pollen on the stigmas. But when the
pollen is nearly ripe, the stamens very curiously twist
themselves round, till their faces are turned away from
the pistil. Could speech say more plainly, ‘‘ No, my
pollen is not wanted there: it must go elsewhere, and
pollen from some other plant has to come here ”’ ?
A second reason exists for this singular behaviour of
the stamens. When a bee comes in for food, it so
happens that the anthers as now placed—after the turn-
about of the stamens—will brush her back with pollen.
But if they had remained as they were before, she might
have failed to carry any away. So the golden stuff which
may not go to the pistils close at hand is borne away to
other plants; and more bees, going first to those plants,
1 Kerner and Oliver, ii. 228.
154 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
will bring some here instead; a very fair and wise
exchange.
The Butterfly Orchis grows its pollen in two tiny
lumps, close together. When a butterfly enters to feast
on the sweet nectar, it oftens happens to press its forehead
against these little lumps, which, being very sticky,
remain attached like a new-fangled head-dress. But
the visitor does not keep this burden long. Going into
other flowers, it is pretty sure to press soon against a
pistil-tip, leaving there part at least of the head-dress.
In all such Cross-Fertilisation work, done by winds
and insects, as in the ‘‘ Crossing ”’ work of gardeners, not
only is ordinary fertilisation carried on, but also the
growth of fresh varieties is advanced.
Not that ‘‘ Crossing” or ‘‘ Cross-Fertilisation ”’ will
always account for such fresh varieties. Differences do
appear from time to time, with no apparent reason;
differences in size, in shape, in the form and colouring of
flowers, in modes of growth. Plants are perpetually
producing slight variations in their offspring; and the
power to do so seems to be inborn. Fresh kinds, fresh
types, are from time to time found in them, suddenly
and unexpectedly.
This brings us naturally to a recollection of Darwin’s
favourite thought—‘‘ The survival of the fittest,”—by
which he meant the survival of the strongest, of the
healthiest, of the best-fitted to make their way in life.
Such “ survival’? depends mainly on the plants’ power
of response and of self-adaptation to surroundings.
A slight illustration of how this power works may be
offered here.
THE WORK OF WINDS AND INSECTS 155
Suppose that among a mass of Viola-plants growing
together, one in particular has a greater capability than
the rest to grow longer flower-stems; and that in conse-
quence fuller sunshine is gained by its flowers than by
those of any other plant in the group. As a result, those
flowers will be more visited by insects, and will receive
fuller supplies of pollen; so that, in the course of genera-
tions, this particular form of Viola will become more
abundant than other and weaker kinds. Here at
once is a very simple form of such “‘ survival.’? The
wonderful power seen in plants to adapt themselves to
varying conditions seems sometimes to draw very near
to actual animal-intelligence.
Gardeners can do a great deal for the producing of
new forms; not, like insects, without understanding,
but with deliberate intention. Countless new and lovely
kinds have thus come into existence; and each year we
have more and more of them.
Many years ago only the red form of the common
Poppy was known. But the owner of a garden, where a
bed of them grew, found one day among the rest a single
blossom of a different hue. He at once marked it; and
when it seeded he kept the seeds and sowed them apart.
Then, when the young plants grew, he watched carefully
till more of the unusual tints made their appearance; >
and again he marked these, kept the seeds, and grew
fresh generations of plants, with pink and striped flowers,
never seen before. They were named “‘ Shirley Poppies,”’
from the place where the selection occurred.
This probably was simply a natural development, a
‘* Freak of Nature,’’ not due to any “ Crossing.”
156 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
** Evening rose from a bed of pain,
And out of the west day dawned again ;
With outstretched fingers of falling light
She touched the tree-tops and made them bright ;
And under the leaves, a-spark with dew,
The cry of the blackbird sparkled too;
And every hillock and glade and tree
Was filled with the makings of melody,
As the dying light streamed miles along
Through murmur of water and leaf and song.”
** And murmuring of innumerable bees.” *
1 From The Heart of Peace and Other Poems, by Laurence
Housman, published by William Heinemann. By permission.
2 Tennyson.
PART X
SOME REMARKABLE WAYS OF PLANTS
I— PLANT MOVEMENTS
THE movements of plants, and of their various parts,
are very curious. These alone would be enough to
prove that they live. Things without life do not move
and stir and turn round of themselves, any more than
they grow or change in shape.
Something of the above we found in earlier chapters.
We saw how a leaf or a flower will try to follow the
sun in his daily journey across the sky; and this is true,
not only of a leaf or a flower, for the whole plant generally
is inclined to bend towards the sun, or towards the best
light it can find. If we keep one in a window, and
never turn the pot round, it will grow all to one side,
and its shape is spoilt.
Again, we noticed how leaves and petals droop
and close in dull weather, or when night is near. Not
all in the same manner or to the same extent; for
different kinds are as unlike in their ways as different
people are unlike in theirs. Still, more or less and in
one fashion or another, they all have their own little
movements, regularly carried out.
Also, we saw how roots move, how the delicate tips
circle about in their hunt for food. And it is the same
with other parts.
157
158 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
The stems, for instance—of some kinds certainly,
and it may be true of all—go gently round and round,
pointing a little towards the east, towards the south,
towards the west, towards the north, and then toward
the east again, so completing the circle, over and over
again, day after day. And not only the main stem, but
lesser stems which branch out from it, are believed to
follow the same plan.
These movements are so very slight, so very slow and
quiet, that they cannot be seen. They can only be
made out by most delicate and exact measurements.
Such measurements have been taken by those who have
given their lives to the study of plant-life.
It is supposed, though not yet known with certainty,
that each separate leaf may likewise carry on its own
tiny movements, daily, in circles. Though we speak of
‘‘ circles,”’ the actual movements are believed to be,
more strictly, not exact circles, but ovals—or what is
known in Astronomy as “ ellipses.”
This fact, which probably is true of all plants, is
much more markedly seen with Climbing Plants. If
Wwe examine one of them, we shall see how it twists in
and out of a trellis-work or round and round the stem
of another plant. And it does this in a most curious
way. As the stem lengthens, its tip travels round and
round in the air, hunting incessantly for something to
lay hold of. Then, finding a support, it bends around
that support, embracing firmly its new friend.
If you happen to live near a Hop-garden, you can, at
the right season, study the growing Hops, and can see
how they gradually mount and hold hard and hang in
SOME REMARKABLE WAYS OF PLANTS 159
graceful festoons. Or you may find in the hedge a wild
‘* Clematis,’’—the “ Traveller’s Joy ”—and again you
will see much the same.
But such plants as the Bryony have extra help
in climbing, for they grow tendrils, delicate spirals,
which unwind and wind anew, and cling fast as they
rise. The tendrils, like stem-tips, are ever going round
and round, very gently, ever on the watch for a new
support; and when they have come across what they
need, they take resolute hold and refuse to let go.
While all stem-tips circle in this manner, they do
not all move in the same direction. Those of the
Scarlet Runner and of the Bindweed circle from west
to east by the north ; but those of the Hop and of the
Honeysuckle circle from west to east by the south. It
is practically the same difference as when the hands of
a watch move forwards, or are made to move backwards.
Why this difference should exist we cannot say; we
only know that so it is. And each plant keeps steadily
to its own manner of moving, and will not consent to go
the other way round, not even if it is so fastened as
almost to force it to change. This has been tried; but
the victim rebelled, and insisted on following the mode
to which it was used.
Climbing Plants generally go upwards. They do not
care to travel along a support laid flat on the ground.
Some Creeping Plants grow thus; but a real Climber, if
compelled to do so, gets out of health and sickly; for
the life then lived is not natural to it. Mounting up-
ward is its true nature; the nature of the life that is init.
We may safely say that the tendrils, like other parts,
are often, if not always, modified leaves.
160 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
JI—SENSITIVE AND MEAT-EATING PLANTS
That all Vegetable Growths are more or less sensitive
is pretty clear. They are sensitive to sunshine, to heat
and cold, to moisture, to changes of climate and weather.
We know how quickly they open their flowers to greet
the sun, and how soon they droop from lack of water or
of light and warmth.
By this word “‘ sensitive ”’ is meant generally the power
to receive and to respond to impressions. It means with
ourselves the power to receive light-waves, sound-waves,
and any manner of touch; and to respond by the sensa-
tions of sight, of hearing, of feeling. Such sensations
are often outwardly expressed by speech or movement ;
and a plant can respond by movement, though not by
speech. These movements show us, not that the plant
can actually see or hear or feel, but that it is in some
way affected, that it is towched—disturbed or checked or
helped—by outside influences.
A dog is standing in the road, and a motor-car spins
suddenly round the corner. Instantly the dog jumps
aside. That is his response to what suggests to him
danger. The dog has brains and can think. He knows
why he has hurried away.
A plant responds, but does not think, does not know
why, which makes a very great difference. Still, the
fact remains that it does respond. It is not like a rock
or a stone. In its degree, it is sensitive to outer influ-
ences, to what goes on outside it and apart from itself.
And as some human beings are more sensitive, more
easily stirred or startled, than others, so some vegetable
growths are more quickly affected than others. A
SOME REMARKABLE WAYS OF PLANTS 161
certain particular class is known by the name of
‘** Sensitive Plants,” because of their especially rapid
response.
With one kind, a gentle wind blowing on the leaves,
a few drops of rain, or even the touch of a finger, will
cause a hurried folding together and drooping; much as
other leaves will do slowly at the approach of night. A
particular species, growing in India, is so excessively
sensitive, that even a touch is not needed.! It is enough
for a man simply to come near; and the slight stir of air
caused by his movements will make the leaves shrink
and fall, as if in alarm.
Years ago J saw in Kew Gardens a singular example.
It was the Telegraph Plant from Bengal,” a small thing
in a pot, with slim pointed leaflets. Outward touch
had no effect, but as we stood looking one leaflet here
or another there would suddenly drop, like a railway
signal falling to announce a train. Then, I was told,
each would gradually rise to its old position soon to
drop again. No cause was known to which these move-
ments could be traced, but they were found to be more
frequent with greater heat.
Many sensitive plants grow in tropical countries,
and one of them, a Mimosa, has delicate leaves, which
respond prettily on the smallest provocation. First the
leaflets droop, then with speed the whole leaf-stalk falls
limply. In such cases we do not find the slowness of
movement common in plant-life.
By far the greater number of these curious growths
belong to foreign countries. But the little Wood-sorrel
1 Oxalis sensitiva. 2 Desmodium gyrans.
162 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
of England shows the same tendency. Its leaves will
shrink slightly with rough handling, or if touched in a
certain manner with the blade of a penknife.
‘* A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew,
And the young winds fed it with silver dew,
And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light,
And closed them beneath the kisses of night.
** And the spring arose on the garden fair,
And the Spirit of Love fell everywhere ;
And each flower and herb on Earth’s dark breast
Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.
** But none ever trembled and panted with bliss
In the garden, the field, or the wilderness,
Like a doe in the noontide with love’s sweet want,
As the companionless Sensitive Plant.
**'The snowdrop and then the violet,
Arose from the ground with warm rain wet,
And their breath was mixed with fresh odours, sent
From the turf, like the voice and the instrument.
“Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall,
And narcissi, the fairest among them all,
Who gaze on their eyes in the stream’s recess,
Till they died of their own dear loveliness.
** And the hyacinth purple and white and blue,
Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew
Of music, so delicate, soft and intense,
It was felt like an odour within the sense.
** Each and all like ministering angels were
For the Sensitive Plant sweet joy to bear,
While the lagging hours of the day went by
Like windless clouds o’er a tender sky.
** And when evening descended from heaven above,
And the earth was all rest, and the air was all love,
And delight, though less bright, was far more deep,
And the day’s veil fell from the world of sleep.
SOME REMARKABLE WAYS OF PLANTS 168
‘* The Sensitive Plant was the earliest
Upgathered into the bosom of rest ;
A sweet child, weary of its delight,
The feeblest and yet the favourite,
Cradled within the embrace of night.”’ !
Another kind is marked by another sort of sensitive-
ness, by what looks very
much like sense. There w
‘a
|
\)
) h
are plants which actually ap
feed on solid animal-food. Widin ws
This is a remarkable ex-
ception.
bn the. ehapters’ on.
Roots and Leaves we |
saw that ‘‘ vegetables ”’ in
general, using the word
in its widest sense, are
able only to take in liquid
food, or food in the form
of gases. Not one of
them could receive or
digest anything solid.
Yet here we find that - Be.
rule apparently broken. BLADDERWORT.
No less than five hun-
dred kinds are known, in various parts of the world,
which more or less live on animal-food, taken in the
solid form. They are often called ‘Insectivorous
Plants,’ because they subsist largely on insects; and
also sometimes they are described as ‘‘ Flesh-eating.”’
Such food is captured by them in many ways, and
only two or three can be mentioned here.
1 Shelley.
M
164 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
A large number belong to the group of Bladderworts.
iE
‘>
a
co | Le
y
Ly 6 ee
UTRICULARIA VULGARIS (Common
Bladderwort).
They live in water,
and have curious little
bladders, which in
springtime rise to the
surface, and _ there
float, acting as traps
forthe unwary. Each
bladder has one tiny
opening, closed by
valves, and it can be
entered from outside,
but not quitted from
the inside.
Small creatures,
such as the young of
gnats and worms,
force their way in
through protecting
bristles, perhaps out
of curiosity, perhaps
in search of food,
perhaps only to escape
pursuing foes—and
once in they have to
stay, for the valves
cannot be opened
from within. They
may live in their
prison for hours, or even for days, but in the end they
die, and are digested.
Then there are the remarkable Pitcher-plants of
SOME REMARKABLE WAYS OF PLANTS 165
California, and other tropical parts. Beautifully shaped
hanging pitchers grow on them, partly filled with
liquid. These, too, act as traps. Creatures fall, or fly,
or creep into them, to be
caught and held fast until they
die, when again they are
slowly digested.
One of the commonest and
best-known of such plants is
the Sundew,! widely spread
through North Europe and
North America. It grows
usually on exposed moor-
lands, and also in some very
cold regions.
Here it is the leaves which
act as traps. Each leaf lies
flat on the ground, in shape
slightly ‘‘trough-like’”’ and
very sticky. Any small insect
alighting there is caught and
held firmly, despite all its
struggles.
At the first touch of a
victim the leaf begins to pour
out” juices) fromthe little
glands, which have power to aiGE ER PLA wt
manufacture such juices, and
its edges turn slowly and ruthlessly up, curling over so
as to imprison the unfortunate prey—once more to
1 Drosera.
166 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
serve as meat for the plant. About twenty-four hours
later, if it is a quite small insect, the leaf uncurls and
is ready for another victim, though digestion often
takes much longer.
DROSERA ROTUNDIFOLIA (Round-leaved Sundew).
A tiny scrap of meat placed there will be treated in
a like manner, taken captive, well soused in juice, and
gradually disposed of. Midges, ants, beetles, and small
butterflies, are perhaps the commonest items of Sundew
fare, though, as we have seen, it seems to like variety.
SOME REMARKABLE WAYS OF PLANTS 167
Often seeds and pollen-grains are wafted thither, for
the same purpose.
If a dragon-fly happens to be captured, that is a
grand haul. One or two more leaves will then come
bending over to help the captor, for extra strength is
needed to hold such a vigorous captive, and more juices
for his complete subjection than a single leaf can supply.
Yet another Insect-eating plant is the “‘ Venus’ Fly-
trap,” a native of North America. Here again the leaves
are the traps. Sharp spines grow on them, and when
an unfortunate insect alights there, it is caught at once
by the sticky outflow. Then it is closed in upon, slowly,
pitilessly, the sharp spines crossing till its imprisonment
is complete. Sometimes the leaf will remain tightly
shut for a week, a fortnight, or even three weeks.
And these are only a few of the extraordinary ‘‘ Flesh-
devouring Plants ’’ now known to botanists.
IlI—Tue HEALTH oF PLANTS
We often speak of plants as being healthy or unhealthy,
just as we speak of human beings; and it is the simple
truth that they, like ourselves, may be either well or
ill, either feeble or vigorous. They suffer from illnesses
and diseases, much as we do, and often from the same
causes.
It may be bad air which upsets them, or want of good
water to drink, or insufficient food in the soil, or not
enough sunshine, or too much heat or too much cold.
One kind needs what another cannot stand. So with us
—‘‘ one man’s meat is another man’s poison.”
Mention has been made earlier of growths which do
not root in the ground, but drain their nourishment
168 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
from some other plant upon which they live. Parasites
of various kinds are common in the Vegetable World,
and they are usually looked upon as hurtful, as bringing
disease, if not death, to the tree or herb attacked.
The smallest and most abundant of these unwelcome
guests are the Bacteria—tiny invisible hordes! We
spoke of them as among the very lowest on the rungs of a
ladder of vegetable growths. It is not certain that all
the Bacteria are “ vegetable ”’ in nature, for some may
be “‘ animal,’ but at least very many of them are. And
their numbers are simply enormous, far beyond our
power to reckon.
Not much has been said, so far, about the quantities of
Seeds, which can be produced by a flowering plant in one
season. These quantities differ immensely, for some
plants bring forth very few, perhaps one or two seeds
only to a single bloom. But they are rather rare, and
with others matters are widely the reverse.
For instance, a single plant has been known to grow
ten thousand seeds in a year; another sixty thousand ;
another a hundred thousand; another seven hundred
thousand; and so on.
And if each of those thousands of seeds should produce
next year another ten or a hundred thousand, and each
of those again the same amounts in the year after—think
what it would all come to. Naturally, they do not,
because many seeds must always fail, from want of
water or of room to grow or some other cause.
So much for the manufacture of seeds by flowering
plants. But when we go down the ladder to the swarm-
ing Bacteria, these numbers are far surpassed. Here we
SOME REMARKABLE WAYS OF PLANTS 169
find nothing in the shape of seeds, but more generally
growth by each individual dividing into two.
And very quickly it comes about ! You would hardly
believe, unless you already know it, how rapidly these
tiny atoms of life get through what we describe as
‘‘ growing up.”? When careful watch had been kept over
some of them—of course through a microscope—it was
found that in twenty minutes they had so reached
maturity as to divide again.
With human beings a “ generation ’”’ is supposed to
last about thirty years. But with these minute beings a
‘* generation ”’ seems to last less than half-an-hour. And
this, at such a rate of increase, means that in the course
of about eight hours some sixty millions of them might
come into existence, all descended from one small
ancestor.
So no wonder that there are plenty, and more than
plenty, of them !
b)
Plants suffer from many different kinds of disease.
But when we use the word “‘ suffer,’? we do not mean that
they actually endure pain. The plant, as a plant, loses
health and vigour and beauty. Whether it is in the
very faintest degree conscious of its loss is another
question.
We all know of the Potato Disease, and many among us
can remember the terrible famine in Ireland, which
followed its outbreak. For at that time the poor of
Ireland lived mainly on potatoes, and when they failed
nothing remained.
Most of us, too, are familiar with the small round
objects called ‘‘ Oak-apples.”’ But they are not apples.
170 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
They are a disease of the Oak-tree. Such gall-growths
are found on other plants as well, and they are usually
due to a small living creature getting inside the stem,
or branch, and staying there, while an unhealthy lump
forms round it.
Often we see upon the trunk of a tree a large unsightly
swelling, and this again means disease. With a tree,
happily, it does not mean pain, as any such growth
would with a man, but it does mean that the health of
the tree is not what it should be.
One well-known parasite is an odd little red plant,
called the ‘‘ Dodder,’? which goes creeping over others,
sucking its food from them, and never taking the trouble
to send a root into the earth. One may often see the
Dodder crawling over bushes on a common.
And though usually we look on such parasites as
hurtful to the plants upon which they fasten, yet it
may not be so in every case. For, with regard to the
‘‘ galls”? just mentioned, it has been found, curiously,
that in growing thus they have sometimes caused the
single flowers of the plant attacked to become double ;
the stamens altering into petals. You know how the
single flowers of a Wild Rose may become double through
cultivation. Here the same thing is believed to.come
about, not through a gardener’s care, but through that
which is more in the nature of a disease.
And this does not stand alone. A botanist, who
studied the matter closely, found in certain instances
that a parasite, preying on the roots of a plant, instead
of doing it harm seemed actually to do it good. The
plant which was preyed upon, far from being weakened,
grew more strong and healthy.
SOME REMARKABLE WAYS OF PLANTS 171
So in the Vegetable World, as in our world, it some-
times happens that those things which are looked upon
as most sad may in the end bring about greater good.
IV—PLANT-LIFE IN GENERAL
We have seen in these pages some wonderful things
about the Vegetable World. We have learnt a little of
how its members live; how they breathe, how they feed,
how they rest, how they seem to love sunshine. We
have found how they differ in their ways and in their
likings—if that word may be used for them—and in the
kinds of soil and air and climate that they need.
Something we have noticed of what they have to
do in our world: of the work of Roots, the work of
Stems, the work of Leaves, the work of Flowers.
More than this, it has become clear how truly they
live ; how utterly they differ from things without life;
how much more nearly they are related to ourselves than
perhaps we have imagined.
Also we have seen how tremendously useful they are
to mankind, more than useful, absolutely necessary,
since apart from the marvellous tasks which they carry
out we could not live. So we may well look on them with
gratitude : gratitude first to Him Who gave them to us;
gratitude also to themselves, our faithful servants, ever
busied for our benefit. We may think of them as our
small brother and sister beings, to be loved and admired
and cared for.
And all the while we know so little of their real nature ;
of how and in what manner they do the extraordinary
things that we see them do.
172 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
Why should the roots rove hither and thither in search
of the right food? Why should flowers and leaves turn
persistently towards the sun? Why should the Vallis-
neria stalk act as it does—growing up to the water-
surface for supplies of pollen, then bending and coiling
downward, to be ready with ripened seeds for the next
year? Where lies the connection between such actions
and the unseen cause, the hidden controlling power ?
What is that cause—that power ?
Such questions we cannot answer fully. We cannot
define how far that which we call “‘ sense ”’ or “ sensitive-
ness’? on the part of plants is actually what we mean
by the words. We only know that in many ways they
behave almost as if they really had a measure of
understanding.
Not of understanding like our own. Not of under-
standing equal to that of animals. This we cannot
suppose.
But in recent years the thought has gained ground
that perhaps—perhaps—in the mysterious world of
plant-life a very faint measure may exist of something
like ‘‘ consciousness.” That when they seem to shrink
from a touch, when they droop and fail from lack of
sunshine or of water, there may be in them the tiniest
amount of something like discomfort. That when they
gaze up at the sun, and appear to bask in his rays, they
may have a dim sense of enjoyment, or at all events of
something akin to satisfaction. We are certainly free
to indulge in the fancy, and in time we may know that
it is not only a fancy.
The word just used, “‘ consciousness,” needs defining.
I think that what we mean by it in this connection is—
SOME REMARKABLE WAYS OF PLANTS 173
not only being alive, but knowing that one is alive. We
ourselves live, and we know that we live. A plant
lives; but can we contend that in the feeblest degree it
knows that it lives? There lies the real question! And
though we constantly talk of plants as if they knew,
as if they understood, as if they did certain things for
certain ends, knowing why they so act, it is not without
a touch of reservation that we quote Wordsworth’s
couplet—
** And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.”
Not that the words may not be perfectly true, but that
perhaps we cannot yet be sure.
To return to the main question : How do these things,
these growths, movements, adaptations, changes, develop-
ments, come about? By what power, through what
control, are they caused?
‘* Nature,”’ we are told, does this, and brings to pass
that. But the answer does not satisfy. ‘‘ Nature ”’ is
not a person, is not even a power. ‘‘ Nature’’ means
simply the sum of all that we see and know to be going
on around us; possibly not including inanimate rocks
and stones, but certainly including animal-life and plant-
life of every description, and all human life. When
we speak of ‘‘ Nature ’’? working changes in plants, we
might just as well speak of their doing it themselves.
Nor would this, in a sense, be wrong. Not consciously
—yet actually—they do it.
Some animals, in cold northern winters, change the
colour of their coats from brown to white, a protective
174 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
act, rendering them invisible against the snow. We
cannot suppose that the will of the creature works this
alteration. It is due to the subconscious Life which
controls the creature’s body.
When your heart beats day and night persistently,
it is not you—not the conscious part of you—which
keeps that heart going and regulates its beating. Here,
again, the unconscious or subconscious Life in you does
the work. Your soul controls your body; consciously in
part, unconsciously in part. The “soul” or ‘‘ life” 2
may be said in a manner to know what is needful for
your body, and to bring about, so far as it can, what is
needed, apart from any effort of your conscious will.
In like manner the life—the soul—of an animal con-
trols its growth and developments, and does all in its
power to bring about what is required for the good of
the animal, quite irrespective of the latter’s will. When
we talk of the “ healing power of Nature,” as seen in a
wounded body of man or animal, it is this to which in
reality we are referring.
And so too, though in a much lower degree, may we
not claim for the Plant a “‘ soul” or “ life’? which does
its utmost to obtain all that the plant craves for or
needs to keep it in health? As the “life ” of the coral-
polype secretes and builds the solid framework on which
it dwells, so the “‘life”’ or ‘“‘soul”’ of a plant secretes
and builds the framework of that plant, controls its
actions, and fosters its developments.?
1 One Greek word stands for both ‘‘ soul” and “life,’”? and
may be translated by either.
* It may be asked—lIf plants and animals consist, like Man,
of body and soul in even very limited degrees, are they to be
regarded as in the same ¢ategory with Man ?—are they all mare
SOME REMARKABLE WAYS OF PLANTS 175
But beyond and behind and throughout all this, as
we well know, dwells ever ONE SuPREME, “‘ The Lord
and Giver of Life,’’—
“the Power
That rules all action and all tides of thought,
And all the secret courses of the Stars.” 1?
One matter, much discussed during recent years,
has not yet been mentioned. This is the extraordinary
fulness and abundance of Vegetable Life on Earth, to-
gether with the thought of conflict, and of the incessant
struggle for existence. In other words, the way in
which each seed, each plantlet, has to fight for very life,
and can only prevail by getting the better of others in
the strife.
No portion of Earth’s surface can support more than
a certain amount of vegetation; and where one seed or
one plant succeeds, many others are bound to fail.
To some extent such a condition of things is inevit-
able. Where hundreds of seeds have ripened, only a
limited number of them can become healthy and well-
grown plants. Many must fail, from lack of room and
of food.
If we think once more of the acorns seen on a single
Oak, we shall realise how few of them will ever become
large trees. At any particular place only enough food
is found in the soil to keep going a definite number of
Oaks; and where one survives others must die.
Certain writers, seeing this vividly, have spoken in a
or less on the same level? No; for Man is not body and soul
only; he is Body, Soul, and Spirit. Man alone was made “in the
Image of God.”’
1 Alfred Noyes.
176 THE GARDEN OF EARTH
melancholy key about plants as selfishly fighting for
themselves, and ruthlessly trampling out the lives of
their companions. Much has been written as to the
** fierce struggle’ going on, and the many that perish,
neglected and forgotten failures.
That is not, however, a very happy way of looking
on the matter, and it may be viewed from another
standpoint.
We need not blame the plants which succeed, since we
ourselves imperatively need them to work for us, to
purify our atmosphere, to prepare our daily food. And
they have to carry out these duties, to which they are
called.
As for the seeming failures—the unused seeds, the
wasted acorns, the dying plantlets—they are not really
wasted or useless or failures. They have their simple
tasks to perform, even though they can never add to
the number of our stately forest-trees.
Sometimes they serve as food for man. Sometimes
they serve as food for animals. Sometimes they help to
enrich the soil in which more successful growths will
find a home; and so they end by becoming food for future
generations of Vegetable Life.
And if many multitudes of these—of pollen-grains,
of seeds, of plantlets—have to fulfil such humble ends,
have to give up their little lives for others, dying un-
noticed and unknown, instead of becoming what they
seemed to have been made for, and what they set out to
be—neither they nor we have any right to complain.
It is all part of the same great Service! Many kinds of
plants, and many types of service, are needed for such a
‘** Garden ”’ as our Earth.
INDEX
ACORNS, 133, 175
Animal kingdom, 16, 27
Annuals, 124
Anther of stamen, 118, 137, 153
Bacteria, 71, 168
Banana-plant, 109
Banyan-tree, 27, 38
Beauty of flowers, 19-21, 148
Beech, 38
Bees, 143-8, 152, etc.
Beetroot, 107
Biennials, 124
Bindweed, 159
Bladderworts, 164
Bracts, 53
Brain of plant, 73
Bread, 105
Breathing of plants, 87-90
Bryony, 159
Budding, 119
Bulbs, 39, 125, 129
Butter, 106
Buttercup, 40, 53-4
Butterfly Orchis, 154
Calyx, 22, 56, 118
Camphor-tree, 110
Candytuft, 5
Catkins, 139
Cedar of Lebanon, 38
Celery, 58
Cells and tubes, 30, 69, 70, 78-80, 91, 93
** Character ” in plants, 123
Cheese, make of, 106
Chlorophyll, 94, 113
Classification, 44—7
Clematis, 159
Climbing plants, 159
Cocoa or Cacao, 108
Cocoa-nuts, 135
Composite, 57
Contrivances, 150-5
Corolla, 22, 118
Cotton-plant, 109
Cotyledons, 39-42
Crocus pulbs, 125
Cross- fertilization, 137-9, 143-6, 152-4
Crossing, 138, 154-5
Daffodil, 127
Daisies, 2, 5,7, 56, 96
Dandelion, 57, 134
Date-palm, 108
Diatoms, 30-1, 112
Digestion of plants, 87-90
Divisions or Classes, 27, 36, 39-42
Dodder-plant, 170
Earth a Garden, 26
Elm, 29, 41
Families, 36, 46-9
Fern-fructification, 33-6
Ferns, 33-6
Filament, 118
Flax-plant, 110
Flowering plants, 26, 29-30, 36
Flowerless plants, 33, 36
Flowers, 18-21, 114, etc.
— parts of, 21, etc., 117, ete.
scents, 11 6
varieties of, 114
work of, 19, 114-36
Food of plants, 70-5
Food, Vegetable, 14, 19, 94, 105-9
Fools’ Parsley, 5
Forget-me-not, 5
Foxglove, 153
Fronds, 33-5
Frost, work of, 63
Fruits, 108-9
Genera, 47
Germination, 130
Grand St. Bernard, 62
Grasses, 36, 40, 142
Growth of plant, 10, 12
Hazel-tree, 142
Health of plants, 97, 167, 169
Hemlock, 58
Hive-bee, 146-9
Honeysuckle, 159
Hop, 159
Humble-bee, 144, 152
Insect-help, 138, 142-50
Insectivorous plants, 163
Instinct in animals, 149
Leaf-green. See Chlorophyll.
Leaves, 18, 39-42, 82-95, 100-2.
"Modified leaves.
— colouring of, 92-4
— make of, 41, 85, etc.
177
See
178
Leaves, numbers of, 84
—, work of, 19, 82, 84, 88-95, 102-
Lichens, 32
Life of tia 14, 67, 81, 84, 92, 121,
t
?
Lilacs, 5
Lily, 40
Manufactures, 82-5, 102-10
Meat-eating plants, 163-7
Mimosa, 161
Modified leaves, 22-5, 159
Mosses, 33
Movements of plants, 71-3, 157-62
Narcissus, 40
Natural Orders, 47
Nature, 173
Oak, 38, 41, 84, 87, 133, 175
Oak-apples, 16 9
Oats, 36
Ocean-animals’ food, 110-13
Onion, 96
Orange, 108
Orchids, 40, 66, 87, 138
Organic substance, 84
Ovary, 118, 120
Ovule, 120-2
Palms, 38, 41
Papaveracee, 55
Pear, 51, 108
Perennials, 124
Petals, 22, 117-9
Phlox, 5
Pistils, 23, 25, 118, 120, 122-5
Plant-manufactures, 82-5, 102-5
Plums, 109
Pollen, 23, 118, 122-3, 187-42, 146-55
Polyanthus, 5
Poppy, 155
Potatoes, 126, 129, 169
Primroses, 5, 4
Radish, 125
Rafilesia Arnoldi, 115
Ranunculacee, 54
Raspberry, 51
Receptacle, 51
Relationships, 36, 46-7, 48-60
Resurrection of spring, 131
Rice, 108
Roots, 18, 66-7, 157
Root- -tips ‘and hairs, 68-75
Rose, 5, 10, 21-5, 48
Rose Family or Order, 48-52
Salt, 105
Sap, rise of, 76-81, 104
Scarlet Runners, 159
INDEX
Seaweeds, 33
Seed-leaves. See Cotyledons.
Seed-scattering, 132
Seeds, 2,19, 24, 119, 121, 126-31, 168,
175
Sensitive plants, 160-7
Sepals, 22, 51, 118-9
Shirley Poppies, 155
Silk, 110
Sleep of paws 8, 101, 128, 157
Sling-fruits, 1
Snapdragon, 158
Snow, red, 30
Snowdrop, 125
Soils, 61-5, 72, 103
‘NOM: 174
Species, 47
Spores, 35, 63
Stamens, 23-5, 53, 118, 153
Stems, 18, 74, 158
Stigma, 118
Stomata, or leaf-pores, 86-8
Storage of food, 124-7
Strawberry, 50
Style, 118
Sugar- cane, 36, 107
Sun, power ‘of, 6, 75, 94-100, 121, 129-31
Sundew, 165-7
Sunflower, 57, 96
Survival theory, 154
Tea, 108
Telegraph-plant, 161
Tendrils, 159
Tiger-lily, 138
Tips of roots, 68
Transpiration, 87, 90
** Tribes,” 47
Tubes. ’ See Cells and tubes.
Vallisneria spiralis, 150-2
Variegated Laurel, 124
Vegetable kingdom, 14, 16, 27, 29, 38,
105, 109, 117, 128, 171
Venus’ Fly-trap, 167
Viola, 97-100, 155
Violets, 5
Volvox, 31
Water-plants, 135
Water-vapour, 80, 87, 91
were. 2; 37, 38
Wheat, 105
Wild Mustard, 153
Wind and water, 134-5, 141
Winter-work, 4, 74-5, 128-31
Wood, make ‘of, 103-4
Wood- “sorrel, 161
Wool, 109
Work-shops, 19, 82, 92-3, 116, 137
Worms, work of, 4, 64-5
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