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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

The Fuchsia has a Distinctive and Esthetic Manner.

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PERSONALITY
OF PLANTS

By ROYAL DIXON and
FRANKLYN E. FITCH

New York
BOULLION-BIGGS
1923

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BR ——

Copyright, 1923, by
Bouttion-Biccs, Inc.

All Rights Reserved

PRINTED IN U. §S. A.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

ORIGIN OF PLANTS

LIFE OF A PLANT

MIGRATIONS OF PLANTS
COMRADES OF THE PLANT WORLD
ALLIES OF THE PLANT WORLD
MARRIAGE CUSTOMS OF PLANTS
ART IN THE PLANT WORLD
MusICc IN THE PLANT WORLD
RELIGION IN THE PLANT WORLD
PLANT MYTHOLOGY

MYSTICISM IN THE PLANT WORLD
PLANT INTELLIGENCE

THE HIGHER LIFE OF PLANTS
PLANTS & MEN

Page

To
EDWIN MARKHAM
and
ANNA CATHERINE MARKHAM
who live their poetry.

“That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroyed ;
Or cast as rubbish to the void,

When God hath made the pile complete;

“That not one worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivel’d in a fruitless fire,

Or but subserves another’s gain.”

—Tennyson.

ae 2

INTRODUCTION

¢¢7TNHE natural world, so to speak, is the raw

material of the spiritual. Therefore, ere

man can understand the spiritual, he must un-
derstand the natural,” writes Thomas Gentry.

The authors of this book would go a step fur-

ther and say that the natural world 1s the spirit-

ual. Soul and body, ephemeral and material,
on this plane of existence are ineffably bound to-

gether. If you would climb to sublime heights
of ghostly exaltation, study first the grass at your
feet. If you would unravel the mysteries of
the universe, desert the cloistered hearth for the
wonders of woods and meadows. Slow-think-
ing man will never understand the secret of his
own existence, until he thoroughly understands
the plants outside his window.

For one to examine dead, withered speci-
imens and hope to understand Nature is as if a
“person should analyze hundreds of Egyptian
mummies in order to acquaint himself with the

[11]

Wid

human race. You must seek the flowers on their
native heath and treat them as friends and
equals. Too often is the human creature in-
clined to look upon members of the vegetable
kingdom as things apart from the world of life—
insensate beings which can be cut down and
trampled without offense—mere “growths,”
more akin to earth and stone than to himself.

As a matter of fact, among the many forms of
matter which exist on this earth of ours, the only
clear-cut division is between the organic and the
inorganic. ‘The primary characteristic which
distinguishes a living creature from inanimate
objects about it is, in the words of Arthur
Dendy, its power of “reacting toward its envi-
ronment in such a manner as to conduce to its
own well-being; of controlling not only its own
behaviour but also the behaviour alike of its
fellow creatures and of inanimate objects, in its
own interests, thereby maintaining its own posi-
tion in the universal struggle for existence.”

If this, then, is the one characteristic which
distinguishes all terrestrial life, it follows that
all creatures from the unicellular protoza to man
himself are intimately related, are all part and

[12]

parcel of the same system, are recognizable by
differences in degree but not in kind, and are
all interesting manifestations of that mysterious
thing we call life. No creature lives or dies
to itself. The correlation of organisms in Na-
ture is similiar to the correlation of organs in
individual plants and animals.

If the reader will but face this fact, he will
approach the study of Nature with a new rev-
erence. He will recognize the oneness and kin-
ship of all life.

It is largely the object of this book to ex-
plore the inner recesses of breathing and think-
ing plantdom—to take the reader beyond the
limits of text-book botany into regions of sym-
pathetic insight—to show how even human arts
and sciences are unchangeably bound up with

the lives and hopes of the grasses and flowers.
To do this comprehensively, it has been

thought wise not only to indicate how plants
think and act but to incorporate a broad general

history of their race stretching back to their first
appearance on the planet and carried forward
to the Burbank creations. With this knowledge
in hand, we are better equipped to approach

[13]

that fascinating realm which touches on the intel-
ligence, the spirituality, the mysticism, the psy-
chic phenomena, the higher life of plants.

In all this, the manifest independence of plant
life and purpose is convincingly apparent. The
plants have their own lives to lead and their
own evolutionary processes to carry on. They
completed the conquest of the earth long before
the first human being appeared on its surface.
Out of approximately a hundred thousand spe-
cies of flowering plants, it has been estimated
that only two hundred and forty-seven render
direct and important service to man, and of these,
only about fifty-four are utilized by him to any
great extent.

While today it is no longer the fashion to be-
lieve that plants were created for man’s sole
benefit, yet it cannot be denied that, because of
their physical limitations and inferior intel-
ligence, the plants frequently become very do-
cile servants of the human race, thereby thriv-
ing mightily and to their own great advantage.
This is as it should be. It is a law of earthly life.
The danger lies in the contempt which this serv-
itude engenders in the consciouness of man, the

[14]

master. The plants are inferiors but very won-
derful inferiors. We should accord them the
highest respect. We should accept our dominion
over them as a favour of a beneficent Pro-
vidence,— a priceless gift which it is criminal
to squander or misuse.

15]

CHAPTER I
ORIGIN OF PLANTS

“*Tis a quaint thought, and yet perchance,
Sweet blossoms, ye have sprung

From flowers that over Eden once
Their pristine fragrance flung.”

‘67 N the beginning God created the heaven

and earth. And the earth was without
form and void; and darkness was upon the face
of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon
the face of the waters. And God said, Let
there be light: and there was light!”

There is no greater mystery than the mystery
of creation. Nowhere is its story told more
eloquently and more scientifically than in the
opening words of Genesis. All the fruitage of
centuries of research but reaffirms this ancient
narrative. |

In the early days of this planet, when its crust
was scarcely hardened from the molten state,
there reigned what might be called the age of
water. The entire surface of the globe was cov-

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

ered with a sea of restless, moving liquid, over-
charged with a heavy atmosphere of vapour,
so dense that not a single ray of light could pene-
trate it. As the process of cooling went on, more
and more moisture condensed out of the air,
until finally the first ray of light reached the
universal sea and terrestrial day began.

Here in this dim, watery world, about the
time that the first land began to emerge from
the deep, by some divine, mysterious agency,
the first life was born.

No doubt it was one-celled, free-moving, and
like modern Flagellates, partaking of the nature
of both plant and animal.

Slowly, and in response to evolutionary
promptings, simple aquatic plant forms began
to develop from the primary single cells. An-
imal life may have begun a simultaneous devel-
opment, but if it did, it did not become strong
enough to make any impress on the geologic
rock from which we draw our data.

Certainly the plants were in the ascendency.
The mobile green Algae were characteristic of
the time. It is a remarkable thing that though
they are probably the progenitors of all that

[18]

ORIGIN OF PLANTS

vast world of vegetable life which enriches the
world today, the Algae have always gone on
reproducing their own kind. ‘Today we can
watch, under a microscope, the activities of the
first form of terrestrial life, born incalculable
aeons ago.

Mayhap the earth would be peopled exclu-
sively by Algae and similar forms today, if it
had not been for a prehistoric accident. One
day, the water suddenly receded from a bit of
Jand and left some Algae in the mud behind it.
Now, the Algae had always been used to plenty
of water and they saw that unless they did some
quick thinking, they were in danger of drying
up and blowing away. Accordingly, by common
consent, they secreted and surrounded them-
selves with a jelly-like mass capable of absorb-
ing and holding water. The amphibious Liver-
worts and the Ricciocarpus Natans do the same
thing today.

With the Algae successfully living in the
mud, surrounded by their mucilaginous water-
reservoirs, it was but a step for some enterpris-
ing individual to extend a portion of his own
tissue in search of more water. By this simple

[19]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

act, the first root came into being, and lo! there
were terrestrial plants.

It is to be noted that all development in the
plant world is born of necessity. ‘To the plants,
dependence upon water, food and the impulse
to reproduction may be ascribed the start of
many a new form among them. In the more
complex groups we seem to see a conscious
striving for higher and better things, but the
lowlier species often need the goad of circum-
stance to force them to attainment.

When the plants first emerged upon the land,
a number of structural changes became neces-
sary. Whereas in the marine world, water is
absorbed directly by all parts of the plant, in
land life special organs of absorption and
conductivity must be developed. At first, the
roots were mere rhizoids or hairs, aided by
water-drinking leaves and tubers, as in the
Mosses and Liverworts today; but it was not
long before true root and vascular systems were
evolved. Other changes which came with
terrestrial life were greater rigidity of tissue and
devices to guard against evaporation. Leaves
were developed for the purposes of manufac-

[20]

ORIGIN OF PLANTS

turing starch by photosynthesis, spreading out
into thin layers in order to present the greatest
possible surface.

These lower land plants retained and still
retain some characteristics of their aquatic
ancestry, notably swimming spore cells, as in
the Mosses. ‘The formation of rigid cellulose
about vegetable cells stops their movement, ex-
cept when cilia or projections of protoplasm
extend through openings in the cell walls. The
Liverworts were probably among the first real
land plants: their spores are non-motile and they
have a massive, foot-like organ for the absorp-
tion of water.

To the liberality of Nature we must ascribe
the development of the law which ties the plants
to the soil. They started out as animals, but
enjoyed such an abundance of food that it be-
came unnecessary for them to go in search for
it. Water and carbon dioxide, which formed
their principal means of subsistence, were all
about them; they settled down to a life of quiet
ease. When Corals, Sponges, Oysters and other
lower animals are similarly situated, they be-
come as firmly rooted as any plant. Moreover,

[21]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

they have free-swimming larvae analogous to
the active zoospores of certain members of the
plant world.

The first land vegetation of the globe must
have presented a curious spectacle. Imagine
a forest consisting of endless repetitions of Al-
gae, Fungi, Lichens, Liverworts and Mosses,
with many forms of gigantic sizes. The fresh-
water Algae early developed a clever device
to save their race from extinction by drought.
Certain cells in each plant became hard and
devoid of water, presenting that phenomenon
of suspended animation to be observed in many
of the higher seeds. When drought overtook
any particular plant, it died, but these special
restive cells lived, and were carried about by
the wind or other agencies until a new abundance
of moisture called them out of their trance. As
zygotes, they exist in the Nostoc today.

The first plants were non-sexual and propa-
gated by cell division. ‘They were therefore
capable of little advancement. With the in-
troduction of the sex element, infinite possibil-
ities for racial improvement and differentia-
tion were opened up. The Mosses and Ferns

[22]

ORIGIN OF PLANTS

belonging to the family Archegontatae early
established an alternation of generation in
which the spores give rise to a small plant which
looks like a Liverwort and bears the reproduc-
tive organs. The fertilized ovum of this plant
grows into a leafy, sexless individual which
produces spores non-sexually. We therefore
have a generation endowed with sex organs
making for development and progress, alter-
nating with a sexless generation calculated to
continue the tendencies of the race.

It is undoubtedly the sex element which
accounts for those “sports” or mutations in
plantdom which occasionally overstep the limits
of species to form new species.

In the luxurious atmosphere of the early globe,
vegetation waxed strong and vigorous and at-
tained remarkable proportions. The primeval
woods served to draw the superabundant carbon
from the air and in millions of decayed bodies
store it up as graphite, coal, petroleum and il-
luminating gas. The present day graphite beds
alone represent vast quantities of ancient vege-
tation. It is a unique experience to be able to
write or draw pictures of these prehistoric plants

[23]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

and use, in the carbon of our pencils, portions
of their very bodies.

Everything was on a grand scale in the “Old
Red Sandstone” age. ‘There were no real trees
yet, but the Asterophyllites, with their tall, slen-
der stems, looked much like Palms. The Eryp-
togams were immense Mushrooms. Algae,
Zostera and Psilophytons covered the shores
with a tangle of seaweed vegetation.

In the succeeding carboniferous period, the
plant world reached the climax of its dominion.
While the variety was still very much limited,
its vigor and luxuriance were astounding. The
Tree-ferns seem to have come down to us un-
changed from that time, but other plant des-
cendants have dwindled in size greatly. Our
humble Mares’ Tails were then twenty or thirty
foot trees called Calamities. ‘The Club-Mosses
were giant Lepidodendruns. Other immense
plants which have no direct descendants were
the Sigillarias and the Lomatophylos. With its
flexible, fluted and checkered stems, saw-edged
leaves, and hanging garlands of parasitic Ferns,
the carboniferous forest presented a remarkable
scene.

[24]

ORIGIN OF PLANTS

The air was still very moist, covering the en-
tire earth with a permanent fog and a uniform
temperature. It is said that certain present-day
islands in the Pacific Ocean approximate these
ancient conditions.

All the plants of that time were flowerless,
and belonged to neither the monocotyledonous
nor the dicotyledonous classes, which include
the greater number of families today. ‘Thanks
to many excellent speciments found in coal
mines, it is possible for scientists to classify as
many as five hundred families. It is believed
that coal itself was mostly formed from small
plants, but often entire trunks of the tree-like
forms are found in bituminous strata. Bits of
bark, cones and petrified leaves have also been
unearthed at different times.

In the course of evolution, the Conifer trees
were the next to develop extensively. They
gained a great ascendency, but were succeeded
by Palms, Alders, Cypress and Elms. By the
Miocene period, all the forms known in tropic
Africa today had come into existence, but were
restricted by no such regional limitations as they
labour under now. Oaks and Palms, Birches

[25]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

and Bamboos, Elms and Laurels grew side by
side. The Palms reached as far north as
Bohemia, Switzerland and Belgium. Marles,
Lindens, Planes, Spruces, Magnolias, Persim-
mons and Pines flourished in Greenland. The
Silver Fir and the Southern Cypress advanced
to within two hundred leagues of the North
Pole. The California Redwoods and Sequoias
are survivors of a race which flourished in this
age.

Man came very late in the earth’s evolution,
but he has had a profound effect upon the plant
world. His most noteworthy feat has been to
take comparatively weak plants like the grains
and, for his own purposes, give them large areas
in which to grow. Wheat, Maize, Yams and
Tobacco became widely diffused as cultivated
plants before the historic era. It is probable that
Rice and the Legumes were first domesticated
in Asia; Barley and Wheat in Egypt; and
Maize, Potatoes, Yams and Manico in America.

The origin and development of plants is a
fascinating study. So authentic are the records
which they have left in the eternal rocks that we
have little difficulty in reconstructing their
entire race history.

[26]

SHUNLSVd GNV SATA UNO ONINALHOIMA NI LNdds SI ASIVG V JO dal] IHL

CHAPTER II

LIFE OF A PLANT

“We cannot pass a blade of grass unheeded by the

way,
For it whispers to our thoughts and we its silent
voice obey. —J. E. Carpenter

HE growth and development of a plant,
= i though such a common thing, is full of
very real wonder and mystery. It takes only
a little observation to discover the various stages
in the process, but how they are brought about
and by what laws they are governed, not even
the most astute investigators can always say.

To the lay mind, the statement that the plants
depend upon the soil for their nourishment is
quite self-evident, yet it is extremely inaccu-
rate. It is now quite certain that the vegetable
world relies upon the air for its largest and most
important food supply. The great mass of
carbon which is the chief constituent of all plant
structure is drawn almost exclusively from the
atmosphere. While it is true that many vital
elements are obtained from the earth, all green

[27]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

plants manufacture the greater part of their
solid material out of the carbon dioxide of the
air. Of what the plants do obtain from the
soil, water makes up the largest bulk. The
bread and meat of the plant world is carbon
dioxide; the drink is soil water in which is dis-
solved certain essential salts and condiments.

A chemical analysis of a Green Pea will
show approximately 46.5% of carbon, 4.2% of
nitrogen and 3.1% of all other elements, exclu-
sive of the hydrogen and oxygen which make
up the water permeating all tissue.

This is truly a startling fact. Instead of be-
longing to the earth, the plants then belong
primarily to the air. The air is their natural
habitat; the earth serves to give them a fixed
place in the world and provide them with
flavoured water to drink.

Plants are born from seeds, the joint pro-
duct-of two previous individuals; they live by
eating and drinking; they marry and in turn
rear families of their own. It is our purpose
in this chapter to show, in a very definite way,
that this is not mere figurative language but a
common-sense statement of fact.

[28]

LIFE OF A PLANT

The cycle of plant life can be illustrated by
any dicotyledonous, herbacious annual. If one
is so inclined he may hark back to his high
school days and plant a few Beans in a box as a
practical illustration of the facts stated here.

The first action of the planted Bean is to ab-
sorb water to a prodigious amount, and so wake
the quiescent life forces which may have been
slumbering within it for years. It is a law of
animal and vegetable life that all vital pro-
cesses must be performed in solution. With-
out water, life is dead or somnolent.

When Nature made the Bean, she left a small
opening or window in its skin-wall called the
micropyle. ‘Through this opening of the water-
swollen seed, now issue two pale sprouts. One
is long and pointed; it is the radicle or incipient
root. The other is stubbier and is tipped by a
cluster of folded, yellow-green leaves; it is the
plumule or incipient stem. With unerring ex-
actness, the radicle grows down into the soil
and the plumule feels its way up into the air.

By this time, the seed has burst its walls and
split into two halves, which indicates that it be-
longs to the dicotyledonous group of plants. As

[29]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

the seedling continues to grow, these cotyledons
begin to shrink and shrivel. ‘The plant is liv-
ing on their substance until it can begin to make
its own. In the case of the Bean, the stem lifts
the emaciated cotyledons up into the air, where
they act as leaves until the tiny green things at
the stem’s tip have expanded into those impor-
tant organs.

When the first leaves have fully opened and
the spent cotyledons have dropped off as mere
empty shells, the independent life of the plant
may be said to have begun. We are now ina
position to examine its methods of living.

Examining the root, we find that by this time
it has expanded into many branches. Each tip
is a tiny mouth through which the plant drinks
the all-important water and mineral salts. Root
tips exercise great ingenuity; they feel their
way underground, touching here, recoiling
there, and searching out the elements necessary
to the plant’s economy with wonderful sagacity.

The actual absorption is done by minute fila-
ments or hairs which take in water and its dis-
solved contents by osmotic action. ‘They se-
crete a digestive fluid which renders certain

[30]

LIFE OF A PLANT

minerals soluble, and by a strange intelligence,
select the kind and amount of material they take
in. In certain groups of plants, notably the
Legumes, colonies of Bacteria take the place of
root hairs, and by a reciprocal action, provide
the plant with the nitrogenous elements which
it craves.

The principal food of most vital importance
taken in by the roots is nitrogen. Nitrogen is
one of the basic elements of protoplasm, the
life fluid of the living cell. Where there is
life, there is nitrogen. Sulphur, phosphorous,
silica, iron and other elements are also needed
in small quantities.

The root hairs are constructed so as to allow
fluids to pass in but not out. The continual ab-
sorption of water results in a mechanical pres-
sure which automatically forces the sap up
through the stem to all parts of the plant. The
process is aided by the evaporation of water
from the leaves, through the partial vacuum
created by them at the top of the system.
Pushed from below and pulled from above,
the sap of a tree, for instance, moves with a pro-

[31]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

pulsive power greater than the blood pressure
of the strongest animal.

Above the roots and the stem of the develop-
ing plant are the branches. Their function is
too well known to need much comment. They
raise the leaves up into the air and the light.
They act as conduits for ascending and descend-
ing sap. ‘They give the plant strength and rig-
idity. Each main stem is a clever bit of plant
engineering, so built as to withstand all kinds of
heavy strains and stresses.

The leaves of our seedling are extremely im-
portant parts of its anatomy. Pluck them off
and it will die in a few hours. ‘They are
mouths, stomachs and lungs all in one. Their
surfaces are broad and flat, in order that they
may catch and devour every particle of car-
bon dioxide which comes their way. To us,
carbon dioxide is a negligible part of the at-
mosphere, but out of this intangible product
of combustion, arising from fires, breathed out
by animals and expelled by volcanoes and hot
springs, the tallest tree builds its greatest struc-
ture. Is it any wonder that it takes so long!

In the inner tissue of each leaf is a substance

[32]

LIFE OF A PLANT

called chlorophyll. It is the material which
gives leaves their green colour. It is one of
the most important substances in plantdom.
Under the influence of sunlight, this chlorophyll
takes the carbon dioxide of the air, and, with
water and certain minerals, makes starch, the
raw material of plant construction. This pro-
cess, called photosynthesis, goes on while the
sun shines, and stops with the approach of
darkness. The necessity of plenty of light can-
not be overestimated.

In the manufacture of starch, oxygen occurs
as a by-product. As the plant has no use for
this element, it is breathed out from the surface
of the leaves. From the standpoint of man,
this makes plants atmospheric purifiers. At
night, when the making of starch is suspended,
there is often a superabundance of carbon diox-
ide within plant structures. It is this gas which
is now exhaled, though in very small amounts.
Some authorities maintain that the excess of
carbon dioxide is contained in water absorbed
by the roots. In the daytime this is welcomed
as additional starch material, but at night there
is no use for it.

[33]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

Another substance which is always present in
excess of plant needs is water. It is essential as
a tissue builder and also as a carrier of nourish-
ment. Its continual evaporation from the leaf
surfaces furnishes one of the sources of motive
power for the circulatory system. ‘The rate of
evaporation is controlled by the stomata, little
pores or mouths which have contractible lips.
In the Lilac there are as many as one hundred
and twenty thousand stomata to the square inch.
They are nearly always located on the under sur-
face of the leaves.

Certain plants like the Cacti seem to be able
to get along without leaves, but thick, fleshy
sections of stem perform all their functions. The
Fungi and other parasites differ from most
plants in that they have no chlorophyll for
starch-making but live on the already elabor-
ated tissue of living or dead neighbors.

When our seedling grows old enough, it mar-
ries and has a family. Among the higher
plants, the sexes are quite distinct. There are
such things as male plants and such things as
female plants, but more often both sexes oc-
cur in the same individual and frequently in

[34]

LIFE OF A PLANT

the same flowers. The Hop, Nettle, and Date
Palm are one-sex plants. Maize has flowers
of different sexes on the same stem. .

Flowers are the reproductive organs. In
the blossom of the Bean, the stamens are the
male organs and the pistil is the female organ.
The stamens produce dust-like pollen which
is conveyed by the wind to the pistil of some
other flower. Pollen grains deposited on the
stigma of the pistil are held there by a sticky
secretion until they can grow a long tube which
travels down the style, eventually reaching and
fertilizing the tiny ovules or eggs.

The ovules then develop into seeds and the
pistil grows into a pod, on both of which the
parent plant bends all its energies to give a good
start in the world.

The cycle is now complete. We have another
Bean and are back to where we started, ready
for some other fellow to plant the new Bean
and perform the experiment all over again.

This is the story in brief, but there are many
other details. The different plants have in-
vented and perfected all kinds of devices to
secure the effective propagation of the race.

[35]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

The Hazel and the Grasses hang their stamens
out in the wind in order that it may blow their
pollen to some other plant, which is waiting
with feathered pistil to catch it. Most garden
plants depend on the insects to act as pollen
carriers and display gorgeous flower-petals
and nectar pits with which to attract them.
Many plants aim to prevent self-fertilization
by having the stamens and the pistil come to
maturity at different times.

The plants go to great lengths to secure an
advantageous distribution of their offspring.
The nature of a plant is to live by growing.
When it has reached a prescribed height, it
must continue the process by producing new
individuals to carry on the cycle. It gives its
children a start in the world by providing them
with wings, bladders, feathers, spikes, thorns,
sticky secretions, submarines, boats, and kites,
according to the method of travel they are to
use. Sometimes the matured pistil or fruit is
dispersed entire. Sometimes it opens and
shoots the seeds out. The Violet and Oxilis act
like veritable guns, so vigorously do they ex-
pel their seeds. There are seed-capsules, like

[36]

LIFE OF A PLANT

those of the Primrose and Xanthium Spinosum,
which open at the top so that only a high and
efficient wind can dislodge the seeds.

The problem of food storage is an important
one in plantdom. Annuals die when they
have flowered and produced seed. Peren-
nials wither but persist for a number of sea-
sons and sometimes many years. ‘Those whose
stems or trunks are permanent withdraw their
starch and chlorophyll into their cambium
layer where it is safe from freezing. Those
which die down to the ground each fal! store
up food material in underground stems and
roots in sufficient amount to get a good start
the following season. The Potato is an en-
largement of the underground stem, but Car-
rots, Beets, and Turnips are bulbous roots. Hy-
acinths, Tulips, Daffodils, Snowdrops, Cro-
cuses, and Buttercups all store food material
in bulbs. Practically all wild flowers which
come up early in the spring, feed upon the
nutriment manufactured during the previous
season.

Buds represent the foliage of the coming
season. Each fall, trees and bushes prepare

[37]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

for next year’s growth by putting forth minia-
ture shoots and leaves folded up in warm brown
overcoats. At spring’s urgent call, the buds
have merely to cast aside their coverings and
step out into the warm sunlight. These buds
really make a tree a community of individuals,
because each one is capable of reproducing
everything that has occured on the plant up to
that point. This is the principle on which
grafting is carried on.

The most wonderful thing in all plant struc-
ture is the plant cell. There are anywhere
from six thousand to twelve thousand of these
living units to the square inch. In their rest-
less, moving protoplasm lies the mystery of life
—the directing energy which controls the
plant’s activities and makes it a conscious, in-
telligent organism.

[38]

AUNLINAYAGCV ANV JONVWOYW AO TINA
LI GNId GINOA AA ‘AUOLS S.AAIT SLI TIAL GINOD UVAHO GAOV SIHL AI

CHAPTER III
MIGRATIONS OF PLANTS

“Race after race of leaves and men
Bloom, wither and are gone;
As winds and water rise and fall

So life and death roll on.”

FE are so in the habit of thinking of plants

as fixed and static things that it rarely oc-
curs to us that they migrate over the earth’s
surface quite as extensively as do men or
animals.

While it is probably true that vegetation
Originated simultaneously at different points
on the globe’s surface, not much observation
is necessary to indicate that it does not always
stay where it is put. Plants are peculiar and
native to certain lands in a very definite way,
but their love of adventure often carries them
to the far corners of the earth. They are the
most energetic and effective colonizers in
existence. The complete history of plantdom
would include the stories of invasions, con-

[39]

eee errr ——— ee

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS
nnn EEE EEE EEE!

quests and revolutions quite as stirring as any-
thing in human annals.

If it is absorbing to follow the racial move-
ments of man, ancient and modern, it is equally
fascinating for a lover of plants to investigate
their migratory habits. We have exact records
of many of their travels and can make interest-
ing conjectures about the rest.

To a layman, the present distribution of
plants may seem chaotic. He reads that cer-
tain families are natives of Europe and Aus-
tralia, or North America and Africa and are
absent from all intervening countries. The
Alpine species Primulas and Saaifrages are
common to both the Arctic and the Antarctic.
There are fifty-eight European and New
Zealand species which are identical. The
British Grass Poa Annua is also found in the
Andes of Brazil. Through what thousands
of years of change and evolution have these
things come about! Yet the results are no more
complex than was the filling of America with
its mixed and conglomerate human population.

In a general way, there is a measure of fixity
to plant distribution. Certain plants have elec-

[40]

MIGRATIONS OF PLANTS

ted the tropics as their home; and only under
the greatest stress of circumstance can they be
induced to go elsewhere.

Tropical heat and moisture make for luxur-
iance of vegetation. There is a much greater
variety there than in the North. Woody Vines
climb the tallest trunks, where they intermingle
their leaves and blossoms with those of their
host. Gorgeous Air Plants beautify and per-
fume the forest. Stately Palms wave magni-
ficent bouquets of pendulous fronds.

As we travel away from the equator, the vege-
tation takes on a simpler aspect. ‘There are
more annuals and more herbs. The number of
Ferns, Grasses, and catkin-bearing Trees, like
the Alder and the Birch, increase. The lim-
ited growing seasons make for a more restric-
ted accumulation of tissue. Such tropic plants
as have braved the rigours of the colder climates
have dwindled much in size. The Castor Oil
Tree becomes a humble annual (Ricinus Com-
munis) only three to eight feet in height. Other
tropical trees become so small that temperate
zone folk tread them under foot.

[41]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

When we get into the polar regions, all the
plants take on a stunted and dwarfed appear-
ance and, in some cases, retire almost entirely
under ground. The number of genera and
species is much reduced. The Oak, Walnut,
Chesnut and Elm are replaced by the hardy
conifers. At the point where vegetation be-
comes almost extinct are dwarf Birches, Wil-
lows and polar Blackberries (Rubus Arcticus).
The simple Mosses and Lichens mark the last
lingering evidences of life.

A curious feature of plant life in the polar
regions is the rapid growth which it often ex-
hibits. The summer of the Far North is short
but it is one day of intense and blinding light.
The sun shines continually throughout each
twenty-four hours. By virtue of its stimulat-
ing power, plants are able to perform in a few
weeks processes of development which take
months under ordinary conditions.

It is illuminating to take a single country in
a more favoured climate and, as far as possible,
trace its plant history. The British Isles, be-
cause of their limited area, are a convenient
field of study. An investigation of their set-

[42]

MIGRATIONS OF PLANTS

tlement by plants gives us many hints about
prehistoric climatic and geographical changes.

Geologists generally believe that the British
Isles were once joined to the mainland of Eur-
ope. It was at this time that they were settled
by vegetation. Some of this plant life came
from Spain and some from southwest France;
there was also a Germanic group. ‘The floating
ice of the glacial period brought over hardy
visitors from the Scandinavian peninsula. A
few plant immigrants arrived from North
America and landed on the west coast of Ire-
land.

St. Helena is an isolated volcanic mass built
up seventeen thousand feet from the bed of the
ocean. It therefore has its own peculiar vege-
tation, a portion of which is believed to have
been evolved on the spot from the one-celled
state. According to Sir Joseph Hooker, forty
out of fifty flowering plants and ten out of
twenty-six Ferns “with scarcely an exception
cannot be regarded as very close specific allies
of any other plants at all.”” Sixteen of the Ferns
are common to Africa, India or America and
were probably carried there by the wind.

[43]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

Ocean currents also brought other species from

Africa. '
In 1883, a most interesting thing occured on

the Asiatic island of Krakatoa. A violent vol-
canic eruption wiped every vestige of life off
its surface. When the flow of lava ceased and
the earth cooled once more, Krakatoa was to
all intents and purposes a volcanic island newly
risen from the sea. It presented the exact
analogy of a recently created bit of land wait-
ing to be settled by the plants. In 1883, it was
as barren as the face of the moon. In 1888, a
Mr. Hemsley described its appearance as fol-
lows :—

“The first phase of the new vegetation: was a
thin film of microscopic fresh-water Algae,
forming a green, slimy coating, such as may
often be seen on damp rocks, and furnishing
a hygroscopic condition, in the absence of
which it is doubtful whether the Ferns by
which they were followed could have estab-
ished themselves. Both Algae and Ferns are
reproduced from microscopic spores, which
are readily conveyed long distances by winds.
Eleven species of Ferns were found, all of very

[44]

MIGRATIONS OF PLANTS

wide distribution, and some of them had al-
ready become common the fourth year after
the eruption. Scattered here and there among
the Ferns were isolated individuals of flower-
ing plants, belonging to such kinds as have suc-
culent seed-vessels eaten by birds, or such as
have a light, feathery seed-vessel like the Dan-
delion and a host of others, and are wafted
from place to place by the winds.

“On the seashore there were young plants
and seeds (or seed-vessels containing seeds) of
upwards of a dozen other herbs, shrubs and
trees, all of them common on coral islands,
and all known to have seeds capable of bearing
long immersion in sea water without injury.
Among the established seedlings were those
of several large trees, and a Convolvulus that
grows on almost all tropical coasts, often form-
ing runners one hundred yards in length.
There were Cocoanuts also, though none had
germinated.”

The farther such an island is from the land,
the longer will vegetation take to get estab-
lished. Darwin found that the isolated islands

[45]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

of Keeling, after thousands of years of existence,
contained only twenty kinds of flowering
plants.

Although plants have no legs they are not de-
void of mobility. When man uses the pro-
pulsive power of steam to travel by, he shows
no greater ingenuity than do plants in their
use of special devices of locomotion.

Species like the Tumble Weed (Amarantus
Albus) pull up stakes, and, consigning them-
selves to the swift autumn winds, race across
country at great speed, scattering seeds as they
go. The Utriculariae or Bladderworts are
true sailors and float about on inland streams
like little ships. The Duckweeds and Wolffias
also have aquatic habits.

However, most plants prefer to travel in
embryo. In the form of small and microscopic
seeds the force of gravity has little influence
on them, and they can journey for long and
incredible distances.

To this end practically every seed in exist-
ence is provided with some apparatus or ap-
pendage designed to help it make its way in
the world. The Elm, the Linden, and the Ash

[46]

MIGRATIONS OF PLANTS

bear winged seeds, which are so efficient in
riding the breeze that they are really miniature
aeroplanes. ‘The double wings of the Maple
are very much like those of an insect. The
seeds are released from their container in such
manner as to acquire a whirling motion as they
fall.

The progeny of the Willow is provided with
long projecting hairs which curl together to
form a tiny balloon. fFeathery attachments
called pappus enable the children of the Dan-
delion, the Thistle and the Fire Weed to go on
long jaunts of exploration.

The seed-pods of the Sycamore are great rol-
lers. Even ordinary nuts and fruits may be
blown to considerable distances by the strong
winds of autumn. The many edible seeds and
fruits are carried gratis by birds and animals.
The Mistletoe, for instance, is distributed en-
tirely by them.

Walnuts, Butternuts, and Acorns bear
water travel well, as do certain of the hard
seeds. The Arrowhead (Sagittaria) has a
self-made water-wing on which its offspring
float.

[47]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

Plant seeds, which like to travel on animals,
all provide themselves with grappling irons in
the shape of sharp hooks, spurs and spines with
which they cling to their carriers. Everybody
in the northern United States knows of the avid-
ity with which the Cockle-bur clings to any
passing object. The Touch-me-not (Impa-
tiens), the Wistaria, and a host of others, actu-
ally shoot their seeds from their pods as from
a gun.

Every vagrant breeze, every purling brook,
every deep river, every ocean current, is a high-
way of travel in plantdom. ‘The birds, the
beasts, the insects, and not least, man himself,
are involuntary vehicles on which our vege-
table friends tour the world. The spores of
Mosses, Lichens, Fungi and other cryptogams
are so light that they find no difficulty in mount-
ing into the air and traveling across the Atlan-
tic or Pacific Oceans at will.

The complete record of plant conquests
would fill many volumes. Their operations
have extended into every land and have had
influence on the world’s history. It very often
happens that plant invaders become so quickly

[48]

MIGRATIONS OF PLANTS

and thoroughly naturalized in a strange coun-
try that they go a long way toward supplanting
the original inhabitants in a very short time.

It was Darwin who first noticed the extensive
conquests of the Cardoon Artichoke (Cynara
Cardunculus) in South America. In one sec-
tion, these prickly plants covered an area of
several hundred square miles, having entirely
superceded the aborigines.

It is well known that the most troublesome
of the American weeds are of British origin.
On the other hand, the American water weed
Anacharis blocks up small English streams.
The grass called Stipa Tortilis has captured
the steppes of southern Russia. The love of
change seems to be an inherent tendency in
plantdom. The Pigweed and the Morning
Glory have come north from the tropics. The
Canada Thistle, originally a foreigner in North
America, has spread all over Canada and New
England. The American Erigeron Canadense
has emigrated to all parts of the world. The
flora of Scandinavia, like its people, are aggres-
sive colonizers. More than one hundred and
fifty species have reached New Zealand alone

[49]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

and nearly as many have established themselves
in the eastern United States.

Some plants seem to be able to adapt them-
selves to any climate and therefore are born
explorers, but the greater number are too fas-
tidious regarding conditions of soil, heat, light
and moisture to thrive well everywhere. It
is a noticeable fact that the most successful
plant invaders usually come in the wake cf hu-
man colonizers and stick to the sphere of man’s
influence. For example, the Butter-and-Eggs
(Linaria Linaria) has followed the railroad
tracks almost entirely over the tropical and
semi-tropical world. Sometimes, however,
hardy plants advance into the primeval jungle,
there to give battle to its lusty inhabitants.

On the whole, annuals have a better chance
than perennials to gain a foothold in a new
country. Every spring the weeds, grasses, and
common flowering plants have to start all over
again from a seed beginning. ‘The spores of
newcomers, therefore, have almost an equal
chance with the established inhabitants. On
the other hand, the bodies of perennials occupy
the land in close-packed ranks all the year,

[so]

MIGRATIONS OF PLANTS

ready to dispute every inch of ground with an
aggressor. It is very hard for new plants to
gain entrance into a well-grown forest.

Man has been of tremendous aid in the dis-
tribution of plants over the earth’s surface.
Either consciously or unconsciously he takes his
plants with him wherever he goes.

It was the Emperor Chang-Chien who car-
ried the Bean, Cucumber, Lucern, Saffron,
Walnut, Pea, Spinach and Watermelon from
Asia to China about 200 B. C. The period of
Roman conquest was a great epoch in the his-
tory of plant migrations. The Peach and the
Apricot first became prominent as fruits at that
time. Roman generals introduced the Pear,
Peach, Cherry, Mulberry, Walnut and many
ornamental shrubs into England.

From an obscure native of Bengal, the Sugar
Cane has become an important plant of wide

distribution. Coffee, a wild berry of Arabia,
is now the chief crop of whole countries in the

West Indies and South America. The yellow
Maize of America has become a citizen of the
world. The weak and humble Wheat is the

[51]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

sole possessor of thousands of square miles of
land in America, Russia and elsewhere.

All this has been wrought by man’s efforts.
When it is to his interest, he fights the battles
of plantdom, and because of his superior know-
ledge and equipment is of tremendous service.
Sometimes, however, he gives aid to his plant
friends through motives that are quite unselfish.
A romantic story is related of a French naval
officer named Declieux who once elected to
carry a Coffee Plant to the Colony of Martin-
ique. The supply of water ran low during the
voyage, and, rather than see the plant die, the
man shared his daily glass with it, at consider-
ate discomfort to himself.

Until man becomes all-wise, he will continue
to make mistakes; and not least of these will be
in connection with his investigations into the
mysteries of Nature. It has happened more
than once that he has introduced some new plant
into an old land, or vice versa, and lived to
thoroughly regret his action.

Sometime in 1890, a generously inclined in-
dividual threw a Water Hyacinth into the St.
Johns River in Florida. In the space of a few

[52]

MIGRATIONS OF PLANTS

short years, that single plant had multiplied so
prodigiously as to seriously impede navigation,
lumbering and fishing.

Jack London tells of a similiar thing that
happened in Hawaii: “In the United States,
in greenhouses and old-fashioned gardens,
grows a potted flowering shrub called Lantana;
in India dwells a very noisy and quarrelsome
bird known as the Myna. Both were intro-
duced into Hawaii—the bird to feed upon the
cut-worm of a certain moth; the flower to glad-
den with old associations the heart of a flower-
loving missionary. But the land loved the
Lantana. From a small flower that grew ina
pot, the Lantana took to itself feet and walked
out of the pot into the missionary’s garden.
Here it flourished and increased mightily in
size and constitution. From over the garden
wall came the love call of all Hawaii, and the
Lantana responded to the call, climbed over
the wall, and went a-roving and a-loving in the
wild woods.

“And just as the Lantana had taken to itself
feet, by the seduction of its seed it added to

itself the wings of the Myna, which distribu-

[53]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

ted its seed over every island in the group.
From a delicate, hand-manicured, potted plant
of the greenhouse, it shot up into a tough, and
belligerent swashbuckler a fathom tall, that
marched in serried ranks over the landscape,
crushing beneath it and choking to death all
the sweet native grasses, shrubs and flowers.
In the lower forests, it became jungle, in the
open, it became jungle only more so. It was
practically impenetrable to man. The cattle-
men wailed and vainly fought withit. It grew
faster and spread faster than they could grub it
out.” |

Then ensued a battle royal between man and
plant. The man called to his aid hosts of in-
sect mercenaries. “Some of these predacious
enemies of the Lantana ate and sucked and
sapped. Others made incubators out of the
stems, tunnelled and undermined the flower-
clusters, hatched maggots in the hearts of the
seeds, or covered the leaves with suffocating
fungoid growths. Thus simultaneously at-
tacked in front and rear and flank, above and
below, inside and out, the all-conquering swash-
buckler recoiled. ‘Today, the battle is almost

[54]

MIGRATIONS OF PLANTS

over, and what remains of the Lantana is put-
ting up a sickly and losing fight. Unfortun-
ately, one of the mercenaries has mutinied.
This is the accidently introduced Mani Blight,
which is now waging unholy war upon garden
flowers and ornamental plants, and against
which some other army of mercenaries must
be turned.”

Such unfortunate occurrences are sure to be-
come more and more infrequent as plant emi-
gration and immigration finds itself under in-
creasingly drastic governmental regulation.

The Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction
Service of the United States Department of
Agriculture makes a scientific examination of
all plants brought into the United States for
propogation purposes. It rids them of objec-
tional Bacteria and insect pests and refuses them
admittance entirely if its experts decide that
the newcomers will be harmful or injurious in
any way.

The agents of the Service are constantly
scouring the far corners of the earth for new and
rare plants. In the twenty-four years of its
existence it has introduced from abroad some

[55]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

fifty thousand specimens of’seeds and plant cut-
tings. Some of the successful immigrants
have been Feterita (from Egypt), Sudan
Grass, Bamboo and Alfalfa. New Zealand has
yielded new types of Potatoes. Dwarf Almonds
and strange Cherries and Apricots have come
from Turkestan. All these have proven of
commercial importance, as has Durum Russian
Wheat, credited with opening up new areas
in the Northwest, and the Navel Orange from
Brazil which has created for itself a California
industry covering thirty thousand acres and
valued at fifteen million dollars per annum.

Painstaking and scientific methods are best
when man attempts to aid Nature in her evolu-
tionary processes, especially when they are in
connection with the migration and distribution
of plants.

[56]

CHAPTER IV
COMRADES OF THE PLANT WORLD

eee aes e which links by a fraternal tie
The meanest of His creatures with the high.”
—Lamartine

HE first and greatest problem for every
terrestrial creature is to live. The chief
means of doing so is to eat. Therefore, the rela-
tion of being to being and species to species is
dominated by the necessity for food. Among
man this fact is somewhat masked and obscured,
but in the rest of the world it is entirely plain
and obvious. Again and again on every hand,
we see that plant, animal, and man all maintain
their life impulses by consuming the tissue of
their fellows.

In view of this fundamental fact, we can af-
ford to look with some degree of charity upon
that class of plants which are termed parasites.
These interesting creatures are merely carrying
out in a very direct and apparent way a prin-
ciple which permeates all domains of life. A

[57]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

Tiger kills its prey; an Ox devours unoffending
Grass; the parasitic Dodder robs some healthy
neighbour of part of its juices.

The word “parasite” originally referred to
a member of a college of priests who had their
meals in common. Later, it came to mean liv-
ing at another’s expense, as large numbers of
people did in classical times. When one re-
alizes that there are twenty-five hundred species
of parasitical seed plants, he hesitates to brand
them all as thieves and degenerates. Taking
into consideration plants which depend upon
the soil fungi for part of their sustenance, we
should have to call half the seed plants in the
world “parasites.” On a basis of strict account-
ability, it would also be necessary to classify all
fruits as “parasites” as they draw nourishment
from the parent boughs and give no return.

The fact is there are very few plants which
are not more or less dependent upon some liv-
ing fellow creature for their food supply.
Sometimes the relation is strictly reciprocal;
sometimes the advantage appears to greatly
favour one or the other of the participants. In
other cases the occurrence arises accidently

[58]

COMRADES OF THE PLANT WORLD

through chance proximity, without a conscious
pact or deliberate contract.

Edward Step in his illuminating book Mess-
mates sums up the matter admirably: ‘Two
friends in good health, each able to earn his
own living, agree for the sake of companion-
ship to live together, but each defraying the
cost of his own necessities and luxuries. This
is a case of mutualism. ‘Two other friends also
agree to share quarters and have a common
table; but one may be infirm and wealthy
whilst the other is strong and comparatively
poor. The infirm one offers to pay two-thirds
of their common expenses if the other will con-
tribute one third, plus his protection, cheerful
companionship or other valuable help. This
is a commensalism. The pair are messmates,
each contributing to hotch-potch according to
his ability or endowment, each affording what
the other lacks, and both, therefore, benefitting
from the partnership.” |

It must be admitted that there are cases of
plant companionship in which, to all human
perception, the material benefits seem directly
one-sided, but who can conclusively deny that

[59]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

the nourishment-giving partner may not re-
ceive some psychic or spiritual benefit from
the union? ‘The Orchids and many other tree-
parasites bear flowers of exquisite beauty. Can
we be quite sure that the trees do not like to
adorn themselves with gorgeous ornaments of
this kind? Such a desire would be quite
natural.

Plants which are low and weak in the scale
of evolution are very prone to enter into sym-
biotic relations. The Lichens are compound
organisms in which green Algal cells live be-
tween fungous threads. The Fungus sucks up
the water and mineral salts from the soil and
the Alga combines them with carbon dioxide
from the air to form palatable food for both.
Such plant-partners have been observed to live
together amiably for twenty-five years or more.

The Fungi and all plants which are “pale,
fleshy, as if the decaying dead with a spirit of
life had been animated” have no chlorophyll,
the mysterious green substance which is neces-
sary for the production of starch. They
must either make alliances with plants which
possess this vital elixir or live on decaying mat-

[60]

COMRADES OF THE PLANT WORLD

ter which contains elaborated food material.
Many choose the latter course, but a“ goodly
number, especially those of primitive struc-
ture, have entered into profitable partnerships.

The minute one-celled plants called Zoo-
chlorella or Zooxanthella have chosen the fresh
water sponge Ephydatia Fluviatilis for their
messmates. Sometimes they live with the Hy-
dra called Viridis and impart to it a bright
green colour.

There are whole regiments of microscopic
parasites which thrive on living plant tissue
and cause spots and rust to appear on Apples,
Peaches, Pears and other fruits and number
among their cohorts Rose-blight, Wheat-rust,
and various Mildews. ‘The larger messmate
does not receive very much benefit from the re-
lation, in this instance, except when the minute
guests serve to cover a cut or an abrasion with
a protective mantle, just as Mildew shields
cheese or jelly from decay.

Cases where Fungi render very valuable ser-
vices to larger plants are exemplified by the
Monotropa or Indian Pipe. This pallid scaven-
ger grows on the decaying vegetable matter

[61]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

of the woods. It toils not, neither does it make
plant starch, but it is able to produce pretty,
ghostly flowers and white scale-like leaves. On
its roots thrive species of Fungi which perform
the part of root hairs and in return receive
nourishment from their host. Certain authori-
ties claim that the Fungi get the better of the
bargain, as the Monotropa has been known to
maintain its health without them in laboratories.
But the fact is the relation does exist with un-
disputed benefit to both parties.

Beech Drops germinate in contact with roots
of the Beech tree, attach themselves there and
raise yellow, seared stems covered with scales
instead of leaves but bearing perfect flowers.
The Broom-Rapes get their nourishment from
the roots of Tobacco and Hemp in the same
way.

Prominate among the larger parasitic plants
is the Dodder or Devil’s Thread. This vine
derives all its sustenance from other plants and,
as far as can be determined, gives no material
return. From this standpoint, the Dodder is
a robber pure and simple, a degenerate outcast
from the community of decent plants. From

[62]

COMRADES OF THE PLANT WORLD

the viewpoint of this chapter, it is possible to
believe that the host of the Dodder derives
some spiritual or hidden material benefit from
the union which makes it distinctly worth while.
If such were not the case, it would seem that,
through ages of evolutionary development,
such plants as Flax would have devised means
to escape the Dodder’s clutches.

The Dodder inhabits low ground and pokes
an inquiring head above the surface each spring
much like any self-sustaining plant. However,
it is not long before it attaches itself to some
lusty neighbour by root-like suckers, which
pierce the stem and extract the nourishing
juices. If the supply seems adequate, the Dod-
der winds its yellow, yarn-like tendrils about
the host and allows the roots which connect it
to the earth to wither. Its absorbing tuber-
cles look like caterpillar feet; their cells form
a perfect graft with the host and gradually
disperse through its body. If other plants are
near enough, the Devil’s Thread will reach
out and tap their food supplies also. A single
Dodder has been known to draw nourishment
from five or six other plants of different fam-

[63]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

ilies at the same time, thus indicating that it
must have digestive machinery enough to ap-
propriate these varying saps to its own uses.
The Dodder has no chlorophyll and therefore
no leaves but bears pretty little bell-like flowers
which later produce seed.

In the tropical jungles are many parasites
of brilliant aspect, which, having no leaves or
root hairs, germinate directly on supporting
plants and apply suckers to the tissues of their
hosts. When seen from the ground, their short
stems make them seem all flower, and often very
handsome ones. The Rafflessta Arnoldi of
Sumatra is a notable example.

Man cannot help condemning such plant
practices. Yet all Nature is a struggle for exis-
tence. Does it not require some courage and
hardihood to come out and do in a bold and
open way what the rest of the universe is do-
ing by indirect or underhand methods?

The beautiful Orchids belong to a botanic ~
group of Epiphytes which may be classi-
fied as guests or lodgers. Being green, they
are able to gather their own living from dust,
rain and carbon dioxide in the air. All they

[64]

COMRADES OF THE PLANT WORLD

ask from their tree-hosts is a branch on which
to perch. There are probably few trees which
are not delighted to have such delicate, fairy-
like creatures add to their own beauty and
charm. They wear them much as a woman wears
a rose in her hair.

In America there are well-mannered para-
sites such as the decorative Spanish Moss so
common throughout the South. This plant is
normal in all respects; except that, perched on
a kindly tree, it draws all its nourishment from
the air instead of through soil-piercing roots.

The Mistletoe is a perfect example of a
mutualist. Early in its aerial life, it sends a
root through the bark of its tree companion
and during the spring and summer, absorbs
much food. When winter days come, and the
tree has lost its leaves, the grateful messmate
reverses the process and sends into the heart
of its friend the larger part of the nourishment
which it has been able to store up during the
prosperous weeks of summer. The seeds of
the Mistletoe are interesting because they are
covered with a sticky fluid which enables them
to travel from tree to tree on the feet of birds.

[65]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

That some plants are parasites from neces-
sity or laziness rather than choice is indicated
by a Brazilian variety of the Cuckoo-Pint
which sits far up on some tree branch and, like
an immense spider, sends down to the earth
long delicate tubes through which it some-
times sucks food and water.

One of the most interesting facts in plantdom
is the alliance maintained by Clovers, Beans,
Vetches and other leguminous plants, with
Bacteria belonging to the class Pseudomonas,
No soil can be fertile unless it contains organic
compounds of nitrogen. The earth Bacteria
have discovered methods of producing these
important substances, possibly extracting nit-
rogen distributed through the ground. ‘These
minute parasites attach themselves to the roots
of the larger plants, which promptly enclose
them in cysts or nodules where they can lead
a sheltered life and manufacture assimilable
food compounds for their hosts. When they
die, the owners of the roots feed upon their
bodies.

What is the art of grafting but a form of
artificial parasitismr Very often a branch or

[06]

COMRADES OF THE PLANT WORLD

cutting is made to form a bodily union with
some plant of an entirely dissimilar species.
In some cases, the intruder sends roots into
the tissue of its host like a true dependent.
Grafts of Prickly Pears, Mexican Grapevines
and Agaves put forth food-suckers in the soft
flesh of the Giant Cactus or the Barrel Cactus
much as they would do if planted in the earth.
There is here no true diffusive union of part-
ners but mere absorption on the part of the in-
vader.

Even grafting of allied species of Grapes
sometimes results in the young plants sending
roots through the tissues of the scion, eventually
reaching the earth by way of the body of the
host. In such cases, the parasite also draws
nutriment from its messmate by means of a
superior osmotic pressure.

Almost everything lies in the point of view.
No man, no animal, no plant is so debased and
degraded that it does not radiate some little
measure of helpfulness. If “all things work
together for good,” even that member of a plant
union which seems to act upon that inverted
principle of “all coming in and nothing going

[67]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

out” has its legitimate place in the world. As
for those numerous examples of share-alike
partnerships, they illustrate the principle of
the divine law of love which lies back of and
above the very real hardships and cruelties of
this work-a-day world.

[68]

ovae © Re. Fae
ae >, et a fae ee

u

HOdY S UALVA THL Ad SAITIV ATAGNAIYA

yt,

Volt

CHAPTER V

ALLIES OF THE PLANT WORLD

“T wish I were a willow tree—
Young wind in the green hair of me
And old brown water round my feet,
And a familiar bird to greet.”
—Elizabeth Fahnestock.

VERY division of terrestrial life consti-

tutes a struggle. The plants grow and
carry on their business and social activities so
unobtrusively that we seldom think of them as
appealing to arms—yet their whole existence
is a battle royal. They must fight with aspiring
neighbours for every inch of their upward
growth, and at the same time wage incessant
warfare against a hundred insects and animal
foes.

Under such strenuous conditions, it is only
to be expected that the plants should seek profit-
able alliances with birds, insects and animals
having interests similiar to their own. Such
pacts are described by botanists as examples of

[69]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

symbiosis; they most frequently occur between
plants and insects, but the plants also have their
working agreements with members of the other
two great kingdoms of life. In fact, all Nature
is a vast system of checks and balances, with
every creature preying more or less upon every
other creature, except when they can gain more
by joining their efforts. Certain Humming-
Birds lie in wait near plants which by their nec-
tar-sweets attract swarms of insects, and hard
by, Snakes lie in wait for the Birds. The Birds
rid the plants of destroying pests; the part of
the Snakes in a beneficent scheme of existence
is not so apparent, but merely because we can-
not see good in a thing is no argument that it
does not exist.

Many of the most important alliances of
plants are made in response to the law that
“Nature abhors perpetual self-fertilization”.
This principle is one of the greatest in plant-
dom; there is a constant necessity for the inter-
crossing of independent life-streams. The
plants go to great lengths to see that the multi-
plication and evolution of the species is prop-
erly carried on.

[70]

ALLIES OF THE PLANT WORLD

We always associate Bees and flowers, yet it
is probable, that, as a whole, the plants, es-
pecially in the tropics, depend more upon Ants
than upon any other insects. Many vegetable
folk deliberately employ them to keep their
leaves and stalks free of obnoxious visitors. The
Cow-Horn Orchid, like most plants which
perch on trunks and branches, produces pseudo-
bulbs into which its vitality can recede in dry
seasons. ‘There is always a small opening at
the bottom of each of these little tubes, through
which Ants enter. They honeycomb the inter-
ior with cells and galleries where they can be
perfectly dry in the wettest weather. On the
approach of Caterpillars, Cockroaches and
other Orchid enemies, the residents issue in
great swarms to protect their combined host and
home.

The species Coryanthes, instead of pseudo-
bulbs, grows great masses of fibrous aerial roots
among which the Ants dwell. They are ever
ready to repel invasions of Cockroaches and
other crawlers who seek to eat the tender grow-
ing root-tips.

[71]

‘PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

An Epiphyte which is particularly solici-
tous for the welfare of its insect allies is the Ant-
nest Plant, Rubiaceae Myrme. ‘This ingen-
ious creature not only builds nests but builds
them made-to-order. Certain enlargements on
its stem are hollowed out into chambers with
connecting galleries quite ready for their in-
tended tenants. All the Ants have to do is to
move in. The kind that usually enter the
plant’s service are fierce warriors, Iridiomyr-
mex Myrmecodiae, with very powerful stings.
They form a formidable bodyguard.

Sometimes the Ant warriors of such compacts
are quite satisfied to accept the free rental of
their snug quarters as sufficient pay and seek
their food elsewhere. More frequently, the al-
liance includes “board and lodging” with the
plant issuing wages in the form of nectar, sweet
pulp and other food.

The Cherry and Vetch are among plants
which secrete a candy-like substance on their
stalks which serves as an allurement for Ants
to climb and establish their homes there. In
many cases, these excretions are also barriers
which prevent the Ants from hunting among

[72]

ALLIES OF THE PLANT WORLD

the plant’s blossoms for honey, as they would
thus destroy the precious grains of pollen.

The South American Imba-uba Tree, Ce-
cropia, has a hollow trunk in which Bees and
Ants dwell together amicably. The Polygo-
nums Tree of the same continent has so many
Ant allies that it is often entirely hollowed out
by them. The process often operates so far that
men break off the smaller twigs and use them
as ready-made pipe stems. The Melastroma
Plant of South America provides pouches on
each leaf-stalk for the benefit of its black guar-
dian Ants. The Tococas and Mermidones al-
so have Ant-sacs.

In China it is a common practice of the
Orange-growers to encourage the visitation of
non-vegetarian Ants by placing selected species
on trees and connecting the trees by bamboo
poles over which the faithful insects can rush
their forces to particularly threatened points.

Everyone knows of the large part the indus-
trious Bee plays in the economy of the plant
world. Few plants, there are, which are not
aided in their love-making by this tiny brown

[73]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

buzzer; some flowers depend upon him entirely
in their efforts to propagate the species.

The Bees and their relatives are particularly
welcome to the flowers because they do the work
of fertilization so well. Wingless insects are
undesirable because they offer little guarantee
that they will successfully carry pollen to some
other flower of the same species. Even if it
is not brushed off in the course of their labor-
ious travels, they are not at all particular what
kind of flowers they visit and so offer small hope
of carrying pollen to its correct destination.
Flying insects of the Bee family seem to have
the work of cross-fertilization directly as-
signed to them. On each of their separate, pol-
len-gathering journeys, they are partial to one
particular kind of flower. As they flit from
blossom to blossom of the same species, going
in and out of flower and flower, rubbing against
a group of stamens here and brushing against a
pistil there, they fertilize plant after plant in
grateful acknowledgment of the store of sweets
they are collecting.

Many and ingenious are the methods which

flowers adopt to make sure that only invited -

[74]

|
|

ALLIES OF THE PLANT WORLD

and useful guests come to their nectar-feasts.
The very Ants which guard the lower portions
of a plant so well, might become mere greedy
plunderers, if allowed to crawl within the
flowers. It is not often that they do. Some-
times, the stalks and even the petals of flowers
like the Rock-Lichens and the Butter-Wort are
coated with some plant chemical exceedingly
disagreeable for an insect to crawl over. Various
alkaloids, resins and oils in the cell juices also
make the flower and its leaves obnoxious to
grazing animals. Many plants, like the Mul-
lein and Stinging-Nettle, use bristles and
prickles to repel Slugs and Caterpillars.

A common protective device is for a flower
to place its nectar at the bottom of a long, nar-
row tube only accessible to a flying insect hav-
ing a proboscis. In the Antirrhinum the en-
trance to the flower is closed to small crawlers
by a very heavy corolla. Bees, because of their
size and strength, can force their way through.
It is said that as soon as the stigma of this flower
has been fertilized, the corolla relaxes and Ants
and their kind are free to enter and partake of
such dainties as are left.

[75]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

Nettles, Passion-flowers, and Lilies fre-
quently line their interiors with stiff, in-point-
ing hairs which oppose a most effective pali-
sade against anything that crawls, whereas a
flyer provided with a proboscis can stand on
the edge and, inserting his straw, drink up the
best soda water in plantdom. ‘This existence
of proboscides in insects which help to cross-fer-
tilize flowers is the very finest example we have
of true mutualism. Here is a case where mem-
bers of two supposedly different worlds of life

have developed highly specialized organs in
order that they might help each other.

It is said that Charles Darwin, after noting
the extraordinary length of the spur of the Or-
chid Angraecum Sesquipedale of Madagascar
predicted that some day there would be found
in that country a moth with a proboscis ten to
eleven inches long. Not many years after, Dr.
Fritz Miller verified the sagacity of the fam-
ous scientist by finding an insect exactly answer-
ing this description.

The Birth-Wort (Aristolochia Clematitis)
takes no chances with its insect visitors. In en-
tering it, a Bee brushes easily by the down-

[76]

ALLIES OF THE PLANT WORLD

pointing hairs only to find that, when he at-
tempts to go out again, the bristles present stiff,
unyielding obstacles against his egress. In his
excitement at this discovery, he buzzes around
quite angrily and, without noticing it, thor-
oughly showers the stigma with pollen and in-
cidentally covers his own body with a good
supply to be carried on to the next stop. When
this process is quite complete, the flower gra-
ciously relents, relaxes its hairs and allows the
exasperated insect to escape.

The Pedicularis family uses similiar coercive
methods, and by sharp teeth, forces insect-visi-
tors to take a course through the flowers which
brings them in contact with both stamens and
pistils.

The purple Loosestrife, pretty dweller by
banks and meadows, sets a rich table and so al-
ways has plenty of insect visitors. It produces
six different kinds of yellow and green pollen,
and is therefore sure to suit every taste. In-
cidentally it has two different sets of stamens
and stigmas of three different lengths.

Night-blooming flowers only entertain after
the sun goes down. All day long they look

[77]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

withered and dead, but with the coming of the
stars, they open up to show conspicuous white
or light-tinted interiors. A flower like the
Silene also exhales a rich, sensuous odor, which,
with its light colour, serves to attract such in-
sects as are abroad at night.

Sycamore and Lime trees have humble allies
in the tiny mites which live in the retreats built
of hairs to be found at the places where the veins
of the leaves fork. During the day they hide
away from sight, but at night they come out and
scour the leaves clean of noxious bacteria and
fungus spores.

Pollen of different plants, when examined
under the miscrope, reveals wonderful facts
about the reciprocal relations which exist be-
tween plants and insects. Wind-fertilized
plants are nearly always without any special
beauty of form, colour or scent, while plants
which are fertilized by insects are most always
conspicuous, brightly coloured and highly
scented. In the same way, pollen of the Hazel,
Birch, and Balsam Poplar, which is carried by
the wind, is small, light, practically spherical
and devoid of proturberances. Pollen of the

[78]

ALLIES OF THE PLANT WORLD

Primrose, Cowslip and Polyanthus, often car-
ried by insects, is deeply furrowed, covered
with spines and knobs, strung together by sticky
threads and, in other ways, provided with ap-
paratus which enables it to adhere to any ob-
ject which it touches.

The pollen of the Hollyhock and the Dande-
lion consists of large, beautiful, spherical grains
covered with spikes. The Rhododendrons,
Azalias, and Fuchias produce great masses of
grains bound together by viscid threads. Many
of these bits of life-principle are geometric mas-
terpieces. A pollen grain of the Cobaea Scan-
dens is one of the most fascinating objects of
the microscopic world. It is perfectly spheri-
cal and cut into small hexagonal facets like the
eyes of a fly. Grains of pollen of all kinds vary
between one two-thousandth and one two-hun-
dredth of an inch in diameter.

Alliances between plants and birds are more
important than we imagine. ‘The tropical
Humming-birds and the eastern Sun-birds are
in habits exactly like the pollen-carrying in-
sects. ‘To watch one of these brilliantly col-
oured creatures hovering over a flower or flying

[79]

ee eee
PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

directly into a blossom after nectar, is to almost
always mistake it for a Butterfly.

Many birds are invaluable allies of the
plant world. They devour thousands of leaf-
eating insects per day and so keep down
the army of enemies which would otherwise de-
stroy whole forests. Birds like the Wood-

peckers rid tree bark of wood-boring crawlers.
In the human world every partner does not

always live up to his agreements. And there are
evidences that both plants and their allies some-

times engage in questionable practices, border-

ing on deception and chicanery.
The insects are often enough the offenders,

and their crime is most frequently one of rob-
bery. If they can get the sweets they are after
without carrying out their share of the bargain,
they will do so. Bumble Bees have been ob-
served to cut through the flower-walls of a Nas-
turtium and so extract its nectar without com-
ing near the pollen-producing stamens. Sweet
Peas frequently ignore the insects and fertilize
themselves. The Hawkweed (Hieracium) has
so little faith in insect allies that it produces

[80]

ALLIES OF THE PLANT WORLD

seeds parthenogenetically, that is, without the
union of sex elements.

Alliances which start out advantageously for
both parties sometimes degenerate into mere sin-
ecures for one or the other. The naturalists
Ihering, Ule and Fiebrig, working in South
America, a few years ago concluded that the as-
sociation of the plant Cecropia and the Aztecan
Ants, long regarded as a classic example of mu-
tualism, is by far of greater benefit to the Ants.
The openings which the Ants make into the hol-
low interiors of this plant also allow the entrance
of certain destructive insects, and the Ants them-
selves attract Woodpeckers which damage the
plants. It is also alleged that these same Ants,
and the ones which inhabit the Humboldtia Lau-
rifolia, are often so busy feasting on nectar that
they do not stop to repel invasions of foliage-
destroying insects.

While man is the greatest enemy of the plant
world, he is also at times its greatest friend.
When it is to his advantage or when he is
prompted by a sincere love of Nature, he be-
comes a strong and helpful ally. He aids his
fellow creatures of the vegetable world when

[81]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

they are sick or injured and, by improving their
environment and protecting them from attack
and danger, enables them to develop to best ad-
vantage. A wizard like Luther Burbank helps
them in their efforts at race improvement and
development.

In Egypt and Arabia, man has acted as car-
rier of pollen for centuries, and has thus in-
sured an abundant Date crop. The same thing
is often done in other parts of the world with
Apples, Pistachios, Melons, Cucumbers and
other plants having unisexual flowers.

[82]

CHAPTER VI

MARRIAGE CUSTOMS OF PLANTS

“Pale primroses
That die unmarried.’—Shakespeare

6¢y OVE consumes the plants” once wrote

Linnaeus, and the observation of every
student of Nature goes to confirm his state-
ment. The plants marry and are given in mar-
riage. Reproduction is undoubtedly their chief
end in life.

The simplest and most primitive plants have
no sex but produce new individuals by split-
ting their single cells in two. It is in the thread-
like bodies of Pond Weeds that we find the
first beginnings of the principle of generation
by union. These lowly creatures consist of sin-
gle cells strung end to end like beads in a neck-
lace. When two of the living chains happen
to find themselves parallel to each other, cer-
tain of the cells reach out and join those op-
posite them to form new cells. Such a mixture
of life forces is always beneficial to the race.

[83]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

In the higher plants the same process is car-
ried out in a little more elaborate way. Of the
two cells which unite, one is small and active,
and is called the male or pollen cell. The other
is larger, richer and more passive, and is the
ovule or female cell.

It is one of the main objects of each plant’s
life to see that its ovules are fertilized by pol-
len grains from some other member of the same
species. When this is impossible, flowers are
reduced to fertilizing themselves, but if this
continues very long, degeneracy is very apt to re-
sult. It is not wise to marry one’s first cousin.

Many plants depend upon the wind to dis-
tribute their pollen. Such species bear slight,
inconspicuous flowers which not infrequently
cluster together in long, pendent catkins. This
was undoubtedly the first and original form of
plant marriage. Though often successful, it
is very wasteful and undependable. “The wind
bloweth where it listeth” and loses a million
grains of pollen for every one it lodges.

One hazy day in the long ago, some plant
had a brilliant idea. “There are a number
of insects which are in the habit of paying me

[84]

MARRIAGE CUSTOMS OF PLANTS

unwelcome visits for the purpose of eating pol-
len. Why can’t I make use of these thieves
and turn their marauding habits to my own
advantage?”

No sooner said than done, though it doubt-
less took many centuries to get the plan in
thorough working order. It was a new de-
parture in the plant world and led to various
revolutionary changes. In all probability, there
were no bright-hued flowers before the advent
of pollen-eating insects. In the beginning, at
least, flowers were developed as the signs by
which plants advertised their wares. “We will
make ourselves luringly attractive,’ reasoned
the plants. “We will add to our bright-col-
oured petals the sweet delights of nectar and
honey. While the insect is eating at our table,
we will shower his back with pollen and, going
forth to some floral neighbour, he will unwit-
tingly become the marriage priest of our race.”

This was the idea, and in many diverse and
wonderful ways the plants have carried it out.
The first flowers were developed by training
certain stamens to flatten and expand them-
selves, daub their surfaces with colour, and so

[85]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

become petals. This evolutionary fact can be
seen today in the white Water Lily, where con-
centric rows of stamens gradually merge into
petals. Double Roses and Poppies are exam-
ples of the same thing.

The formation of flowers was only the first
step. It is not enough to get the insect to come
to the plant. Once he is there, means must be
found to make sure that he performs the mar-
riage duties assigned to him. Each flower
takes care of this problem in a different way.

At ordinary times, the Gorse is a closed
flower, provided, however, with a little step or
platform on which a Bee can alight. As soon
as an industrious honey-seeker has settled down
on this little floral porch, his pressure causes
the entire corolla of the flower to spring vio-
lently open and shower him with pollen. A
Gorse flower which has thus unburdened itself
at once hangs down dejectedly and is no longer
the object of insect regard. The Lupine and
the English Bird’s-Foot Trefoil entertain their
tiny visitors in a similiar way.

There are two different arrangements of sex-
ual organs in the Primrose. One variety is

[86]

sss
MARRIAGE CUSTOMS OF PLANTS

provided with long stamens and a short pistil.
The other has the reverse combination of short
stamens and along pistil. In both cases, the nec-
tar is in a pit at the bottom of the flower. As
long as an insect visits short-stamened flowers,
he collects pollen on the upper part of his pro-
boscis. Happening to enter a short-pistiled
flower, this portion of his drinking tube is now
opposite the female organ and fertilizes it. In
the same way, the insect’s feet gather pollen
from the long-stamened flowers and deposit it
in the long-pistiled variety. By such involved
methods does this particular flower make sure
of fertilization.

Sage flowers have only two stamens but they
do the work of forty. Using their power of
movement, they bend forward and deliberately
embrace a bee as soon as he enters their chamber.
They do not release him until he is covered with
their yellow pollen.

The English Figwort has adopted repulsive
methods of entertainment. It has contrived to
make itself look like and give forth the odour of
_ decaying meat, because it knows that it will
thereby attract certain Wasps. The South Afri-

[87]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

can Stapelia does the same thing with the idea
of alluring Carrion Flies. Still another imita-
tor of similiar kind is the pale-green Carrion
Flower whose visitor is the Blow Fly.

When in repose, the stamens of the pink-
white Mountain Laurel (Kalmia Latifolia)
curve so that their anthers or pollen-bags fit
into corresponding pits or depressions in the
petals. When a Bumble Bee happens along
and blunders among these delicate organs, the
stamens spring up and shower his back with
pollen.

Everyone is familiar with the purple barber
pole of the Cuckoo Pint which stands up straight
out of a pulpit-shaped leaf. This barber pole
is the upper end of a fertilizing device of mar-
velous efficiency.

Down in the shelter of the cup-shaped leaf,
the pole is covered with primitive male flowers,
without petals or without sepals, in fact, noth-
ing more than simple stamens. Below them are
rudimentary female flowers consisting of un-
adorned pistils. Certain Midges and Flies are
attracted into the leaf cavity of the plant by the
store of sweets at its bottom. ‘Traveling down

[88]

MARRIAGE CUSTOMS OF PLANTS

the pole, these would-be feasters readily pass
the guardian hairs just above the stamens, pass
the stamens themselves and unintentionally fer-
tilize the pistils with pollen they have picked up
on other marauding expeditions. Having par-
taken of honey, the Flies seek to escape, but
now find the way barred by the down-pointing
hairs which have bristled up in a militant man-
ner. The insects must stay until the plant de-
cides to release them, which is never until the
stamens have ripened and showered them with
a fresh supply of pollen.

The Orchids are among the most beautiful
and extraordinary flowers in the world. Their
noteworthy development has come about
through their efforts to secure abundant and
efficient insect fertilization. So certain are
their methods that they ordinarily do not re-
quire the services of more than one stamen.

In one variety, the English Spotted Orchid,
the pollen is enclosed in two sacks or bags pro-
vided with long stems. These sacs are lodged
in special cavities near the pistil in such a man-
ner that the sticky ends of the stems come in con-
tact with the head of a nectar-sucking Bee.

[89]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

They adhere firmly. When he departs he has
two bulbous ornaments for a crest. At first
they stand erect, but as he flies, the air dries
them and they incline forward on curved stems.
When he is ready for his next cup of honey,
they are hanging down in front of his eyes like
a new kind of pawnbroker’s sign. It is no mere
happenstance that in this new position the pol-
len sacs are deposited on the stigma of the sec-
ond flower’s pistil. By such ingenious marriage
customs, the Orchids have become a dominant
family in plantdom. They are in the ascen-
dency even in the tropics, where their frail
bodies have to compete with hosts of plants
which are physically much more vigorous.

Between the Yucca and the Yucca Moth ex-
ists a wonderful life-long partnership for the
purpose of furthering the reproductive pro-
cesses of both. Surely, Nature moves in mys-
terious ways.

Insects are the chief marriage priests of the
plant world, but in the tropics they are aided
and abetted by Humming-Birds, Sun-Birds and
Lories, which are all provided with long, tubu-
lar tongues.

[90]

MARRIAGE CUSTOMS OF PLANTS

Most insects act as if they were unaware of
the important place they occupy in plant hy-
meneals. So intent are they on their honey-
gathering that they become covered from head
to foot with pollen without appearing to notice
it. Yet in a few instances, the Bees not only
recognize that they have been pressed into the
plant’s messenger service, but by underhand
methods seek the rewards of labour without
giving adequate return. They have learned
how to cut a hole in the calyx tube of the Bean
and the Scarlet Runner, and get at the precious
honey by short cut. If all Bees and other
fertilizing insects should master this trick, the
flowers would have to wear defensive armour
or perish.

Pollen to be effective must remain dry. The
plants have perfected many devices to shield
it from moisture. Frequently, the flowers hang
so that their petals act as tiny umbrellas for it.
Others wear rainy day hoods, and practically
all close when the night mists are abroad.

The necessity for dry pollen obtains even
among the water plants. If they are surface-
floaters like the Pond Lily or the Victoria Regia,

[91]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

it is easy enough for them to thrust their blos-
soms up into the air, where they may be as dry
as though they were on land. The sub-aqueous
plants have a harder problem and are some-
times driven to developing their flowers in leaf
air-chambers below the surface. The Water
Chestnut (Trapa Natans) makes itself buoy-
ant at its flowering period with generated air
and rises en masse to the surface. After fertili-
zation, it sinks again to its sub-aqueous quiet.

Self-fertilization in its strictest sense occurs
within the individual flower. Plants only re-
sort to it as an extreme measure and commonly
make use of many devices to prevent it. In
the Iris, the petal-like stamens are in direct
contact with the pistil and yet self-fertilization
does not result, because the pollen surface is
always carefully turned away from the ovary.

By bringing their pistils and stamens to ma-
turity at different times, many flowers make
sure that they will not fertilize themselves.
Such is the case in the Bulbous Buttercup and
the Arrowhead.

Flowers of the same tree or bush might be
called distant cousins. Their union results in

[92]

MARRIAGE CUSTOMS OF PLANTS

healthy offspring, though the marriage of still
more divergent individuals is preferable. Plants
like the Begonia, which bear single-sex flowers,
often grow in somewhat isolated positions and
sO must intermarry a great deal among them-
selves. Staminate flowers at the top of a stalk
can shower pollen over many female flowers
growing below them.

The exception always proves the rule, which
explains why we find a few flowers which de-
liberately choose to fertilize themselves. In
the Fuchsia, the flower droops, throwing the
long pistil below the stamens, which can read-
ily drop pollen onto it. Minute hooks hold the
petals of the Indigo and Lucerne partly closed
until the flower is completely developed. When
they give way, the petals fly back, so shaking the
whole flower that the anthers shower pollen on
the pistil. The single-sex flowers of the Aloe
bend near each other at mating time.

The Violets and Polygalas are also largely
self-fertilizing. They are, therefore, borne
under the leaves or close to the ground, where
they attract little attention.

The love and marriages in plantdom may

[93]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

seem to be largely instinctive and mechanical,
but that is probably because we have not investi-
gated them sufficiently. The Persian poet
Osmai believed that the plants had affairs of
the heart as real as those recorded in the human
world. Here is his account of one:—

“T was possessor of a garden in which was
a Palm Tree, which had every year produced
abundance of fruit; but two seasons having
passed away without its affording any, I sent
for a person well acquainted with the culture
of Palm Trees, to discover for me the cause of
the failure.

“An unhappy attachment,’ observed the
man, after a moment’s inspection, ‘is the sole
cause why this Palm Tree produces no fruit.’

‘He then climbed up the trunk, and looking
around, discovered another Palm at no great
distance, which he recognized as the object of
my unhappy tree’s affection; and he advised me
to procure some of the powder from its blos-
soms and to scatter it over the branches. This
I did; and the consequence was my Date Palm,
whom unrequited love had kept barren, bore
me an abundant harvest.”

[94]

faded G eS
py ,* ;
ater
rw
ane

oe

FLORAL OFFERINGS IN A MOUNTAIN CATHEDRAL

CHAPTER VII

ART IN THE PLANT WORLD

“As if the rainbows of the fresh mild spring
Had blossomed where they fell.” |

HE plants are perfect artists. From the

budding of the Rose to the sudden shoot-
ing forth of the seeds of the Wistaria, everything
they do is in perfect taste. Ugly flowers are
decidedly uncommon. Those which human
judgment declares to be less lovely than their
fellows have their attractive points, if we take
the trouble to look for them. If art is a desire
for beauty, a searching after perfect harmony,
then the plants and flowers are the most artistic
creatures in the universe.

Plant colours are particularly interesting.
The flowers are master-craftsmen when it
comes to the adornment of dainty, delicate pe-
tals with pigments which are the distilled es-
sence of a thousand rainbows. No other qual-
ity in the natural world gives man a deeper
emotional enjoyment. Floral colours speak a

[95]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

whole language of their own of which we can
get only faint interpretations.

Cold biologists explain that the beautiful
hues and shades of plantdom are largely de-
signed to attract insects and so secure a neces-
sary distribution of pollen. There is no doubt
that this is true, but for one to believe that this
is the sole function of a flower’s beauty is to
reduce the world to a materialistic basis and
banish all thoughts of the esthetic, the spiritual
and the ideal. The flowers are permitted to
adorn themselves in bright raiment at least
partly in order to satisfy the universal craving
for the delicate and the artistic.

It should not be imagined that the gayest
and most brilliantly coloured members of the
plant world are always residents of the tropics.
The hot countries undoubtedly produce many
specimens of startling hue and pattern, but it
is often their ostentation and exotic character,
rather than their beauty or charm, which at-
tract attention. They are apt to be a bit barbaric
and not as numerous as they are reputed to be.
For great masses of beautiful flowers, we do
not go to Mid-Africa or Cuba, but to the

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ART IN THE PLANT WORLD

mountain-bound meadows of the Alps, the
plains of Australia, or the prairies of America.

What is more startlingly beautiful than a field

of Yellow Buttercups or Black-eyed Susans
which can be seen anywhere in the eastern
United States? Where can our eyes feast upon
a more wonderful scene than a field of Wild
Verbenas and Delphiniums as found in Texas?
In the tropics the flower masses are more scat-
tered. Even the far-famed Orchids are only
abundant in occasional favoured spots.

The gardens of our large country estates
offer floral displays which cannot be rivaled
anywhere. Our temperate zone Roses, Peonies,
Hollyhocks, Wistaria, Lilacs, Lilies, Tulips,
Hyacinths, Gentians, Asters, Anemonies and
Poppies are the most delicate colour creations
in existence. For brilliance and alluring charm
nothing surpasses the Mountain Laurel and
Rhododendrons of the East, or the Trumpet
Vine and Yellow Jessamine of the South.
The gorgeous Azalias, Camellias, Pelargoiums,
Calceolarias and Cinerarias also belong to the
regions which have cold periods in their annual
weather schemes. Even the humble Gorse is

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

clothed in gold, while the prickly and much-
despised Cactus bears little crimson-coloured
bells.

It is quite evident that man got his original
idea of colour from Nature, particularly the
plant world. Why is it that we are inclined
to wear green in spring, brown in autumn, and
all manner of colours in summer? Simply be-
cause, consciously or unconsciously, we are
imitating Nature. We take pigments and dyes
and get a pale similitude of an exquisite flower.
If it happens to be a Rose, we name the colour
after it. Sometimes we name tints after the
sky or an animal or a bird, but in these cases,
we might just as well have gone to the flowers
for our nomenclature.

Every tint and hue which we can ever hope
to reproduce is present in the plant world. The
flowers by no means monopolize them. On
close examination, a single stalk and leaf exhibit
a wonderful variety of colour. In the Begonia
and the Sea Holly, the stalks are exactly the
same colours as the flowers. The wild Cranes-
bill sports a crimson stem. The stalks of Poplar
leaves are a vivid yellow. To speak of “green

[98]

ART IN THE PLANT WORLD

leaves” is to speak in the most general of terms.
What is more exquisite than the silver gray to
be seen on the backs of many tree-leaves, nota-
bly the Alders, Willows, and Poplars? Many
leaves join the Wild Lettuce in having purple
backs. The reverse sides of Magnolias and
Rhododendrons are red-brown. In the autumn,
nearly all leaves show brilliant patches of
colour.

In borrowing Nature’s colours to set forth
our ideas, we have become possessors of a
mighty vehicle of expression. With yellow, we
can speak of life, light, cheer and vitality.
Red tells of fire, heat, blood, excitement and
passion. Blue indicates coolness, quiet and
restraint. In choosing green for its most univer-
sal colour, Nature harmonizes life and restraint,
warmth and coolness, as represented by the
component blue and yellow. In the same way,
when she wants to concentrate the maximum
colour power in a single fruit or flower, she uses
orange, a combination of light and _ heat,
vitality and excitement. Purple represents a
neutralized idea. Red vitality is tempered with
blue restraint, which results in mysticism.

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

Nature clothes the Poppy in red to suggest
power and strength. The royal purple of the
Aster and the Violet is purposely calculated to
arouse a feeling of mystery and awe.

Our man-made cloth designs often show
various plant forms intact in the weave. The
same is true of lace, while one has only to look
at the miniature flower gardens which women
wear on their heads to realize the potent influ-
ence of plants in the domains of millinery. An
important plant element seems to run through
many fields of applied art.

In some ways, the beauties of form and struc-
ture are more appealing than chromatic charms.
Lines are more refined and fundamental than
colours. A feathery mass of tree-twigs seen
against a distant horizon is exquisitely beau-
tiful. A symmetrically shaped tree comes very
close to presenting an idea of pure form. One
may argue that it is impossible to dissociate
all idea of colour from a natural object. This
is theoretically true, but practically, while we
are impressed by thc colour of the Rose, it is the
structural beauty of the Palm and Weeping
Willow which attracts our eye.

[100]

ART IN THE PLANT WORLD

Nature is the true and original sculptor.
From her we learn our rules of symmetry and
design. All her plant creations are finished
with a faithfulness to artistic principles which
is quite exact. Nor does she build houses with
false exteriors. Her structures show forth the
necessity of truth in real esthetic creation.
Bartholdi’s exquisite Statue of Liberty, viewed
from the interior, is an ugly, hollow tube. A
stalk of corn not only has a pleasing exterior
but is made up of symmetrically formed and
packed interior cells. From a giant Redwood
to a microscopic vegetable organism, every line
and structual unit in the plant world is perfect
in its inception and execution.

Each plant, viewed as a whole, has its own
peculiar style of structural beauty—the variation
of line and form which stamps it with charm.
This differentiation extends to all parts of the
plant and gives character to leaves, stem,
flowers and fruit. Marvellous is the art worked
out in the minute parts. The tendril of the
Passion Flower, the radicle of a Seedling
Maple, the feathery hair on astalkof Mullein—
all these are shaped according to the unknown

[ror]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

law of beauty. Probably every geometrical
form exists in some seed pod or fruit. The ar-
tistic little seeds of the Milkweed and the Dan-
delion are packed into their containers with a
skill which cannot be duplicated, once they are
dislodged. There are a million seeds in the
capsules of certain Orchids. Many seed ves-
sels are tipped, balled, carved and frescoed.

The same delicate touch is seen down to the
last cell. Plant stems range from the common
tubular variety to four-sided, hexagonal and
octagonal forms. Trees exhibit exquisite mo-
saics in their rough bark. Bell-shaped flow-
ers and flowers which are tubes, rings, ovals,
trumpets, horns, and cones are only some of
the pleasing shapes to be found in this part of
vegetable anatomy.

It is a significant thing that there are few
straight lines in plantdom. Everything is built
in fascinating and alluring curves. There is
a definite idea of symmetry to be observed
everywhere. The beautiful, five-pointed
leaves of the Sweet Gum Tree are arranged so
that each one fits into an interstice between two »
others and so obtains a maximum supply of air

[102]

ART IN THE PLANT WORLD

and light. In general, leaves nearest the ground
are largest, thus insuring each its supply of sun-
shine.

When we study ornamental design, ancient and
modern, we see plant forms on all hands. The
Greeks and the Moors were the only nations
to be content with geometric shapes and lines—
and they were only content at times. All other
peoples have given plants and flowers a large
place in their decorative conceptions. The
Egyptians and the Assyrians, who may be con-
sidered the first civilized artists, used the Palm,
Papyrus, Lotus and Lily. The Greeks and
Romans were partial to the Acanthus, Olive,
Ivy, Vine, Fir and Oak. The Gothic art of
Germany, France and Spain featured the Lily,
Rose, Pomegranate, Oak, Maple, Iris, Butter-
cup, Passion Flower and Trefoil. The modern
Chinese are more conservative and seek inspi-
ration only from the Aster and the Peony.
The Japanese use the Almond, Cherry, Wis-
taria and the graceful Bamboo in their art work.
These various plant forms are sometimes quite
conventionalized but are readily recognizable,
whether they occur in architecture, carvings,

[103]

eee non smmmemmenen mea
PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

paintings, illuminations, tapestries or cloth
fabrics.

The plant world has been man’s most con-
stant and readily apprehended artistic model.
Yet when we see the multitude of attractive
lines, curves and shapes in Nature’s great gar-
den, we wonder that he has so limited his imita-
tion. One rarely sees the Thorn-Apple, the
Hawthorn, the Daisy or the Tulip in wood or
stone, yet they are all exquisitely beautiful.

Again, artists and artisans throughout the
centuries have nearly always confined them-
selves to but two phases of plant life — the
leaves and the matured fruit. Tendrils have
been neglected or treated with characterless
mediocrity. Thorns, leaf stipules, buds, pods,
and leaf scars have been universally overlooked.
Who has ever seen the fruit of the Rose 1n or-
namental art? Why is it no one has thought to
use the leaf scars of trees like the Horse Chest-
nut as decorative units?

Grapes and Pomegranates are reproduced
with some justice, but the various small berries
almost always appear as miscellaneous spheri-
cal bodies, whereas they are really greatly

[104]

ART IN THE PLANT WORLD

varied. The Snowberry, Privet, Laurel and
Barberry have distinct characteristics of form
and shape.

There are chances for worlds of artistic ex-
pression in various seed pods and fruit vessels.
An open Pea Pod occurs in certain Renaissance
ornament. Why not (and this is not intended to
be humorous) a String Beane

Even a lowly thing like the scarred stalk of an
old Cabbage has a pattern worthy of imitation.
The shields or remains of leaves of former
seasons form an artistic detail of the growing
Palm Tree. The Romans occasionally repro-
duced them on their columns. Leaf shields are
also met with in Greek border ornament.

Why must our sculptors represent the various
fruits as bursting with mature mellowness? In
many cases, the unripe fruit is artistically more
attractive than when in the later stages of devel-
opment.

We rarely think of disease or decay as being
pleasing, yet some plants are artistic even in
their dissolution. Certain galls and cankers
draw beautiful designs on the bodies of their
victims.

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

Everything in plantdom has its own peculiar
style of structure and beauty. All are worthy
of imitation and reproduction, provided only
it is done in the right place and the right way.
It must be remembered that, in origin, orna-
ment was first symbolic and then decorative.
Real ornament is never unduly prominent but
subordinates itself to the idea and structure of
the whole.

Man has imitated the plants also in things of
a lowlier nature. Cups, vases, pitchers and
other utensils were undoubtedly first suggested
by similar shapes in plantdom. It is not too
fantastic to imagine that the smoking pipe is
modelled after the flower known as the Dutch-
man’s Pipe. An electric wire running down
the chain of a suspended lighting fixture looks
all the world like a climbing vine. Human
jewelry has its prototype among the flowers.
Our garden beauties powdered their faces long
before their human sisters ever thought of that
method of self-adornment. It is said that
Greek dancers and athletes sometimes exer-
cised before certain slender plants in order to
pattern their bodies after them.

[106]

ART IN THE PLANT WORLD

We are not all artists or interior decorators,
and yet we can all make use of the artistic pos-
sibilities present and inherent in our plant
friends. We can cultivate and further the use
of plants and flowers in and about our homes.
Europe is far ahead of us in this respect. In
England, a city house may be ever so frowsy
and run-down but it will be sure to have its
well-kept window boxes. The suburban homes
of labourers and other lowly folk are often veri-
table bowers of loveliness) The German must
have a garden in which to drink his beer. If
there is none handy, he builds one, and cool and
delightful he makes it. In many European
cities, all the houses come out to the building
line and even arch the sidewalks. Nota bit of
greensward is in sight. Yet shrubs, flowers and
vines spring from every sill and balcony and
so make the streets to blossom as the Rose.

American cities are too inclined to be barren
wastes of brick and stone, with but scant pro-
vision for plant beauty. Even the rich, who
have their elaborate and beautiful country
gardens, seem to forget the plants and flowers
when they come to the city. The self-tending

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

Ampelopsis and Wistaria vines are the only
plants at all common. Our short summer sea-
son and the fact that so many people do not oc-
cupy their city homes in warm weather are a
little discouraging, but need not shake the en-
thusiasm of any one really interested in plants.
For a few dollars a season florists will assume
all care of exterior plants and vines.

The man who has a little plot of ground be-
fore his door is indeed fortunate. Even a well-
clipped grass lawn is a refreshing asset. Sweet
Peas train well against a wall. Pansies flour-
ish in shady spots and Nasturtiums wax beauti-
ful where other plants fail.

A brown stone front, flushed to the side-
walk in the middle of a block, need not go with-
out floral decoration. Even a terra cotta box
on either side of the entrance is capable of hold-
ing much growing joy. Evergreen shrubs fit
well into such surroundings. A window box
has great possibilities. In early spring, Cro-
cus, Narcissus and Hyacinth flourish in it to
advantage. Ivy-Geraniums of smooth waxy
leaves and graceful loose sprays will grow all
summer. Vines of various kinds can be trained

[108]

ART IN THE PLANT WORLD

so as to make very effective window screens.

The subject of home plants is fascinating.
It is well to note that it is not always necessary
to go in for the more elaborate varieties. It
is surprising what a delicate and pleasing decor-
ation is made by so humble a thing as a sprout-
ing Carrot or a Sweet Potato Vine.

Outdoor and landscape gardening are whole
sciences unto themselves. In general, a Ren-
aissance house looks best surrounded by formal
and well-clipt flower beds. Houses on the
Gothic order should have undulating lawns
and irregular groups of shrubs and trees about
them.

Plants and flowers are the first and original
artists. ‘Their creations are our best and most
worthy models. We can use them both as ex-
amples to be imitated and beautiful objects with
which to surround ourselves. They are one of
our greatest esthetic inspirations.

[rap]

CHAPTER VIII

MuSIcC IN THE PLANT WORLD

“Many voices there are in Nature’s choir, and none but
were good to hear

Had we mastered the laws of their music well, and could
read their meaning clear;

But we who can feel at Nature’s touch, cannot think as
yet with her thought;

And I only know that the sough of the pines with a spell
of its own is fraught.”

USIC is a language—a species of soft,
dreamy speech which makes up for its
lack of definiteness and precision by a beauty
and harmony which can best be described as
divine. Indeed, the ancient Greeks made music
an all-inclusive term for the higher conceptions
of life. Dancing, poetry, and even science were
supposed to be under its sway, while the revolu-
tion of the heavenly bodies created that “music
of the spheres” which entertained the gods.
It would be better for mankind if this senti-
ment were more popular today. It is a narrow
notion which confines the idea of musical har-

[x10]

MUSIC IN THE PLANT WORLD

mony to the sounds produced by certain man-
made instruments. Art which is restricted to
workings in oil may be very pleasing but it is
also very much limited. Music which is only
interpreted on a violin or a piano falls far short
of its grandest possibilities. ‘To certain minds,
the sighing of the wind through a Pine forest
is more exquisitely expressive than a hundred
breath-blown symphonies. When men cannot
agree as to what is music among the sounds pro-
duced by their self-created instruments, dare
they lightly ignore the many pleasing sounds
which accompany the operations of Nature?’
To an American ear, Chinese singing sounds
like squealing and a Fiji concert like a vocifer-
ous boiler factory. Yet a Chinaman or a Fiji
Islander will leave our grandest operatic ef-
forts in disgust, though he may be pleased with
the preceding orchestral tunings. Where are
we to set the standard? Is it not safest to fall
back on Nature for our truest conceptions?
The real sublimity of Nature lies in her
vocalism. A soundless world would be greatly
lacking incharm. ‘The endearing noises of the
woods and the fields often become so familiar

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

that we fail to notice their individual merits.
Yet they are there. Their sudden cessation
would leave a terrible and unbearable gap.

The woods are filled with gaily costumed

feathered minstrels. The meadows are great
emerald stages of song and fancy. The very
grass roots are filled with little insect-fiddlers
who chirp cheerfulness. Wind, water and rain
all furnish a grand and beautiful accompani-
ment.

Nature sings in the inharmonic scale, that
is, a scale which takes in all intervals. Between
the piano notes ‘‘C” and “D” lies a great space.
They only represent halting points in the ascent
of sound. Just as in the spectrum there are a
hundred variations of shade between blue and
green, so the cultivated human voice can hint
at a hundred intervals between ‘‘C” and “D”.
Nature uses all the tiny shades of sound there
are, and certain humans have followed suit.
To the Arabians, water “lisps in a murmuring
scale.”

Occasionally, Nature uses the diatonic scale
familiar to our western civilization. When the
wind unites its vibrations into the long shrill

[112]

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MUSIC IN THE PLANT WORLD

note we call the whistle, it is playing according
to our musical rules. Water, when falling per-
pendicularly from a great height also gives
forth along, steady note. Even the rhythmical
quality so essential to good music is not lacking
in such phenomena as rain pattering on dry
leaves. This sound has proved unusually ap-
pealing to many people. The Mexicans some-
times attempt to imitate it by means of clay
rattles.

Not only does the countryside continually
sing a great.symphony, but each region has its
own acoustic properties. While large cities
maintain a discordant and incessant roar, the
country is filled with soft and pleasing voices.
Birds, animals, water and wind give forth
quaint musings of the most soothing nature.
Once in a while the woods go on a musical
jag and every instrument becomes discordant.
Under the influence of the bright moonlight,
the inhabitants of the South American jungles
sometimes seem to go mad. The hoarse roars
of the Tiger mingle with the piercing shrieks
of Parrots and the shrill wailings of Monkeys,
while the croaking of Bull Frogs and the dismal

[113]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

hoot of Owls is deafening. Jaguars scream as
they chase Monkeys through the tree-tops.

The various members of the plant kingdom
are the principal instruments upon which the
wind plays. Without the obstruction offered
by plants, trees, rocks, and houses, we should
not hear the wind at all. The trees, because of
their size and exposed positions, are most noted
as plant-musicians, but the grasses and herbs
are also very susceptible to the caressings of
the wind.

Who has not heard and gloried in the music
of the Pines? The sharp needles of these big
conifers seem unusually fitted for esthetic ex-
pression. They are the Aeolian harps of the
woods. During a storm, they sing in a mighty
chorus of acclaim. At such a time, the break-
ing of many small branches sounds like the snap-
ping of overstrained violin strings.

Almost any tree located on a cliff or on the
edge of a mountain, becomes a musician of the
first order. It is apt to take on the sorrowful
tendencies of solitude. The weepings, wail-
ings, murmurings, groanings, sighs and whis-
pers of the universe vibrate through its branches.

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MUSIC IN THE PLANT WORLD

It would seem as if such a tree were trying to
express many mysterious wonders of which man
has little knowledge.

The trees are not altogether dependent upon
their leaves for their music. ‘The barren
branches of fall and winter sing in a most at-
tractive way. Their dry and discarded leaves
litter the ground and carry on crackly songs
of their own, or sing as they play tag in whirls
of wind. The Elm is a pleasing autumn singer
and the Willows, when covered with ice, rattle
their twigs like a minstrel’s bones. As the win-
ter wind hums around the Cottonwood Trees,
it rocks the seed balls in their natural cradles
with a sighing, crooning sound. ‘This is the
way the Tree sings to her babies! When the
wind soughs through a hollow tree, it produces
a ghostly sound suggestive of a mourning or
dying person. A current of air rubbing two
boughs together causes a scrunching sound
which sends the shivers up one’s back.

It is reasonable to believe that every tree and
plant has its own individual voice as set in mo-
tion by the wind. A Nature-lover does not have
much difficulty in distinguishing a great many.

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

The desert Sage whistles in the wind; the Cedar
laughs in the storm; the air rustles through a
Wheat field; an agitated Sugar Cane or Corn
field gives forth a sound like tinkling glass.
The noise produced by a high wind in the
Southern Smilax has been likened to a harp
struck at random.

The bursting pods of the Witch Hazel pop
gently and the seeds fall among the dead leaves
like so many buck shot; the Oxalis sends forth
its seed-babies with the crack of a pistol shot.
Members of the Bean family moan in the breeze
like plaintive violins. The Squirting Cucum-
ber gurgles not unlike certain frogs. The Sun-
flower is a professional drummer who rattles
his seeds about in his pods. The Rattlesnake
Iris holds its seed-capsule in such a way that it
gives an excellent imitation of the warning noise
of the reptile for which it is named. Catalpa
pods snap like horse-whips, but Cat-Tails sigh
like small reed instruments.

Early man gained more inspiration and plea-
sure from the music of the plants than his wiser
but more worldly successors. It is said that
the idea for the first flute was obtained by lis-

[116]

MUSIC IN THE PLANT WORLD

tening to the wind sigh through the Reeds on
the shore of a lake. The first stringed instru-
ment was probably a fibre accidentally stretched
across a hollow shell. ‘The classic Aeolian harp
consisted of a wooden frame containing a thin
sounding-board over which were stretched a
number of strips of cat-gut. If placed before
a half-open window so that an air current
strikes it sideways, it gives forth a great volume
of harmonious notes in several octaves. This
is a Clear case of catching the music of the wind.
In a cruder, less harmonious way, the Japa-
nese glass tinklers of our day do the same thing.
The humming of telegraph wires and the
strange chirping of a wireless instrument are
also a kind of singing.

All the plants are not expert musicians,
which explains why they often seek to make
up for their own deficiencies by hiring numerous
birds and insects to make melody for them.
These musicians are employed in the truest
sense of the word and receive their pay in food,
shelter and protection. In the air and on the
ground, by day and by night, they sing and fid-
dle for their hosts. The broad leaves of the

[117]

TEE NEEETIEREREIERREE EEE a
PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

Water Lily (Victoria Regia) are veritable
music schools of Frog practice. Every voice
from croaking bass to youthful tenor is heard!
Every tree has its Frogs and Birds—every bush
and shrub innumerable insect warblers.

The birds are the plants’ vocalists. Their
songs and delightful twitterings are among the
most familiar things in Nature. The music of
the large body of insect-instrumentalists is car-
ried on in such obscure places, and often so far
down among the very roots of the plants, that
a considerable investigation of their methods
may not be amiss. They are especially active
after sundown.

The common Grasshoppers form a great
corps of violinists. A large vein on the inside
of their thighs makes an ideal bow. It is
roughened not with resin but by a hundred
minute spines. When this vein is rubbed to
and fro on the serrated veins of the insect’s
wing-cover, a shrill tone is produced. Sitting
on its haunches, the Grasshopper saws away
with both hind legs at a great rate. The in-
teresting discovery has been made that the ve-
locity of the strokes increases with the tempera-

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ture. Grasshoppers in large swarms emit a low
roar.

The Locust is a near relative of the Grass-
hopper. His music is produced by scraping
one wing across the other. The Cricket uses
the same method. When he is a house species,
he fiddles in a higher tone. The gold-green
Muskback Beetle is an exquisite violinist. His
instrumental methods are most peculiar. His
sharp breast acts as a bow which he draws
across a small group of veins on his wing covers.
The resulting music is so faint as to be almost
inaudible.

To Bees, Wasps, Hornets, Flies and Mosqui-
toes we may ascribe reed instruments. They de-
pend upon the rapid vibration of their tiny
wings to get their effects. The respiration
openings distributed over the body of a Bee, by
giving resonance to the tone, aid in the process
and turn the whole insect’s body into a small
clarionet. The drowsy buzz of the honey-
gatherer is only attained by swinging its wings
at the rate of four hundred vibrations a min-
ute. People who have good ears for music
have observed that the ordinary Bee drones

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

his song out on G sharp. The House-Fly is
credited with singing at F with a preliminary
grace note on E. Everyone is familiar with the
high thin plaint of the Mosquito.

There are many drummers in the insect or-
chestra. The Cicada operates a small kettle
drum. On the front of its body, a tough mem-
brane is stretched over a small cavity. When
set in motion by a special muscle, it gives out
a surprisingly agreeable sound. The Greeks
enjoyed this music so well that they often caged
the Cicada much as they would a bird. In the
hatching time of the seventeen-year variety, the
energetic drumming of thousands of the insects
rises into a scream which is far from melodious.
Under such conditions, the noise can be heard
for half a mile. Travelers tell of a giant South
American species which produces a drumming
which is as loud as a locomotive whistle. An
uncanny drummer is the “Death Watch Beetle.”
It uses its head for drumsticks and when in the
wood of furniture often plays a tattoo with con-
siderable skill. Superstitious people, for no ap-
parent good reason, sometimes insist this is a
warning of impending death. Even the pretty

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little Butterfly on occasion is a drummer. With
hooks on its wings, it makes a sharp crackle,
not unlike one of the weird noises sometimes
used by human “traps.” Beetles play the bones.

The Bamboo Tree is sometimes the possessor
of a whole corps of intelligent and efficient
drummers. They attach themselves to the
under side of the leaves, from which vantage-
point they strike them with their heads when-
ever their services are required. An Ant of the
Sumatratran species keeps wonderful time.
Though spread out over a number of square
yards of leaf space, a group of these tiny cre-
atures will start and stop tapping at the same
instant,

Perhaps in some far-distant age, mankind
will begin remotely to understand the signifi-
cance of the music of the plant world and its
allies. We have no right to say that the plants
are not true musicians. While we may only
understand their system of harmony in part,
we can realize it contains hidden beauties
just as the presence of microscopic organisms
in the world is indicated by their effects rather
than by actual perception.

[121]

CHAPTER IX
SCIENCE IN THE PLANT WORLD

“Weak with nice sense, the chaste Mimosa stands,
From each rude touch withdraws her timid hands.”

LANTS are profound scientists. Their

knowledge may not be as broad and far-
reaching as that of man, but they are more suc-
cessful workers than he. With all his wonder-
ful discoveries in physics and chemistry, man
as a class has not yet learned to conduct his
own body so as to make it yield the highest
efficiency. In fact, members of the human race
are today wearing out their frames at a faster
rate than ever before. Adept at running huge
mechanisms of steel, they are neglectful of
those most delicate and wonderful machines
which are bound up with their own life nro-
cesses. 7
Plants are not so prodigal. Whenever they
are given a chance, they develop and expand
their powers in the most marvelous way. They
bring out the latent strength in their beings and
so conduct themselves as to conserve their ener-

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SCIENCE IN THE PLANT WORLD

_ gies. Whether by instinct, reason or blind force
they always know just what to do and how to
make the most of their heredity and environ-
ment. Their efficiency rating is one hundred
per cent.

As the whole life of all plants is a scientific
progression, we can only consider in the brief
limits of this chapter some of the more start-
ling instances of the marvelous sense they ex-
hibit in dealing with Nature’s forces.

Probably one of the reasons we do not always
think of plants in the human, sympathetic way
we should, is that we are inclined to regard
them as quiet, static objects, playthings of ev-
ery wind that blows upon them. Such is far
from the case. Life is motion and the plants
are very much alive and very much in motion.
From the tiniest cell to the largest tree they
exhibit constant, pulsating movements. Many
of the movements are described through so
small a space as ordinarily to escape our notice,
but a little observation makes them quite ap-
parent. They all have a well-directed, scientific
purpose.

What is plant growth itself but motion up-

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ward and outward? If a telescope or an in-
strument such as Sir Jaghadish Bose’s cresco-
graph be trained on a healthy plant, it is pos-
sible to see the growth actually take place before
the eye somewhat as it is managed in motion pic-
tures. Travelers aver that if a Banana Plant
be cut off close to the ground and the surround-
ing soil well supplied with water, the sturdy cre-
ature will make such strenuous efforts to destroy
the effects of its mutilation that its growth may
easily be perceived with the unaided eye, and
a full-sized leaf produced in a single day.
Leaves and flowers are usually quite mobile.
When they go to sleep, they droop and fold
their edges together very carefully, sometimes
to such an extent as to make themselves almost
invisible. Even such an astute man as Linnaeus
was once completely deceived by some sleep-
ing specimens of Lotus. They were very fine
red flowers and he was proud of them. Taking
a friend to view them one evening by lantern-
light, what was his dismay to find that they
had completely disappeared. He concluded
that they had been stolen or eaten by insects
and went away, only to find them in full array

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gO SOR AES SESE I SE TE i FS EL SP SO EEA EE Ee

SCIENCE IN THE PLANT WORLD

on his return the next morning. It took several
nocturnal visits to unravel the mystery and
discover that the flowers folded themselves
and retired so adroitly into the surrounding
foliage each evening that they were completely
hidden.

The Acacia is a plant which closes up at
night; the same phenomenon is very striking
in the Oxalis. The common Bean sleeps stand-
ing: that is, its leaves close upward instead of
downward. The little blue Veronica flower,
so strikingly brilliant and attractive in the day-
time, tucks itself in so snugly at bedtime that
it becomes quite inconspicous. A Marigold
called Calendula Pluvialis even contracts its
corolla every time the sun is veiled by a pas-
sing cloud. ‘These sleep movements all have
a scientific purpose. Their main object, just
as in animals, is to reduce bodily activities to
a low ebb and so to give the plant a chance to
recuperate for another day’s efforts. The con-
traction of all surfaces cuts down the radiation
of heat and moisture and presents less resis-
tance to outside elements. The plant is in a
quiescent, somnolent state.

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

There are other movements of leaves and
flowers the object of which is not quite so ap-
parent. For instance, there is the Hedysarum
Gyrans or Oscillating Sainfoin. Each of its
leaves has three folioles. ‘The center one is very
large and stands bolt upright, except at night,
when it condescends to bend its head in sleep.
The two lateral folioles are in perpetual oscil-
lation both day and night. Nothing but a very
hot sun seems able to stop their movement.
Possibly, this plant is a fresh air fiend which

requires a steady atmospheric flow upon its
respiratory surfaces! ‘The two lateral folioles
of each leaf are delegated to act as fans and
blow a constant supply of air upon their majestic
brother.

Similar oscillations have been noticed in
some Orchids, where a part of the flower’s
corolla rises and falls with a regular rhythm not
unlike the beating of a human pulse.

The stamens and pistils of flowers sometimes
have the power of movement. If an insect,
wandering about in the flower of the Barberry
Tree (Berberis Vulgaris), happens to touch
the base of a stamen, it bends forward with a

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SCIENCE IN THE PLANT WORLD

quick, spring-like motion and presently straight-
ens up again. ‘The evident intent is to shower
some pollen on the little intruder with the hope
that he may carry its vital principle to some
neighbour of the same species.

In the Parnassia Palustris, fortunate observ-
ers have sometimes seen the five stamens bend
forward and beat on the head of the pistil in
rotation as if on an anvil. Perhaps outside
pollen-carrying agencies have passed this par-
ticular flower by and, in desperation, it is re-
sorting to self-fertilization.

The Junger Mania, a plant allied to the
Mosses, shows knowledge of the laws of me-
chanics when it uses a natural spring coiled
in a small tube to project its seeds out into the
world. Seeds of fresh-water Algae swim about
for a few hours after leaving their mother-plant,
vibrating their cilia with great rapidity. It
is the ability of certain one-celled plants to
move about freely which causes considerable
discussion as to whether they are really not
animals. The Diatoms are examples. ‘They
propel themselves through the water by oscil-
lating their whole bodies from side to side. To

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

reverse their direction they go backward like
a ferryboat.

The ancients as far back as Aristotle recog-
nized the sensitiveness of plants to light and
their eager use of its life-giving properties. In
fact, one has only to watch the Sun-F lower fol-
low the orb of day across the heavens to realize
that there must be something vital in sunlight
for the plants. What interests us is that they
have the instinct or the knowledge to so present
their surfaces to the light that they receive a
maximum benefit from its influences. From the
aristocratic indoor potted plant to the wild
trees and shrubs on the edge of a thicket, we
notice a vigorous straining toward the light.
Each leaf is tilted at just the right angle to re-
ceive the largest possible share of energy, for
the leaves are starch factories for which the
sun furnishes the motive power.

Botanists tell us that this heliotropism or
turning motion toward the light is due to the
tendency of most leaves to arrange themselves
perpendicularly to the sun’s rays. Tendrils
may be apheliotropic or tend to turn away from
the light. Morning Glories or Wistaria, which

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SCIENCE IN THE PLANT WORLD

climb up whatever support is handy, exhibit
insensibility to light no matter from what angle
it strikes. Stems, flower and leaves of all plants
each give a different and scientific reaction
to light in a way which looks much like direc-
ting thought.

Nothing is more scientific than the skill with
which plants co-operate with gravity in con-
structing their root systems. The roots are often
trained to grow out horizontally and resist grav-
ity for a certain distance. Then they grace-
fully yield to its pulling power, and, curving
their tips downward, grow straight toward the
center of the earth. Any secondary roots which
are sent out again start horizontally to repeat
the above process on a smaller scale. All this
makes for an efficient, well-balanced root-
system. |

A curious motion which is not thoroughly
understood is a slight gyratory movement ob-
servable in the tips of all living plants. It is
possible that it is connected in some way with
the earth’s rotation or is it merely a kind of
groping, feeling gesture? In the case of roots,
where the same gyrations occur, it undoubtedly

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

serves that purpose. A revolving root tip makes
a very efficient drill with which the hardy
plant may bore a way through refractory soil.
It is claimed that the great whirling sweeps
made by tendrils of various climbers are merely
amplifications of the circumnutation occurring
in all plant terminals.

Before leaving the subject of scientific move-
ment in the plant world, it will be of in-
terest to briefly consider some of the vegetable
motions which are called forth by the stimulus
of touch. Almost everyone is familiar with
the Sensitive Plant and its double rows of tiny
leaves. Touch any one of them and the whole
group will instantly begin to contract and bend
toward the stalk. We say begin, for so slow is
the transmission of the impulse that one can
readily see its progress, as one after another of
the leaves respond.

A motion which has forethought and design
behind it occurs in the leaves of the famous and
crafty Venus Fly-Trap. Two sections of leaves
edged with teeth-like nerve-hairs form the two
halves of an enticing-looking bowl and cover.
The slightest contact with one of the delicate

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SCIENCE IN THE PLANT WORLD

hairs will cause the trap to shut together and
imprison any sweet-toothed member of the in-
sect world which has happened to stray inside.
An aquatic form of the same thing occurs in
a species of Bladderwort which spreads a leaf-
net cunningly shaped to look like a fish’s mouth.
Frightened baby-fishes, accustomed to seek
their mother’s throat in time of danger, some-
times swim in and, brushing certain nerve-hairs
near the entrance, cause the lips to close and
leave them to slow dissolution. Both sinister
and scientific are the movements of carniverous
plants. |

Far from being static or quiescent, the plant
world is a kingdom of energetic, vibratory mo-
tion—a motion which is cool and calculating
and which rarely fails to accomplish its pur-
pose. Even. the protoplasm of microscopic
plant cells is in constant movement. If a thin
slice of Sycamore bark be placed under a mic-
roscope, a regular circulation of cell-liquid,
suggestive of blood circulation in animals, can
be observed.

Plants show great skill in their use of water.
It is their storage of liquid in their cells which

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

makes their soft bodies rigid and so makes
movement possible. This property sometimes
called turgidity was discovered by the scientist
De Vries in 1877, the same year that Pfeffer
established the theory of osmosis. This latter 1s
a phenomenon which physicists find very dif-
ficult to explain and involves the transmuta-
tion of one liquid into another through the me-
dium of an intervening membrane.

Some plants have aquired the faculty of stor-
ing water in their bodies, on which, camel-like,
they can subsist for long periods of time. A
certain large tree-cactus of the American desert
sometimes stores up as much as seventeen hund-
red pounds or five barrels of water in the wet
season. When drought comes, its roots dry up
and it lives entirely on its internal resources.
It is said that an eighteen-foot specimen can
exist for a year on its stored-up liquid. A
branch on such a plant may live and bloom after
the trunk is dead. Many ordinary plants, such
as Turnips, Carrots, and Beets, store water
along with starch and dextrose in their under-
ground tubers. Such subterranean reservoirs
are preferable to those above ground.

>

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SCIENCE IN THE PLANT WORLD

Plants have paid particular attention to the
manipulation of gases. They maintain an in-
ternal atmosphere of their own composed of
oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide in propor-
tions varying greatly from those of the outside
air. If the stem of a Water Lily be broken be-
low the surface of a pond, gas bubbles will often
be observed to issue from the wound, indicating
that the internal gas pressure of this particular
plant is greater than that of the external air. In
other cases, the reverse is true and we find par-
tial vacuums within the bodies of plants.

Man long ago found it impossible to “live
on air” but the plants have solved the difficulty
of aerial existence and have become creatures
of the air rather than the earth, so far as their
food is concerned. The great bulk of the largest
tree is preponderantly composed of carbon,
which has been slowly and labouriously ex-
tracted from the air. The mineral salts and water
which have been filtered out of the ground by
the roots are essential but are present in a much
lesser quantity.

It is well known that plants breathe in carbon
dioxide and breathe out oxygen. This can be

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS
graphically demonstrated by placing a plant
in a glass jar of carbon dioxide inverted in
water. If its life processes are quickened by
exposure to sunlight, the plant will replace the
COz with oxygen in a day. A more striking
example is furnished by any aquatic plant ac-
customed to growing submerged in ponds and
rivers. Placed in a water-filled bottle inverted
in a pan of water, it will generate oxygen so
rapidly that the bubbles can be seen forming
on the leaves when the sun is allowed to strike
them fully. The bottle will become filled with
oxygen in a few hours, and its presence can be
demonstrated with the usual ember test.
Opposed to the absorption of carbon dioxide
and the breathing out of oxygen, which is really
a digestive operation, the plants, queerly
enough, carry on a directly opposite process
which involves the absorption of oxygen and
the breathing out of carbon dioxide. This is
a respiratory process akin to breathing in ani-
mals. It is carried on in such a relatively small
way that it does not seriously affect the state-
ment that “plants breathe in carbon dioxide
and breathe out oxygen” and so are purifiers

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SCIENCE IN THE PLANT WORLD

of the air which man and animals contaminate.

Besides this general use of gases common
to nearly all plants, a few of the members of
the vegetable world specialize in the production
of protective and poisonous vapours of various
composition. One of the most interesting of
these is the Gas Plant of the South American
jungles. This beautiful white-flowered in-
habitant of the tropics is entirely protected from
leaf-destroying insects and birds by the poi-
sonous vapours it constantly pours forth.

The plants are expert chemists, and the reac-
tions in which they engage are, on the whole,
much simpler than those which go on in the
bodies of animals. Vegetable tissue is largely
carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. It is
a curious fact that instead of using the abundant
carbon compounds present in decomposed ani-
mal and vegetable matter of the soil the plants
get most of their carbon from the carbon dioxide
of the air. Inversely, they largely disregard the
seventy-eight per cent nitrogen of the air, and
extract that element from the complicated com-
pounds found in the soil, or take it from the
air only by aid of certain Bacteria.

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

_ Certain plants manufacture lime and metal-
lic oxides with which to harden the protective
armour they wear. Many others generate nit-
ric acid, carbonic acid and ammonia for use in
their interior laboratories. Roots nearly always
secrete a fluid which aids in the absorption of
minerals from the earth. It is so powerful that
quartz, flint and limestone are often scratched
and corroded by its action. Above and below
ground, plants are active chemical laboratories.

The differences of taste, smell and colour
which characterize leaves, blossoms and fruits
are due to the presence of various organic com-
pounds. These are largely volatile oils which
are more complex than the substances involved
in the simpler life processes. The slow or rapid
evaporation of these oils influences the strength
and character of an odour. When a flower or
fruit passes through infinite gradations of
colour, we can give no adequate account of the
chemical changes involved. All we can do is
to observe and to note. Sometimes infusions of
iron sulphate or other chemicals in the soil
darken the hues of flowers. Gardeners profit by

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SCIENCE IN THE PLANT WORLD

this fact in the cultivation of certain varieties of
Hortensia. ?

The chemical activities of plants are of in-
calculable value to man. They change air,
water and mineral salts into forms easily assim-
ilable by the human system. Eliminate all the
vegetable life from this planet, and the animals,
including man, would perish in a few months.
Man has also learned to make abundant use of
plant substances for innumerable purposes.
Potash is an example of how the plants come
to our aid in furnishing us a valuable chem-
ical. It is extracted from wood, Seaweed and
Banana stalks. ‘These plants have discovered
a way of getting it out of its well-nigh insoluble
earth combinations with silica. If it had not
been for certain industrious sea plants, man
would probably never have been aware of the
important chemical twins, bromine and iodine,
so important in photography. These plants
patiently filter them out of sea water where they
exist in microscopic quantities, and build them
into their bodies. Beer is possible because
germinating grains transform amylum or plant
starch into sugar. We find ripe fruits palatable

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

because their acids change into sugar under the
influence of sunlight.

Man seems to have outstripped the plants
in the use of light, heat, electricity, and other
physical forces, but the plants have more engi-
neers among them than we imagine. In the
fact that man has just learned to extract nitrogen
from the air by the agency of electrical dis-
charges, lies the probable explanation of how
the plants have been doing the same thing for
years. It is believed that the minute electrical
discharges continually going on between the dif-
ferent air strata make small quantities of nitro-
gen assimilable for the plants. The micro-
organisms which also furnish nitrogenous
material to the plants may get nitrogen from the
air in the same way. It is quite certain that the
plants are affected by the chemical state of the
atmosphere.

Everyone knows what an important part
light plays in plant physiology, but the fact that
certain plants produce their own lights, while
generally known, is not universally understood.
The Austrian naturalist, Heller, was the first
to demonstrate that the glowing of decayed

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SCIENCE IN THE PLANT WORLD

wood at night is caused by emanations of light
from Fungus growing in the cavities. A sim-
iliar organism called Luminous Peridineas
(sometimes classed as an animal) is responsible
for the phosphorescence of the ocean and the
night lights of many flowers.

About three hundred species of Bacteria and
fifteen species of Fungus are recognized to be
luminous. The dead leaves of the tropical
Banibusa, Nephelium and Aglaia often glow at
night with the light of these tiny creatures. Or-
dinary dead Oak and Beech leaves are lumin-
ous, sometimes shining in spots, but frequently
glowing throughout with a soft, white, steady
light. These miniature incandescent lights
often shine for days, weeks and months, and
with abundant nutriment at hand, sometimes for
years. The light is slight in intensity, but uni-
formly steady and white, green or blue-green
in colour. It is strong enough to enable the
plants on which the Fungus ‘grows to photo-
graph themselves by long exposure to sensitized
plates. The fungus light has also been used to
influence the heliotropic movements of plant
seedlings. In fact, a colony of Fungus has

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

sometimes been placed in an electric light bulb
and made thus to serve as an illuminant.

No matter from what angle we study the
plants, we find that they are extremely scientific.
They conduct themselves and all their activities
in a way to always get the best results. ‘They
show knowledge and acquaintance with all of
Nature’s laws, and they have learned to apply
many of them with startling success.

[140]

os

MODERN NATURE WORSHIPPERS

CHAPTER X
RELIGION IN THE PLANT WORLD

“Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth.”
—Byron

N a sense, the entire plant world is a beauti-

ful and expressive worship of a bountiful
and beneficent Creator. No creed which does
not deny God will fail to see the silent but rev-
erent adoration exhibited by His handiwork.
Every tree which raises its brave crest toward
the heavens, every flower which greets the
warming sunlight with a smile, is a testimony to
the omnipotence of divine law. Fully explain
the wonders of a single blade of Grass, and you
have solved the mysteries which underlie the
universe.

Primitive peoples, who are always closely at-
tuned to natural influences, early discerned the
divine thread which runs through all plantdom.
In their incessant search for God, they did not
overlook His manifestations in the plants and

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

flowers. Along with fire, water, stars, sun, moon,
animals, birds and graven images, our wood-
roving ancestors ascribed supernatural attrib-
utes to many trees and flowers. In various places
and at various times, many different plants
have been idolized as the material substance of
an ethereal or spiritual being. Certain plant
growths have been repeatedly designated as
sacred, and even in the present day, untutored
races have many plant superstitions. Tree wor-
ship was common among the Celts and Teutons.
The present day Christmas tree is a relic of
primitive tree veneration. Even the American
Indians worshiped trees at times. Man has
been groping for God all through the ages. His
tendency has been to deify those elements and
things which he did not understand or which
contained mystery. As soon as he became ac-
quainted with the causes of these mysteries, the
supernatural collapsed into the natural and he
went searching after new wonders to call God.

From the beginning of literature, the bards
of every land have sung to and of the flowers;
the prophets have used them as instruments for
their sooth-saying; the believer in resurrection

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RELIGION IN THE PLANT WORLD
A a a RE SR ET AE SEE EES RE EE EE I 5 IE I SI TTI LE EEE SLE IE SEED

has cited them to prove a final resurrection for
the souls of men; the reincarnationists have
claimed in them a great evidence of the rein-
carnation of the soul; the atheist has tried to
show through them the validity of his belief;
hero and conqueror have found in them their
crowns of glory and the poet has made them the
theme of his pen. Yet the flowers bloom today
much as they did on the hillsides of Greece
and Babylon, and man, with all his century-
accumulated wisdom, seems but to have seen
the outer edge of their real lives.

The superstitious veneration of various
flowers is an ancient and peculiarly charming
expression of man’s innate appreciation of the
beautiful. He who condemns as idolaters the
flower-worshippers of ancient ages may well
look upon himself with critical eyes. Which is
the better: to pay tribute to the Creator through
the adoration of his beautiful floral children
or make cold, glittering gold the ultimate
though unacknowledged goal of this earthly
lifer

It is interesting to notice, in reviewing the
annals of flower-worship, that the most fervent

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

and frequent examples are found in tropical
countries. This is due, no doubt, to the luxur-
iance of vegetation in the hot countries, and the
fact that, in most cases, flowers are in bloom
there all the year around. Even one trained in
a more rigid faith is tempted to strange rever-
ence when he suddenly comes upon a great,
glowing Orchid, squatting like some beautiful
animal on the shaggy trunk of an aged tree.
A Hindu is quite excusable when he becomes
raptly worshipful while paddling through a
floating sea of Lotus-Flowers.

In heathen mythology, “every flower was the
emblem of a god; every tree the abode of a
nymph.” Paradise, itself, was a kind of “nem-
orous temple or sacred grove” planted by God
himself. The patriarchal groves which are
prominent throughout Biblical history were
probably planted as living memorials of the
Garden of Eden, the first grove and man’s first
abode.

Sacred flowers were common among the
Greeks. The Anemone, Poppy and Violet were
dedicated to Venus. To Diana belonged “all
flowers growing in untrodden dells and shady

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RELIGION IN THE PLANT WORLD

nooks, uncontaminated by the tread of man.”
The Narcissus and Maiden-Hair Fern were
under the special protection of Proserpina and
to Ceres belonged the Willow. The Pink was
Jove’s flower, while Juno claimed the Lily,
Crocus and Asphodel.

The life of Christ flings a bright and illum-
inating ray of light over the whole vegetable
world. Trees and flowers which have heretofore
been associated with various heathen rites now
become connected with holier names and are
frequently made a part of the crucifixion itself.
Hosts of flowers are dedicated to the Virgin
Mary, particularly white ones, which are taken
to be emblematic of her purity. Christian wor-
shippers even went to theclassic Juno and Diana,
to the Scandinavian Freyja and Bertha, to obtain
flowers to dedicate to her. The Passion Flower
was often taken to represent various incidents
connected with the crucifixion.

Though the Rose and the Lily are the blos-
soms which are most frequently associated with
the Virgin, particularly in paintings, there is
an endless list of other flowers of low and high

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degree which are either named after her or
thought to be under her influence.

Orchids are called “Our Lady’s Slipper.”
Maiden-Hair is “Virgin’s Hair.” The Thyme,
Woodroof and Groundsel plants are reputed to
have formed the Virgin’s bed. Among fruits
the Strawberry and the Molluka Bean have
been set aside for her worship.

The “Rose of Jericho” is made famous by the
Bible. Popular tradition states that it first blos-
somed at Christ’s birth, closed at His cruci-
fixion and reopened at His resurrection. The
legend of the rose-coloured Sainfoin is especi-
ally interesting. One of the flowers happened
to be among the grasses and herbs lodged in the
manger of the Christ child. At the presence
of that holy form, it suddenly opened its
blossoms to form a wreath for His head.

A more gruesome tale relates that the Wood-
Sorrel, Spotted Persicaria, Arum, Purple Or-
chis and Red Anemone owe their dark-stained
blossoms to the blood which trickled from the
Cross.

Among the many theories regarding the ident-
ity of the wood of the Cross, the one about the

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RELIGION IN THE PLANT WORLD

Mistletoe is especially fanciful. The Mistle-
toe is alleged to have been originally a full-
sized tree but because of its ignoble part in the
great Christian tragedy, it was reduced to its
present parasitical form.

Every saint in the Catholic calendar has his
own particular flower, either because of some
incident in his life with which it was connected
or because of arbitrary dedication. Care has
been taken to pick flowers which are in
bloom at the time of the festival of the saint
which they represent. In this way, the flowers
of the field make a living, religious time-piece.

Among the individual sacred flowers, Orchids
and Lotus-Blossoms have probably been known
and reverenced as much as any. There is small
wonder that sentiment approaching veneration
should exist toward the Orchids. Their singular
beauty and fragrance have compelled the ad-
miration of all historic peoples. The primitive
Mexicans hold them in very great esteem. The
Lotus-Flower, portrayed through all the ages,
on papyrus, paper, silk, stone, and wood, has a
world-wide sanctity. The ancient Egyptians
worshipped the Lotus in connection with the

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

mysteries of Isis and Osiris. The sculptural rs-
mains of the Nile abound with the sacred plant
in every stage of its development, the flowers
and fruit being represented with utmost ac-
curacy. The Brahmans regarded it as divine and
the Hindus used it to decorate their temples and
lay on their religious altars. The Chinese also
called it sacred. Brahma, at his birth, is said to
have come forth from the Lotus. Buddha and
other eastern deities, including the Chinese god
Pazza, are reported to have first appeared float-
ing on its leaves.

Sir William Jones was one time dining on
the banks of the Ganges. Desiring to examine
the sacred Lotus-Flower, he despatched some
of his people to procure a specimen. When it
was brought, his Indian attendants immediately
fell on their faces in adoration.

The Yellow Narcissus is a famous fabled
flower which originally came from Palestine.
Mahomet once said: ‘“‘Whoever posseses two
loaves of bread, let him trade one for a blossom
of Narcissus, for bread is nourishment for the
body, but the Narcissus for the soul.” The birth
of the Narcissus is narrated thus: In Sussex-

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RELIGION IN THE PLANT WORLD

shire, England, the good St. Leonhard once
battled with a dragon for three whole days. Be-
fore he was able to slay the monster, the doughty
warrior was wounded with consequent loss of
blood. God could not bear to see the life fluid
of this holy man spilled heedlessly, so trans-
formed each drop, as it fell, into a Narcissus.

“Consider the Lilies of the field, how they
grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and
yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his
glory was not arrayed like one of these.” This
is a great tribute to the Lily and it has been
similarly praised throughout all literature.
About this lovely flower hang myriads of sacred
legends and such titles as the “symbol of pur-
ity,” the “soul of beauty” and “the symbol! of
peace.” In the lore of the Greeks and the
Orientals, this matchless flower was hailed with
the Rose as the “Queen of Heaven.” The Vener-
able Bede called it the most worthy symbol of
the Virgin. He said that its pure white petals
represent her undefiled body and the golden
stamens her radiant soul shining with god-like
light. Many old paintings of the Virgin show
her with a vase of Lilies by her side.

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The Rose is the universal symbol of royalty.
In Greek mythology, it was the favourite flower
of Aphrodite and was represented as springing
from the blood of Adonis. Through all Norse
and German mythology is repeated reference to
the “regal beauty” and “‘queenly mien” of the
Rose. In northern lands, the Rose was under
the special protection of the fairies, dwarves,
and elves.

The “Balm of Gilead” is a well-known sacred
plant (Balsamum Judaicum) written of by
Pliny, Strabo and Justin and grown in many
parts of the East. It is said to have been first
brought from Arabia by the Queen of Sheba
as a gift to Solomon.

St. John’s Wort (Hypericum Perforatum)
was dedicated to St. John because its phosphor-
escent glow was remindful of the Biblical refer-
ence to him as a “bright and shining light.”
Some European peasants still believe that, if
gathered and worn on St. John’s Eve, it has the
power of bringing good luck and success.

The Greeks and Romans used Verbena ex-
tensively in their religious ceremonies, princi-
pally because of its wonderful perfume. The

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RELIGION IN THE PLANT WORLD

Romans called it “the sacred herb” and re-
garded it as an aid in divinations and omens.
On New Year’s Day, it was sent to friends as
a token of greeting. The Roman generals wore
a sprig in their pockets as a protection against
bodily injury.

The Soma or Moon-Plant of India (Ascle-
pias Acida) is a climbing vine with milky juice
which is said to confer immortality upon its ad-
mirers.

Pomegranate was long reverenced by the
Persians and Jews as the forbidden fruit of the
Garden of Eden.

The Indian plant Basil for many centuries
has been held in good repute by the Hindus,
having been made sacred to Vishnu.

Mahomet pronounced Henna, the Egyptian
Privet, “chief of the flowers of this world and
the next.” Wormwood was dedicated to the
goddess Iris.

If there are many plants which man’s adora-
tion has made religious, there are almost an
equal number which his suspicion and pervers-
ity have branded irreligious. A famous plant of
this kind is the Enchanter’s Nightshade which

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has long been celebrated in the mysteries of
witchcraft. Perhaps its usual place of growth
in old graveyards among decaying bones and
mouldering coffins has much to do with the sin-
ister superstitions and legends connected with it.

The Belladona is another plant whose name
is often associated with black magic.

To this day many Danes believe that the
Elder is eternally cursed. Children who sleep
in beds containing Elder wood continually
complain of having their feet tickled and their
legs pulled. To carry a cane of Elder is to in-
vite attacks of slander. Women who have Elder
wood in their houses will never be married. It
is the elves who dwell in the Elder who are sup-
posed to work all this mischief.

Plants often rise superior to the curse which
men place upon them. Probably every well-
known plant, sometime in its history, has had
attributed to it both good and evil. The deity
of one nation may become the demon of another.

Plant worship holds a more prominent place
in the world today than one would at first
thought imagine, and it is not altogether con-
fined to uncultured peoples. Dr. George Bird-

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RELIGION IN THE PLANT WORLD

wood tells of remarkable instances of modern
flower worship he saw in Bombay. In describ-
ing the Victoria Gardens, he says: “Presently,
a true Persian, in flowing robes of blue, and on
his head his sheep-skin hat, ‘black, glossy, curl’d,
the fleece of Kar-kal’, would saunter in, and
stand and meditate over every flower he saw,
and always, as if half in vision. And when the
vision was fulfilled, and the flower he was seek-
ing found, he would spread his mat and sit be-
fore it until the setting of the sun, then fold
up his mat again and night after night, until
that particular flower faded away, he would re-
turn to it, and bring his friends in ever-increas-
ing troupes to it, and sit and play the guitar or
lute before it, and they would altogether pray
there, and after praying still sit before it, sip-
ping sherbet, and talking the most hilarious and
shocking scandal late into the moonlight; and
so again and again every evening until the
flower died. Sometimes, by way of grand finalé
the whole company would suddenly rise before
the flower and serenade it together, with an
ode from Hafiz, and then depart.”

[153]

CHAPTER XI

PLANT MYTHOLOGY

“T’ll seek a four-leaved clover
In all the fairy dells,

And if I find the charmed leaf,
Oh, how I'll weave my spells.”

VERY Plant is surrounded by a halo of
human thought. If one is able to discern
that halo, he finds a new and fascinating in-
terest attaching itself to each herb and flower.
The most humble of them become fortune-tel-
lers, luck-bringers, and talismen against evil,
as well as dwelling-places of fairies, elves, imps,
and other ethereal mischief-makers.
In the childhood of humanity, the earth was
a very romantic place. In addition to the fam-
iliar human inhabitants, there were whole races
of supernatural and invisible beings which
wielded great influence over the every-day
world of affairs. Every plant was considered
good or evil, according to the character of the
spirits which it was believed to harbour.

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People of this practical age are inclined to
look upon these stories with contemptuous in-
tolerance. “We have outgrown such baby-talk,”
they say, and forthwith relegate whole king-
doms of elfin hosts to their children’s nurseries,
or possibly refuse them their homes entirely.
But to a few discerning minds, these idle
dreams of a romantic past offer a most refresh-
ing contrast to present-day utilitarianism.

The airy fancies of our forefathers should
have a larger share in our thought today. A
single flower myth contains more beauty and
enduring appeal than a hundred steel mills. We
must go back to the youth of the race,—to the
time of Shakespeare, Milton, and gentle Ben
Jonson,—for our noblest literature. In those
days, men actually believed in fairies, goblins,
and all the rest, and were probably better for
having done so. We, with our broader intellec-
tual outlook, can congratulate ourselves that we
have advanced beyond such things, but still ap-
preciate their spirit and their beauty.

In studying plant mythology, it is interesting
to notice that certain traditions and legends are
to be found in all parts of the world and in

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

many widely separated localities, forming, as it
were, the ground-work of a great universal sys-
tem of folklore. This would suggest that plant
myths are founded mainly on true and inherent
facts rather than on passing fancies. Almost all
the nations have chosen the Rose for the queen
of the floral court, and therefore the most fitting
symbol of love. The White Lily has purity writ-
ten on its spotless petals, and could never stand
for anything else, anywhere. The Poppy is a
brilliant, sensuous flower, quite suggestive of
the narcotic excesses which its opium induces.
Many extravagant plant beliefs of the past had
their foundation in medicine. In the Middle
Ages, quacks and charlatans used herbs having
curative powers to exhort money from the mas-
ses. A few of the correctives were of real value,
but there were thousands of out-and-out decep-
tions. Even so redolent and simple a thing as
the common Onion was sometimes suspended
in a room in the belief that it would draw all
troublesome maladies out of the inmates. The
first herbalists were priests, but gradually their
art passed into the hands of professional out-
siders, where it suffered greater and greater
abuse.

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PLANT MYTHOLOGY

One ancient dogma taught that each plant
possessed the power of healing one particular
disease, made known by some outward sign or
similiarity. Thus bright-eyed flowers were good
for those with failing sight; red blossoms of all
kinds would arrest nose-bleed; Tumeric, a very
yellow dye, cured jaundice; plants with long,
tubular flowers were excellent specifics for
throat troubles.

Many of these medicinal superstitions linger
among the more simple of the earth’s inhabit-
ants today. Dutch and English countrymen still
believe that a Potato carried in the pocket is a
sort of protective charm against rheumatism.
In Ohio, the farmers sometimes wear a string
of Job’s Tears seeds in an effort to cure goitre.
In New England, the same magic charm is used
to help babies through the troublesome period
of teething.

The devil and his evil spirits have always
wielded a large influence over certain members
of the plant kingdom. In Scotland, up until the
seventeenth century, it was customary to allow
a small section of each farm to lie untilled and
uncropped as a peace offering to Satan. In cer-

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

tain English counties, children of today will not
pick Blackberries after a certain date, believing
that the Evil One has trampled them and made
them poisonous to humans. German peasants,
without batting an eye, will tell you that the
devil, in one form or another, has the regular
habit of stealing portions of their crops.

Of plants that are dedicated to Satan, or
more properly, which he has appropriated,
there are many hundreds. Toadstools, because
of their miraculously fast growth and fantastic
shape, have always been associated with the
kingdom of evil. It is not quite so apparent why
other more beautiful plants are also handed
over to Satan, though a reason can usually be
found. The most alluring and gorgeous flowers
are quite apt to be poisonous.

In old Bohemia, the Belladonna was a fa-
vourite of the devil. He could be enticed from
it on Walpurgis Night by letting loose a black
hen, after which he ran. In Russia, people shun
the Sow-Thistle as a devil-plant. Some Ger-
mans believe that evil spirits lurk in Lettuce
beds. To the same people, the Herban is the
‘“Devil’s Eye.” Many nationalities are quite

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PLANT MYTHOLOGY

sure that the Herb-Bennett, when kept in a
house, takes its owners out from under the
devil’s influence. Thistle is often used for
the same purpose. The Greeks used to place
a Laurel bough over their doors to ward
off evil. There is an English Fungus
called Lycoperdon, or Puff-Ball, which pro-
duces a mass of dusty spores not unlike snuff.
The annoyance experienced by people in the
vicinity of the bursting pods has led to the
plant being called “Devil’s Snuff-Box.” Chil-
dren use it for various amusing pranks.

Closely allied to the devil-plants are the
witch-plants, vegetable favourites of his human
emissaries. The Elder is supposed to be a fre-
quent meeting-place of these sinister hags;
under its branches they bury their satanic off-
spring.

The witches employ the deadly Night-Shade
in their vile concoctions. It is reputed to spring
from the foam of the vicious, many-headed dog
which guards the infernal regions. The Vervain
and the Rue are also ingredients. The fact that
the former was at one time sacred to Thor, and
was also used in the rituals of the Druids, is a

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

possible explanation of its evil name. Rue as a
narcotic capable of producing hallucinations,
is most naturally a witch’s plant. Strange to say,
both of these plants are sometimes used as
charms against witches. The Romans used the
Vervain in casting lots, telling fortunes, and
foreshadowing national events. Many other
plants, ordinarily harmless, become the posses-
sors of evil charms when gathered under certain
circumstances. ‘Thus, Shakespeare speaks of
“root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark,” and “slips
of yew sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse,” as being
cast into the bubbling pot.

The Fox Glove is “Witches’ Bell,” and is used
by them to decorate their fingers. They employ
the large Ragwort as a steed for their midnight
journeys. In Ireland it is known as “Fairies’
Horse.” It is said that witches use Fern seed to
make themselves invisible. In Germany they
employ the Luck Flower for the same purpose.
The Sea Poppy and the Moonwart (Botrych-
tum Lunaria) are also numbered among the
witch-plants. To the latter is also given the
power of opening locks.

In England, Pimpernel, Herb-Paris and

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PLANT MYTHOLOGY

Cyclamen are protections against witches. In
Germany and many other continental countries,
the St. John’s Wort is their enemy and exposer.

The fairies have appropriated many flowers
for their especial use. Despite the disbelief of
latter days, to some people elfland still extends
around the globe, and defies all the laws of
chemistry and physics. It is still fairy midnight
trippings which form those mysterious circles
or depressions often to be noticed on the dewy
sward of early morning. When the peasant
girls of England go out into the meadows to
beautify their complexions with applications
of May dew, they always leave these mystic
circles severely alone, for fear of offending the
fays.

Midnight is the fairy magic hour. At the
trumpet call of the Harebell, they gallop to their
meeting-places mounted on blades of Grass
or on Cabbage leaves. Sometimes they assemble
to the tolling of the Wood-Sorrel or “Fairy
Bell”. For more extended migrations, they
travel in Nuts. They usually dress in green
and provide themselves with mantles of Gos-
samer. The Irish ones use Fox-Glove blossoms

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

to cover their hands. In infancy, the fays are
cradled in Tulips and throughout life, they use
the Cowslip as a drinking cup, and seek shelter
of the Wood-Anemone in wet weather.

In some localities, it is believed that the
fairies create the Toad-Stools. They are also
reputed to gather colours from the sunset
clouds, and with tiny but accurate brushes cover
flower petals with their delicate tints. Fairies
seldom reveal themselves to men, but the lucky
possessor of a four-leafed Clover is sometimes
privileged to see them.

From time immemorial, men and maidens in
love have sought the aid of their floral friends.
Which of us is there who has not gone to the
Daisy in some heart perplexity of youth, and
made its petals say, “She loves me; She loves
me not,” as we pulled them off one by one? An
older and less known superstition says that an
Apple seed placed on a hot stove will hop
towards one’s future mate.

In England, the Marigold is used for various
love divinations, but in Germany it is carefully
excluded from affairs of the heart. In that lat-
ter country the Star-Flower and the Dandelion

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PLANT MYTHOLOGY

are popular in such cases. There was a time
when Peas were much in demand for sentimen-
tal forecasts. On opening a pod, the number
of green spheres discovered had a special signi-
ficance. The dwarves were supposed to be es-
pecially fond of Peas. Even the prosaic Onion
has at times been used to explain the mysteries
of the divine emotion.

The Rose, most superb of flowers, has been
extolled through all ages as the symbol of love.
Incidentally, it is the national flower of Eng-
land. The Scotch have a pretty ballad legend
about Fair Margaret and Sweet William. The
beautiful love of these two young people never
realized itself in marriage. They both met an
untimely death and were buried on either side
of the neighbouring church. Soon there sprang
up a climbing Rose vine from the grave of each,
and meeting on the gable of the church, the lov-
ers entwined in the lasting embrace which had
been denied in life. Red Roses, because of their
colour, have sometimes been supposed to have
a relation to human blood. The medieval girl
used to bury a few drops of her blood under a
Rosebush in the hope that this action would

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

bring her ruddy cheeks. The Romans used the
Rose as the symbol of love for the dead. They
placed it extensively on their tombs.

In the past, there have arisen rumours of
plants of wondrous properties which have been
the mere inventions of glory-seeking travelers.
Sir John Mandeville was a famous offender
who even issued reports of trees which produced
live animals in their fruits.

The old Greeks used to decorate their tombs
with Parsley. When a person was dangerous-
ly ill, it was often said, “He has need now of
nothing but Parsley.”

The humble Bean has at times been afforded
superstitious reverence. It is said that Pytha-
goras forbade his disciples to eat it.

The anxiety to secure good crops has led to
many superstitious practices. In the pagan days
of Germany and likewise in Rome, an image
was carried around each field in order to insure
its fertility. After the introduction of Chris-
tianity, the image of a saint was substituted for
the heathen deity, and the practice continued.

Again and again, the Onion, whose name
today is only mentioned with bated breath,

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PLANT MYTHOLOGY

crops up among old plant superstitions. Because
of its structure of enveloping sheaths, the Egyp-
tians rightly considered it a splendid symbol of
the universe. In Christian days, St. Thomas
patronized it. Its cousin, the Leek, bears the
blossom which Welshmen still hail as their na-
tional flower. It is worn by all loyal patriots
on March first, St. David’s Day.

The Thistle, Scotland’s national flower, was
once sacred to Thor. In those days it was re-
garded as a safeguard against lightning, from
which it got its colour. Ireland’s Shamrock be-
longs to the Trefoil family, and is sometimes
called Dutch Clover, though the Wood-Sorrel
is claimed by some to be the true Shamrock. St.
Patrick once used it as a natural symbol of the
trinity, through which it became nationalized.

Superstitions of the four-leafed Clover have
lingered in the imaginations of men almost more
than those of any other plant. To be efficacious
in bringing good luck, the little talisman must
be found unawares. If slipped into the shoe
of a lover, it will insure his safe return. The
finding of a five-leaved Clover brings bad luck.

Superstition plays its part in the evolution

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

of knowledge, and speculation is the parent of
modern science. Astrologers, reading the for-
tunes of nations and individuals in the stars,
paved the way for the great and exact science
of astronomy. Studious alchemists in searching
for a cheap way to make gold, laid the foun-
dations of the profound science of chemistry.
In a similar way, the old herbalists, with their
secret potions and mysterious compounds, were
the instigators of the accurate study of medicine,
and most important from our standpoint, were
instruments which greatly advanced the love
and growing appreciation of plants and flowers.

[166]

CHAPTER XII

MYSTICISM IN THE PLANT WORLD

“Who passeth by the Rosemarie

And careth not to take the spraye,
For woman's love no care has he,

Nor shall he though he live for aye.”

NE day John G. Allen of Cherry, Arizona,
went fishing along a small tributary of the

River Verde. His skill with the rod seeming
to fail him, he decided to make his outing

profitable in other directions by hunting
through some neighbouring cliff-dwellings for
pottery. While wandering through those an-
cient and curious abodes, he accidentally dis-
covered a section of wall which looked as
though it might have been built to close a
former opening. Careful investigation re-
vealed the truth of this surmise, for, with a
little perseverance, he broke through and re-
moved enough stone to admit his body into a
small room or recess, which contained some
pottery and household utensils of extreme age.

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

In one corner of this prehistoric place, Mr.
Allen discovered a few Corn cobs and about a
dozen Squash seeds. More as a joke than any-
thing else, he planted twelve of the seeds the
next spring.

Eleven of them remained insensate to the re-
vivifying influence of earth, sun and water, but
the twelfth took courage and, bursting the walls
which had imprisoned it for hundreds and pos-
sibly thousands of years, sprang up into a hardy,
healthy vine, which eventually bore a huge,
green, extremely warty Squash weighing nearly
twenty-five pounds. This vegetable visitor
from a shadowy age was named the “Aztec,”
and attained great fame.

There have been other and more striking in-
stances of the suspended animation which per-
mits plant life to lie quiescent for countless cen-
turies, ready for an opportune time to resume
the regular cycle of its existence. There are
those who are always ready to cry “fraud,” and
conclusively prove these marvels false, but
there is abundant evidence to show that plant
embryos can and, in some cases, do survive
long periods of time.

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MYSTICISM IN THE PLANT WORLD

What a lesson lies in such phenomena! The
power that can keep alive and unchanged the
cells of a vegetable seed so many centuries is not
likely to allow the soul of a man to perish. What
an argument for immortality! What a breeder
of strange and mysterious thoughts!

There is much mysticism in the plant world.
What man does not understand, he either holds
in awe or contempt. The plants are too often
treated with good-humoured derision, but
among higher minds, their unintelligible fac-
tors give them a greater fascination—a mystery
and a psychic interest which is very alluring.

The plants seem to be closer in tune with Na-
ture than man. They place themselves under
her direct tutelage, and are extremely sensitive
to her various moods and fancies. They re-
spond to influences of weather and time with
remarkable alacrity. The scarlet Pimpernel
in particular, is an excellent barometer. At the
least indication of rain, it folds its petals to-
gether in snug security, and, contrary to human
beings, closes instead of opens the umbrella of
its body. Ona rainy day, it never unfolds at
all, so eager is it to keep its petals dry.

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

“No heart can think, no tongue can tell,
The virtues of the Pimpernell.”

The greatest of all floral barometers is the
Weather-Plant or Indian Licorice (Abrus Pre-
catorius). So keenly sensitive to all atmos-
pheric conditions is this plant that it may be
used to foretell cyclones, hurricanes, earth-
quakes, and even volcanic eruptions. Its small,
rose-like leaves are in continual motion, which
varies noticeably under different electrical and
magnetic influences. The Austrian Professor
Norwack, working at his Weather-Plant Ob-
servatory at Kew Gardens, London, once used
it to predict a disastrous fire-damp explosion.

Many flowers show a remarkable apprecia-
tion of the passage of time and open and close
at regular hours each day. In fact, a close
student of floral habits can actually tell the
time of day by watching the actions of the
flowers around him. It is said that the Swedish
botanist Linnaeus once built himself a flower
clock, arranged to count the passing hours by
the folding and unfolding of different blossoms.
One does not really need to go to this trouble.
The common flowers of the field and garden

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MYSTICISM IN THE PLANT WORLD

are all accurate time-pieces. Long before the
rising of the sun their activity begins; in fact
even the night hours are all noticed by certain
more obscure plants. Along about three in the
morning, the dainty Goat’s-Beard wakes from
sleep and spreads its petals. Promptly at four
o’clock the Dandelion begins its day’s work.
The Naked Stalked Poppy, the copper-col-
oured Day-Lily and the smooth Sow-Thistle are
five o’clock risers. ‘The Field Marigold is a
slug-a-bed, and does not blink its sleepy eyes at
the sun until ten o’clock. The Ice-Plant throws
back its downy coverlets exactly at noon.
Shortly after mid-day, the early risers begin
to get tired, and prepare to sleep through the
heat of the afternoon. Beginning with the
Hawkweed Picris shortly after noon, and ex-
tending to the bed-time of the Chickweed at
ten at night, every quarter hour sees the retire-
ment of some particular flower. After sundown,
the night owls make their appearance, and such
plants as the Night-Blooming Cereus, the
Moonflower, and the Datura check off the fleet-
ing minutes. How can this marvelous aquain-

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tance with the passage of time be explained in
terms of cold materialism?

Among plants which show a well-developed
sense of direction, the Compass-Plant is prob-
ably the most remarkable. Its flowers, and
sometimes the edges of its leaves, always point
toward the north with the certainty of a magnet.
Travelers have been known to use it as a natural
guide.

A great many plants perform remarkable
acts which can only be explained by the pos-
session of some measure of psychic sense or
quality. Thus, a climbing plant in need of a
prop will creep along the ground toward the
nearest vertical support. If the support is
shifted, the vine will promptly change the di-
rection of its progress, and eventually reach the
object of its desires.

Inasmuch as it is positively known that plants
are sensitive to light, it may be that, in this case,
the vine actually perceives the support through
a process akin to animal sight; but if a climb-
ing plant finds itself growing between two
mounds or ridges, and behind one there is a
wall or some other means of support, and be-

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MYSTICISM IN THE PLANT WORLD

hind the other none, it will invariably bend its
creeping steps over the ridge hiding the wall.
The wall was invisible from the plant’s start-
jng-point, and certainly betrayed its presence
through no odour or other manifestation. In
some mysterious way, the creeper simply knew
that a vital necessity of its life lay in a certain
direction. Ordinarily, we associate such phe-
nomena with psychic influences. It is quite
evident, that in certain ways, the plants display
a very practical knowledge of such mysteries.

For many years, man has instinctively been
aware of this psychic superiority of the mem-
bers of the vegetable kingdom, and has gone
to them for advice in various troubles and dif-
ficulties, even sometimes believing the plants
to have a direct control over the affairs and
lives of men. While the great mass of such al-
leged influence is classed by modern thought as
merest superstition, who can say that the wildest
of these fancies does not contain certain germs
of truth? At any rate, a brief investigation of
some of the more popular beliefs of former
years is very illuminating.

In ancient days, many flowers and plants were

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

supposed to possess the power of discovering
the location of lost or hidden riches and con-
ducting a human searcher to them. The Ger-
mans named the Primose Schlisselblume, or
key-flower, in the belief that, if held in the hand,
it would unlock to its possessor the location of
buried treasure by some movement or other
manifestation. To this day, many country
people in Europe and America have implicit
faith in the ability of the divining rod to seek

out underground water. ‘There are many en-
lightened folk who claim that reported successes

of this method of picking well-sites are mere
coincidences, but in view of the wide-spread

reliance on this theory which is constantly meet-
ing the most practical tests, would it not be

open-minded to suggest that possibly the
branches of the rod do make some slight move-
ment toward the hidden water with which they
have a natural affinity?

As mentioned in a previous chapter, young
people through all ages have gone to flowers for
counsel when in love. The most frequent mas-
culine question has been “Does she love mer”
The flowers have given the answer in a variety

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MYSTICISM IN THE PLANT WORLD

of ways, most often by the number of their
petals. The query of the very young girl
usually has been “Will I be married?” and she
has been sure to see that the reply is most often
in the affirmative. In 4 Midsummer Night’s
Dream, Oberon tells Puck to lay Pansies on
Titania’s eyes in order that she may fall in love
with the first person she sees upon awakening.

There was a time when people placed great
reliance upon the efficacy of dreams. Plants
seen in dreams always had special significance.
Among the various omens, general good for-
tune was indicated by Palms, Olives, Jasamines,
Lilies, Laurels, Thistles, Currants and Roses.
When flowers or fruit of the Plum, Cherry,
Cypress and Dandelion appeared, misfortune
was indicated. Withered Roses foretold es-
pecially dire events. ‘“‘Nobody is fond of fading
flowers.” A four-leaved Clover put under a
pillow induced dreams of one’s lover. In parts
of South America, the natives are said to smoke
and eat certain intoxicating plants in the hope
that they may see visions in the resulting nar-
cotic dreams.

Plants have not been the cause of very many

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

ghost stories, but occasionally one hears of
some mysterious night adventure of which some
plant is the central figure.

The Reverend S. H. Wainright of Japan
tells a somewhat amusing tale of a ghost scare
he and his family had while living at Tsukiji,
Tokio. One evening, while sitting around the
fire, they were considerably disturbed by a
weird and recurring sound which seemed to
come from the front yard. At first they took it
for the creaking of a bamboo gate, then for
boys throwing pebbles, but neither of these
explanations seemed adequate. Finally, con-
tinual repetitions led to a search which located
the noises in a Wistaria arbour near the front
fence. On near approach, the loud taps sounded
so much like stones striking the leaves, that it
was decided to take no further notice of the
matter. However, the problem weighed on Mr.
Wainright’s mind, and he and his son at length
sallied forth a third time, determined with
Aristotle that the main thing was to know the
causes.

‘We entered the side yard through the bam-
boo gate and approached the Wistaria. Under-

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MYSTICISM IN THE PLANT WORLD

neath the Trellis arbour there were dark shad-
ows and outlines were indistinct. A Palmyra
Palm was growing in the corner of the fence
under the arbour, and the fingers of one of the
leaves pointing downward seemed to be the
hand of a man. When expectation is running
high, a fingered palm leaf may easily become
the hand of a human being or of a shadowy
ghost. We had the electric burners brought to
the windows upstairs and the light thrown
toward the arbour, and the shadows cast by the
electric rays rendered the situation all the more
mysturious.
» “The noises were plainly among the Wis-
taria vines. But, strange to say, the stones which
seemed to be striking the vines came from no
particular direction. They seemed to burst like
shells the minute they struck and the pieces
were heard to fall or strike in different direc-
tions. By this time the thought of ghosts had
not only occurred to us but was gaining force
in our minds. Indeed, a first-rate romance was
developing — subjectively, I-should no doubt
ada.”

Again the party abandoned the quest, re-

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

turned to their fireside, but could not rest con-
tent. “With a heroic determination of wili, I
declared that I would again go in search of
the causes and not return until the secret had
been found out. The lights were held by those
who remained indoors at the upstairs windows.
Two of us approached through the side yard
the place of mystery. Step by step we advanced,
stopping at intervals to listen. We could sce
nothing, but the noises we heard were unmistak-
able. There could be no deception as to their
reality. Step by step, we drew nearer, peering
in the meanwhile into the dark shadows be-
neath the Wistaria. The nearer we came to the
arbour, the greater was the sense of mystery
which possessed us. The noises were weird and
inexplicable. As we came near, a discovery was
made which excited us still more. After the ex-
plosion of the shells, white sabers seemed to
fall upon the ground. Were the ghosts in battler
What could it all mean?

“Loyal to the heroic determination to go
straight to the seat of the trouble, I walked be-
neath the Wistaria arbour feeling an atmos-
phere charged with electricity as I went. We

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MYSTICISM IN THE PLANT WORLD

stood side by side looking about and waiting,
when suddenly a Fuji pod exploded before our
eyes. The seeds flew in different directions and
the divided halves of the pod fell to the ground
and lay like sabers dropped in the attack of
battle. When the discovery was made, one of us
called out to the upstairs window that it was
the explosion of the Wistaria pods that caused
the noises. There was a general laugh and the
ghosts disappeared. Not affected by rain or
darkness, by heat or cold, by human foot-steps
or voice, there is one thing ghosts cannot en-
dure; to be laughed at literally slays them.”

In the Middle Ages, the Mandrake was a
magical plant which was reputed to shine like
a candle at night and thrive particularly well
near the gallows. When pulled from the earth,
it uttered uncanny shrieks, and according to
Shakespeare “living mortals hearing them ran
mad.”

Two centuries ago it was believed that every
plant, as well as every human being, was under
the influence of some particular planet. The
plants over which Saturn claimed an ascend-
ency were characterized by ill-favoured leaves,

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

ugly flowers and repellent odours. On the other
hand the plants of Jupiter displayed smooth
leaves and graceful, fragrant flowers. Today we
believe that all plants belong to only one planet,
and that is the planet earth.

In the minds of agricultural folk, the moon
has always had great influence over vegetation.
There are many rules still extant regarding the
proper time of that satellite’s phases in which
to plant, reap and perform a hundred other
rustic acts. A medieval superstition stated that
when the moon was on the increase it imparted
healing and medicinal qualities to all herbs.
During its decline, the same plants generated
poisons. |

The mystic qualities of the flowers have been
responsible for their extensive ceremonial use
throughout all history. Man attempts to express
all his more subtle emotions by their sweetness
and purity. He carries them alike to christen-
ings, weddings and funerals, and invariably
sends them to his best girl. It is recorded that
a certain eastern king of antiquity was in the
habit of offering a hundred thousand flowers
each day before the idol of a favourite god.

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MYSTICISM IN THE PLANT WORLD

Flowers are still extensively used as signs
and symbols. There are ponderous volumes
written on the “Language of Flowers.” All the
garden beauties have a natural symbolism writ-
ten on their faces. Rosemary, with its lingering
colour, is an eternal emblem of remembrance.
“Violets dim but sweeter than the lids of Juno’s
eyes or Cytherea’s breath” speak of modesty in
quiet tones. The spotless Lily must always stand
for purity.

Other floral symbols have been chosen for
more remote but quite apparent characteristics.
Impatience is indicated by the Balsam seed-
pods, which, when ripe, curl up at the slightest
touch, and shoot forth their seeds with great
violence. A popular name for the plant is
‘“Touch-Me-Not.” The very name of Helio-
trope tells of its constant turning toward the sun.
It is often referred to as a symbol of devoted at-
tachment. Aspen, because of its tremulous mo-
tion has been made a sign of fear. When people
think of the Poppy and its narcotic product,
they likewise think of sleep and oblivion. A
less apparent symbol is found in the Wild
Anemone, which is taken to denote brevity be-

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

cause its frail petals are soon scattered by the
boisterous wind. The Snow-Drop, figst flower
of spring, peeping from its immaculate snow
bank, is an unmistakable emblem of \purity .

The ancients were very liberal users of floral
tokens; the Chinese, Assyrians and Egyptians
had many identical beliefs on the subject. The
Olive was and still is the universal badge of
peace. Laurel was the classic sign of renown
with which the brows of prominent athletes and
statesmen were crowned. The Cypress was often
an index of mourning. The Rose and the
Myrtle, having been dedicated to Venus, were
insignias of love. The Palm was a wide-spread
representation of victory. Bible students will
recall that Palms were scattered before Jesus
Christ on the occasion of his triumphant entry
into Jerusalem.

In their enthusiasm, flower-lovers have some-
times allowed their imagination to carry them
into unnatural and artificial symbolism. It is
not difficult to associate the White Lily with
purity but when we are told that the Flowering
Almond represents hope, the Common Almond
indiscretion and stupidity, and the Floral Al-

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MYSTICISM IN THE PLANT WORLD

mond perfidity, one is reduced to looking up
this curious code in an indexed book. When
each variety of the Rose family has different
and fluctuating significance, a swain hesitates
to summon the floral language of love to his aid.

Many people believe that peculiar mystic
attachments exist between certain birds and
flowers. The Persians claim that whenever a
Rose is plucked, the nightingale utters a plaint-
ive cry as if to protest against the wounding of
the object of its love. Many other birds show
marked affection for various plants.

In the same manner, almost every man and
woman has his or her favourite flower. Certain
persons of a temperamental type are often
emotionally affected by the presence of flowers
with which they appear to have a mysterious
psychic connection. Certain people claim to be
able to discern such marked similiarity between
human beings and various flower affinities that
they undertake to liken various prominent
people to different blossoms. There is much
chance for scientific investigation in this field.
With Perdita we at least know that “flowers of
middle summer should be given to men of

[183]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

middle age, but for our young prince we want
flowers of the spring that may become his
time of day.”

Sometimes, through sentimental attachment,
whole peoples elect certain flowers to represent
them before the world. Thus the United States
has chosen the Goldenrod for its national floral
emblem, while the Rose of England, the Thistle
of Scotland, the Shamrock of Ireland, and the
Leek of Wales act in the same capacity for the
British Isles.

Man paid a high compliment to the mystic
veneration in which he holds the plant world
when he, in his primitive beliefs, invariably
conceived of heaven as some terrestrial paradise
of luxurious vegetation. The Persians had their
Mount Caucasus; the Arabians dreamed about
an Elysium in the Desert of Arden; the Greeks
and Romans had bright mental pictures of the
Gardens of Hesperides; and the Celts hoped
to spend their postmortem existence on an en-
chanted isle of wondrous beauty.

Such beliefs have fallen into disuse, but man
is still a long way off from a solution of the
various mystic phenomena of the plant world.

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MYSTICISM IN THE PLANT WORLD

Botanists should leave off indexing and classify-
ing plants for a while and endeavour to discover
the subtle and fascinating laws of their psychic
existence.

[185]

CHAPTER XIII
PLANT INTELLIGENCE

“The Marigold goes to bed with the sun,
And with him rises weeping.’ —Shakespeare

T is no new thing to believe in the ex-
istence of intelligence among plants. As
far back as Aristotle, various great minds in
the earth’s history have ascribed definite, think-
ing acts to our floral and vegetable friends.
Not a few have seen unmistakable evidences of
soul in plantdom. Even the most skeptical have
become aware of many things they cannot ex-
plain in purely mechanistic terms.

We are still living in an age which has
deified human wisdom. Man has built up vast
systems of knowledge and law, all based on his
own deep-rooted convictions. He approaches
every subject with apriori beliefs and presump-
tions. He is slow to acknowledge thinking
powers to his companion creatures of a ter-
restrial universe.

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PLANT INTELLIGENCE

To a person on a country road, the wayside
trees and flowers are too often mere happenings
or creations. Their ways are so quiet and un-
demonstrative, that, if he has never been taught
differently, he rarely thinks of classifying them
as independent, free-acting beings. ‘The fact
that they are anchored to the soil seems to re-
move them from the realm of self-willed crea-
tion. Yet why should it? Are fishes not doomed
to pass all their days in the chemical combina-
tion of hydrogen and oxygen we call water?
Does not the delicate Canary die if the air
surrounding it goes below a certain tempera-
ture?

The fact is that many plants exhibit all the
elemental qualities of human intelligence and
also have vague psychic expressions of their
own which we only understand in a very limited
way.

What causes the radicle or root of the smal-
lest sprouting seedling always to grow down
and the plumule or stem always to grow up?
It cannot be gravity because that great earth
pull would affect both parts equally. This same
radicle, when it has developed into a full-

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PLANT INTELLIGENCE

fledged root, feels and-pushes its way through
the earth in a marvellous fashion searching
out water and traveling around obstructions
with unerring exactness. The slightest pressure
will serve to deflect it; aerial roots have been
observed to avoid obstacles without actually
coming in contact with them. The plants use
their roots to feel their way to moisture and
nourishment just as a man would feel his way
with his hands. The great Darwin, himself,
wrote many years ago: “It is hardly an exag-
geration to say that the tip of the radicle thus
endowed, and having the power of directing
the movements of the adjoining parts, acts like
the brain of one of the lower animals.”

In the same way, plant tendrils seek and
search out the best supports, after the manner
of animal tentacles. When fully wound around
a prop, they drag the body of the plant up after
them.

Practically all plants show a full knowledge
of the importance of sunlight to their life pro-
cesses. They usually strain all their energies
and exert all their ingenuity in an effort to
display as great a leaf surface as possible. That

[188]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

this action is not always purely instinctive is
indicated by the response of certain carniverous
plants to light. Having learned that success in
capturing their prey depends upon a static po-
sition of their leaves, they make no effort to
adjust their parts to strong or concentrated
light. This is clearly a case of intelligent oa
ment to environment.

It is interesting to note that the plant cells
which are sensitive to light often become tired
or partially blinded just lke the retina of an
animal eye. Darwin found that plants kept in
darkness were much more responsive to light
than those which dwelt habitually in the sun-
shine.

Many plants are wonderful weather prophets
and keepers of time. Their reactions to the
coming of night, showers, heat, cold and other
natural phenomena show much wisdom. That
plants require the rest which accompanies
sleep is indicated by the weakened and degen-
erate condition of individuals which are some-
times forced to exceptionally rapid develop-
ment by continual exposure to electric light.

A human faculty which few people associate

[189]

PLANT INTELLIGENCE

with plants, is an acute sense of taste. How else
do the plants know what elements to absorb out
of the soil? Certain experiments have enabled
investigators to discover marked taste prefer-
ences of a number of microscopic plants. Bac-
teria are exceptionally fond of kali salts.
Though they thrive equally well on glycerine,
they can be lured from it at any time by the
toothsome kali solution.

A sense of taste plays a remarkable part in
the fecundation of Moss. The male element is
composed of swift-swimming cells equipped
with vibratory hairs. When deposited by the
wind or other means on the cups of the female
flower, they swim about in the moisture until
they are eventually enticed to the unfertilized
eggs at the bottom by their taste for malic
acid. That this is no idle theory can be
proved in the laboratory. The seed-animal-
icules of some of the Ferns also are urged to
the act of impregnation by their preference for
the sugar in the seed cups.

All through the plant world we see actions
and habits which are the reverse of automatism
or mere instinctive response. Every plant con-

[190]

——— ae

PLANT INTELLIGENCE

ee

tinually has to meet new and trying conditions,
and while its reactions, just like those of man,
are frequently in the terms of racial and in-
dividual experience, it is constantly called upon
to make new and novel decisions.

Consider the intelligence of a wild Service
Tree described by Carpenter. As a seed, it
sprouted in the crotch of an Oak, and at once
sent a lusty root down toward the earth. As it
descended the Oak trunk and neared the
ground, its further progress was barred by a
large stone slab. It is authentically recorded,
that, when still one and one-half feet away, the
tip of the root, by direct perception or occult
means, discovered the presence of the obstruc-
tion, and, at once splitting into two equal bran-
ches, passed on either side of the stone.

A more remarkable case is that of a tropical
Monstera, which, coming into life on top of a
greenhouse, sent canny and vigorous roots di-
rectly down to certain water tanks on the
ground. ;

Isolated instances of plant intelligence might
be mere coincidences if it were not for the fact
that they multiply greatly the further one in-

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PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

vestigates. The common Potentillas and
Brambles show remarkable sagacity in search-
ing out hidden veins of soil among the rocks
where they grow. Nothing is more ingenious
than the way in which Hyacinths, Primroses
and Irises smother competitive seedlings by
putting forth large, low-lying leaves to cut off
the light of neighbours.

Plants are great inventors, and by continual
experimentation have perfected thousands of
ingenious devices to help them in their life
struggles. Many of these have to do with the
all-important processes of reproduction and
cross-fertilization. The elaborate organs which
oftentimes force visiting insects to aid the
flowers in their love-making are conclusive
proofs of directing intelligence. If, as is gen-
erally believed, vegetable life preceded animal
life on this planet, then the plants must have
developed these special reproductive organs
in which insects act as the fertilizing agents as
direct attempts to benefit the race by cross-
breeding.

While cross-fertilization is vitally necessary
for the maintenance of a vigorous and hardy

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PLANT INTELLIGENCE

stock, inbreeding either between flowers of the
same plant or even between the organs of a
single bi-sexual flower is often practiced. In
the love-making of the Grass of Parnassus and
the Love in the Mist (Nigella), we have a
very pretty and intelligent act. The flowers are
unisexual and, as the females usually grow on
much longer stalks than the males, the latter
would not have much chance of showering
their pollen on their consorts, if it were not for
the fact that, at the proper season, without out-
side stimulation, the “tall females bend down
to their dwarf husbands.” This surely is as in-
telligent and conscious as the mating of
animals.

The carnivorous plants act with uncanny
wisdom. The insect-devouring Sundews pay no
attention to pebbles, bits of metal, or other for-
eign substances placed on their leaves, but are
quick enough to sense the nourishment to be
derived from a piece of meat. Laboratory spe-
cimens have been observed to actually reach out
toward Flies pinned on cards near them. So
highstrung are these sensitive organisms that

[193]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

they can be partially paralyzed if certain spots
on their leaves are pricked.

Many people have no hesitancy in ascribing
considerable intelligence to the higher animals;
why do they balk at making the same concession
to plants? If you concede intelligence to a sin-
gle animal, you concede some measure of brain-
power to all animals down to the one-celled
Amoeba, and so must grant the same favour to
the plant world. Plants and animals, besides
having many habits in common, in their sim-
plest forms are often indistinguishable. Both
reduce themselves to single-celled masses of
protoplasm. ‘The Myxomycetes are both so
plant-like and at the same time so animal-like
that their classification “depends rather on the
general philosophical position of the observer
than on facts.” Possibly they are both animal
and plant at the same time—a sort of“missing
link” connecting the two kingdoms of life.

Anent the same question Edward Step says,
‘Modern thought denies consciousness to plants,
though Huxley was bold enough to say that
every plant is an animal enclosed in a wooden
box; and science has demonstrated that there

[194]

PLANT INTELLIGENCE

is no distinction between the protoplasm of
animals and plants, and that if we get down to
the very simplest forms in which life manifests
itself we can call them animals or plants indif-
ferently.”’

When one considers the rooted, plant-like
life of Mollusks and Hermit Crabs, and then
the active, animal-like life of the free-swimming
Moss spores and the wind-borne Fungi, he is
tempted to wonder if, after all, this talk of
plants and animals, is not just another of man’s
arbitrary classifications, which may be super-
ceded in time by some other system of nomen-
clature.

Of only one thing are we sure, and that is
that all life is one —an expression of the in-
telligence and power which pervades the uni-
verse.

Many readers may vaguely feel and believe
these facts and yet not be certain that plants
are individually and personally intelligent; long
training makes them still feel that the many
admittedly clever and ingenious acts recorded
every day in plantdom are but the indications
of some external mind or force working through

[195]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

Nature. The plants act in certain ways be-
cause they have no choice in the matter; they
are passive tools in the hands of such crafts-
men as “instinct,” “heredity,” and “environ-
ment.” ‘The answer to this is that you can as-
cribe an exactly similar fatalistic interpreta-
tion to every human thought, word or deed.
What you consider the freest decision of will
you made today can be shown conclusively to
be the result of a long train of acts and influ-
ences which stretches back to Adam. It would
have been impossible for you to have acted dif-
ferently.

Such blanket reasoning leads nowhere. If
you believe that you are a free, independent,
decision-making soul (and who does not?)
logically you must grant the same rights to the
humble Squash.

Even in the terms of man’s own science, the
plants can be shown to be intelligent. The psy-
chologist Titchner classifies the three stages of
mental processes as (1) Sensations (2) Images
and (3) Affections. The term “affection” is here
used in the special sense of a,capacity for en-

[196]

PLANT INTELLIGENCE

tering into intellectual states of pleasure or
pain.

In view of what has already been said, it
hardly seems necessary to prove the existence of
sensation in plants. The very fact that all life
is a constant response to stimuli and the adjust-
ment to environment presupposes the existence
of plant sensation. Only a few hours passed in
the investigation of plant habits will show our
vegetable friends giving definite responses to
heat, cold, moisture, light, and touch, while
laboratory experiments show their sensitive
powers of taste and hearing.

The touch sense of the Sundew is developed
to such an extent that it can detect the pressure
of a human hair one twenty-fifth of an inch
long. The tendrils of the Passion Flower at-
tempt to coil up at the slightest contact of the
finger and as quickly flatten out upon its re-
moval. The stamens of the Opuntia or Prickly
Pear have specialized papillae of touch ex-
actly similar to the papillae of the Hermione
Worm. When rubbed by the body of an in-
sect, they transmit an impulse which causes
the anthers to let loose a shower of pollen on

[197]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

the intruder. The animal world cannot exhibit
a higher sensitiveness to touch than that dis-
played by the celebrated Venus Fly-Trap. On
each side of the leaf midrib stand three
sharp little bristles. ‘They are the sense organs
controlling the closing of the vegetable spring.
Quick must an insect be to escape their vigilance.

Sensation and imagery are so closely con-
nected in the human brain that the existence of
one would seem to predicate the other. Fortun-
ately, we have very good evidence to indicate
the faculty of plant memory, which must ne-
cessarily be built up of images of one kind or
another.

If a plant which is accustomed to folding its
leaves together in sleep on the setting of the
sun, be placed in a completely dark room, it
will continue to decline and elevate its foliage
at regular intervals, indicating that it remem-
bers the necessity for rest even with the re-
minder of outside stimuli lacking.

By what faculty do plants become aware of
the approach of spring? Only occasionally are
they deceived by January thaws, and no matter
how unseasonably cold a March may be, they

[198]

PLANT INTELLIGENCE

go right ahead with the preparation of April
buds and leaves. So accurate is plant know-
ledge about the seasons that Alpine flowers often
bore their way up through long-lingering snow,
even developing heat with which to melt the ob-
struction, when they feel that spring has really
come. What gives plants such courage in the
face of contradicting elements, if not an accurate
sense of the passage of time and therefore the
memory of other seasons, which implies im-
agery?

Until we develop a workable system of
thought communication with plants, we can
never scientifically prove that plants are capable
of psychological ‘‘affections” or emotions.
Mental states are purely personal matters. We
would never be sure that any other human
being went through feelings of love, anger, hate
and pity, similiar to our own, if he were not
able to tell us of them. Until the plants can
describe to us their inner emotions, we can never
definitely know whether they have real feelings,
and if they parallel the human variety in any
degree. But just as we have become able to read -
a man’s mental processes by his facial expres-

[199]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

sions, tone of voice and bodily posture, so we
can guess at plant emotion by external mani-
festations. When a flower greets the morning
sun with expanded petals, uplifted head and a
generally bright appearance, why should we not
say it is happy and contented? When an ap-
proaching storm causes a plant to droop its
body and contract its petals and leaves into the
smallest compass possible, why is not fear, ap-
prehension and melancholy indicated? When
the jaws of the Venus Fly-Trap close on its hap-
less victim, they must do so with a savage joy
akin to that of a Tiger springing on its prey.

There are those who relegate a certain
amount of intelligence to plants but deny
them consciousness. They are unwilling to ad-
mit that plants are aware of their own physical
and mental processes. ‘This would seem to be
the merest quibbling over terms and an entrance
into that metaphysics which does away with all
consciousness.

If plants were not conscious, at least under
stimulation, they would have long since per-
ished from the earth through inability to react
to new conditions. Francis Darwin says: “We

[200]

PLANT INTELLIGENCE

must believe that in plants exists a faint copy of
what we know as consciousness in ourselves.”
Many scientists believe that life and conscious-
ness always precede and are superior to organi-
zation. It is urged that possibly many plants
possess consciousness without self-consciousness
or introspection.

After a thoughtful consideration of such facts
as these, only the blindest prejudice can con-
tinue to laugh at plant intelligence. Why then
has the world of human thought been so long
and reluctant to acknowledge it? Simply be-
cause it always reasons along authentic and
established lines. For many years it has been
taught to associate animal movement with
special groups of cells called muscles and in-
telligence with special groups of cells called
nerve tissue. Failing to find any trace of nerve
tissue in plants, it ignores a hundred convincing
facts to the contrary, and declares that plant
intelligence is a myth. Failing to detect a
mechanism of sensibility, it denies the existence
of sensibility, even though in the little Mimosa
the sense of touch travels from leaf to leaf be-
fore our eyes.

{201]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

It must be realized that the animal brain
merely acts as the electrical motor for the life-
power which drives the universe. This motor
and all of its auxiliaries are absent in Protoza
and other one-celled animals, but the power is
not. In the same way, they are absent through-
out all plantdom, but the eternal life principle
manifests itself in many mighty acts.

What is a nervous system, anyhowr It is a
group of cells, the specialized function of which
is to transmit impulses from one to the other
by certain obscure chemical reactions. Why
cannot ordinary tissue cells do the same thing,
possibly in a feebler, less efficient way? Plant
cells are all joined together by fine connecting
strands, forming a “continuity of protoplasm”
through. which such impulses could readily
travel. Whether investigators agree to this
or not, it is an indisputable fact that it
is true.

Though science is now beginning to verify
the fact of plant intelligence most conclusively
great and independent thinkers of all times
have long felt its truth. Certain minds are al-
ways in advance of their age. While science

[202]

ern ERR ER EE TE

PLANT INTELLIGENCE

laboriously proves every step of its way with
painstaking and commendable exactness, they
are soaring far ahead in new and fascinating
fields. Sometimes they go astray, but quite as
frequently they are the pioneers of great and
progressive ideas.

[203 |

CHAPTER XIV

THE HIGHER LIFE OF PLANTS

“T swear I think now that everything, without ex-
ception, has an immortal soul!

The trees have, rooted in the ground! the weeds
of the sea have! the animals!

I swear I think there is nothing but immortality!”

—W alt W hitman

AURICE MAETERLINCK, in one of his de-
lightful essays, pays a remarkable tribute

to the spiritual powers of plants.
“Though there be plants and flowers that are

awkward or unlovely,” he says, “there is none
that is wholly devoid of wisdom and ingenuity.

All exert themselves to accomplish their work,
all have the magnificent ambition to overrun
and conquer the surface of the globe by end-
lessly multiplying the form of existence which
they represent. To attain this object, they have,
because of the law which chains them to the
soil, to overcome difficulties much greater than
those opposed to the increase of animals... .
If we had applied to the removal of the various

[204]

THE HIGHER LIFE OF PLANTS

vicissitudes which crush us, such as pain, old
age, and death, one-half the energy displayed
by any little flower in our gardens, we may well
believe that our lot would be very different
from what it is.”

No truer thought was ever set on paper.
Though man prides himself upon his imagined
superiority to non-human creation, and even
denies the capacity for the higher things of life
to animals and plants, he, in reality, nearly al-
ways shows himself vastly inferior to them in
actual applications of moral and _ spiritual
principles.

Have the plants souls and spirits? No man
who has carefully and conscientiously studied
them can wholly deny it. They exhibit a pluck,
a determination, a moral perseverance which
awaken all our admiration. Where we are weak,
they are strong. Where men would lie down
and die, they go steadily forward. When a plant
perishes in the struggle for existence, it is be-
cause the odds have been too great. To make the
most of heredity and environment is an axiom-
atic rule in plantdom.

Man’s mind has developed at the expense of

[205]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

man’s body. The plants always maintain an ad-
mirable balance between the two. There are
degenerates and unscrupulous individuals
among them, but they never forget that their
first duty is to themselves. Self-culture is with
them a passion. Whoever heard of a plant over-
eating or over-drinking or giving away to any
of those indulgent vices which are the bane of
the human world? They have their faults, but
they are sources of strength rather than weak-
ness.

In relation to its companions of the vegetable
realm, the Murderer Liana is a double-dyed
villian, yet it is only practicing in an open and
frank way, the food-getting methods, which all
life, by its very nature, is forced to adopt. To
live by the destruction of others is the sad lot
of both the smallest plant and the most highly
developed animal.

Aside from the peculiarly human susceptibil-
ity to self-indulgence, it is hard to find a single
spiritual trait not exhibited by some member
of the plant kingdom.

Lover There is no higher devotion than that
shown by the water plant called Vallisneria.

[206]

THE HIGHER LIFE OF PLANTS

The female flowers reach the surface of the
water at the end of long, tapering, spiral-like
stalks, but the males are compelled to remain
far down near the bottom. At the flowering
season, the males, responding to the universal
mating instinct, deliberately break themselves
from their stalks and rise to the surface to be
near their loves for a little while. All too soon,
however, they are carried away by unruly cur-
rents to an untimely death, leaving behind
them, in their pollen, the principle from which
another generation of their species shall arise.
They have presented themselves a living sac-
rifice on the altar of love.

Courage? Think of all the hardy trees which
dwell in the high and cold places of the earth
—places that are so exposed and desolate that
the trees and plants find it necessary to contract
themselves into the smallest possible compass,
often living largely underground. On the other
hand, think of the death-defying Cacti which
live in infernos of the desert heat and dryness
and yet put forth flowers of joy.

Faith? Hope? What sustains the perennials
through long, bleak winters and makes them

[207]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

sure of the promise of spring? When the Al-
pine flowers are so positive that spring has
really come that they push their inquiring heads
up through the snow which still covers the
mountains, they are showing a superhuman
faith, literally risking death in order that they
may get a strong and early start in life.
Charityr When trees like the Oak and the
Maple allow a whole multitude of lesser plants
to dwell in the snugness of their shadows, they
are showing forth some of the kindly qualities
of plantdom. If they chose to they could dis-
courage lowly neighbours after the manner of
the monopolistic Beech or the aristrocatic Pine.
Name a human sin or virtue, good quality
or bad, and one does not have to search far in
the plant world for its counterpart. Along with
kindness, mercy, gratitude, submissiveness, and
parental love we also find cruelty, hard-hearted-
ness, ingratitude, arrogance and neglect of off-
spring. Even at that, the credit side always ex-
ceeds the debit and no plant is guilty of self-
destruction. It must be borne in mind, that what
we call sin and malignity are to them legitimate

courses of action.
[208]

THE HIGHER LIFE OF PLANTS

If plants have every property of the human
soul, why have men been so slow to admit their
kinship with the trees and the flowers? Life,
law and love are divine and bind man to all
creation. He is spiritually as well as physically
related to the plants. In the past, he has en-
deavoured to set himself apart from Nature and
look down upon her as upon another world.
Because he has a brain, he has imagined that
anything which has none cannot possibly pos-
sess an intelligence and an inner life. To uphold
this theory he has shut his eyes to a thousand
denying facts.

All plants and animals of whatever kind
begin life on exactly the same level. The way-
side Daisy and the Human Being both start their
earthly careers as single cells. In both cases,
there is no visible machinery of life and con-
sciousness, yet we can say “Here is a potential
Daisy. Here is a potential Man.” The wonder-
ful, all-pervading spirit of life belongs to both.

The language of the Bible classifies man with
all life under the Hebrew term Nephesh chay-
tah, that is, living soul or creature. The Old
Testament favours a rigorous protection of

[209]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

animals and plants against wanton destruction.
Is not the equality of the three kingdoms of life
hinted at in the following passage from Jonah?

“Thou hast had pity on the Gourd, for the
which thou hast not laboured, neither madest
it grow; which came up in a night, and per-
ished in a night.”

“And I shall not spare Nineveh, that great
city, wherein are more than six score thousand
persons that cannot discern between their right
hand and their left hand and also much cattle.”

Some marvelous experiments carried on by Sir
Jaghadish Chaundra Bose in Calcutta, India,
offer interesting light on the higher life of
plants. By exceptionally delicate and ingenious
instruments, Sir Jaghadish has been able to
measure the plant movements associated with
growth, shock and response to stimuli in gen-
eral. He has come to the conclusion that plants
not only have a conscious intelligence, but have
their good and bad days, their moods, their
whims. He believes they react to slight or
pleasurable ‘stimuli by general expansion
Violent stimuli cause pain and contraction. A
plant struck a blow quivers and shakes in

[210]

THE HIGHER LIFE OF PLANTS

veritable agony. Plants about to die undergo
a violent spasm and then by making no response
at all to outside influences, show that they have
actually given up the ghost.

Sir Jaghadish is satisfied that a plant pulled
up by the roots experiences a shock comparable
to that of a man being beaten into insensibility.
Many trees and plants, as every gardener
knows, fail to survive transplanting and die
from pure shock, even if their tissue has been
in no way injured. Sir Jaghadish has performed
the interesting experiment of administering a
powerful chemical to act as an anesthetic to
trees about to be transplanted. Such specimens
have stood the re-location well but in some
cases have shown an apparent loss of memory
and a general state of upset habit, exactly as
would a man or animal coming out of a stupor.

All this strongly suggests a soul or driving
spiritual force in every living creature. Regard-
ing its exact nature there are many opinions.
Maeterlinck believes that there is a general
scattered intelligence, a sort of universal fluid,
which penetrates all organisms in an amount
proportionate to their conductivity. Man offers

| [211]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

the least resistance to the divine principle and
so receives a generous share. The plants receive
lesser amounts, but really belong to the same
intellectual order. They exhibit the same ideas,
the same hopes, the same logic and undergo the
same trials in a lesser degree than their more
educated brothers. The plants and man both
grope, hesitate and correct themselves in their
labourious evolutionary development.

Of course, this theory is only a conjecture,
but is very appealing and much more modest
than the traditional attitude which assumes that
man is a miraculous and marvelously endowed
being fallen from another world and therefore
lacking any definite ties with the rest of ter-
restrial life.

If then we believe that a vital spiritual force
dwells within every plant, what becomes of it
after the death of its enclosing walls? Each
cell of a tree in effect dies many times each
season. Continual waste and renovation bring
periodic transformation of cell structure. The
abode is changed but not the inhabitant. ‘There
must be an animating, non-physical force which
carries on the cycle. If it is superior to the

[212]

THE HIGHER LIFE OF PLANTS

forces of bodily dissolution, must it not also be
infinite, immortal?

With so many modern people doubting (or
pretending to doubt) the immortality of man,
it may seem presumptuous to claim immortality
for the plants, yet that is the unescapable con-
clusion to which the writers of this book are
driven. All life is one, indivisible and insepar-
able. There is a divine spark in every living
creature and it is reasonable to expect it to live
beyond death. Immortality by reproduction is
not enough. If it were true that the eternal
principle continually passes from parent to off-
spring, and that when the parent dies, he is
dead spiritually as well as physically, then we
should expect immediate degeneracy and death
after reproduction takes place. That a portion
of soul essence descends through countless gen-
erations we do not doubt, but each plant and
animal is also a spiritual entity. Man and plants
are both tools in the hands of Maeterlinck’s all-
prevailing intelligence. Yet man feels that he
is a free agent. Why not the plants also?

Every plant has racial and family traits, and
each one also has a marked personality. If im-

[213]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

mortality is a fulfilling, a conserving con-
tinuance of the present earthly existence, then
the plants deserve and have a right to expect
a chance for infinite development.

The plants serve to make this earth a floral
paradise. Why should they not be equally
necessary in a world of spirit? It is to man’s

credit that he has always pictured heaven as a

place made beautiful by great hosts of trees
and flowers.

[214]

CHAPTER XV
PLANTS AND MEN

“Our human souls
Cling to the grass and water brooks.”
—A thanase

HE average city man gives little thought
gk or attention to his vegetable neighbours,
yet their continued existence is quite as vital to
him as the air he breathes. Directly or indi-
rectly he is utterly dependent upon them.
Every time he sits down to a dinner table, he
is paying an unconscious tribute to the food-
producing abilities of plantdom. In a general
way, plants are the world’s food producers and
the animals are the consumers. Plants are able
to build up living tissue from inorganic ma-
terial. Animals must prey upon that elaborated
structure to keep themselves alive. Plants
separate oxygen from carbon dioxide and
water, thereby storing up sunshine as potential
energy. Animals reverse the process, and, re-
combining oxygen with the plant tissue, liberate

[215]

——— iain anntenneatnnenennenninninninnennei ne
PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

heat and power. In a desert region, animals
soon perish, because even carnivorous species
live on herbivorous fellows which in turn are
eaters of plants. This is why the distribution of
men and animals is so greatly influenced by
that of plants.

For clothing man depends partly upon such
plant-products as Cotton and Flax and partly
on plant-fed animals which yield him silk, wool
and leather. The great plant structures of the
forest give him the chief materials which go
into the construction of his ships and houses,
with all their appurtenances. ‘The bodies of
plants, recently alive or the bodies of plants
long since dead furnish fuel for cooking, heat-
ing and power. Drugs are very largely of
vegetable origin. In brief, the plants feed,
clothe, shelter, and warm mankind.

Man has made many plants his servants. His
first attention was naturally given to such
species as he could use for food. Two thousand
years ago, the ancients were growing practically
all the food plants that are known today. Maize,
Potatoes, Rice, Beans, Dates and Bananas have
been cultivated for an even longer period.

[216]

PLANTS AND MEN

Fodder plants, calculated to furnish food for
man’s domestic animals, were the next to re-
ceive attention, and following those, medical
plants, edible fruits, garden vegetables and
aromatic leaves and seeds, such as Tea and
Coffee, came to the fore.

When we consider that plants display
superior powers in so many directions and, as
F. L. Sargent says, “do to perfection so many
things we cannot do at all,” it is really remark-
able that man has so completely subjected them
to his will. Because of their static condition,
they are quite helpless in his hands. He levels
their grandest forests and purns their widest
prairies. Certain plants he makes his pets, fight-
ing their enemies and nurturing them in the
most careful way. The tender Wheat would
never be able to occupy the vast stretches it
does through its own strength. Under man’s
guidance and protection, its volume is increased
a thousand fold.

The vast changes which human efforts make
in the surface of the earth have a correspond-
ingly important effect on vegetation. Every
time a tract of woods is cut down, every time a

[217]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

lake is drained, every time a field is plowed—
whenever any alteration is made in the land-

scape—the vegetation is affected. Sometimes
this disturbance of the natural order of things
becomes a serious menace, as in the case of de-
forestation. ‘The welfare of the world is bound
up with the welfare of the plants.

About a hundred years ago, a certain section
of forest in France was levelled. It contained
Oak, Beech, and Ash. The new trees to spring
up were Birch and Poplar. After thirty years
they too were felled and young shoots of the
same species immediately came up, with a few
descendants of the original growth reappear-
ing. It was not until the third clearing or ninety
years after the original cutting that the Oaks
and Beeches began to regain their lost prestige.
This is a good example of the effect that human
operations have on the plant world. Wholesale
cuttings tend to change the chemical composi-
tion of the soil by withdrawing certainelements,
thereby causing other species to flourish which
do not need this material.

When it comes to plants grown in nurseries
and conservatories, gardeners are often able to

[218]

PLANTS AND MEN

make almost unbelievable changes in floral and
vegetable form and structure. There has been
much experimentation of recent years in con-
nection with the effect of light, both natural
and artificial, on plant processes. In general,
it has been established that it is just as injurious
for a plant to have too much light as too little.
Steady exposure to light makes for accelerated
growth of tissue. Lessening light speeds up
flowering and reproduction. Control over a
plant’s light supply therefore means that the
manipulator can produce at will either large,
luxuriantly foliaged plants which flower late,
or from the same seed develop small specimens
blooming exceptionally early.

Man is not content with merely controlling
the external conditions which affect vegetation
but often steps into their internal processes and
moulds their life-forces at their very fountain-
head. By the simple methods of selection and
cross-breeding, he is able to work miracles with
the laws of heredity, and bridge in a few years
gaps which a plant would have taken centuries
to span by ordinary evolutionary processes.

Luther Burbank is the modern garden

[219]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

wizard who has attained the greatest distinction
in this field. He says: ‘There is no barrier to
obtaining fruits of any size, form or flavour
desired, and none to producing plants and
flowers of any form, colour or fragrance; all
that is needed is a knowledge to guide our efforts
in the right direction, undeviating patience and
cultivated eyes to detect variations of value,”

Burbank has many times shown that he has
the knowledge, patience and cultivated eye in
a superlative degree. He claims to only apply
old methods in a new way, but his results have
been phenomenal. In fruits he has produced
many new varieties of Apples, Pears, Peaches,
Apricots, Plums, Prunes, Cherries and Quinces.
His Plumcot is a delicious cross between a
Plum and an Apricot. Out of the Dewberry
and a Siberian Raspberry he compounded what
he calls the Primus Berry. A Dewberry plus a
Cuthbert Raspberry equals a Phenomenal
Berry. One Lawton Blackberry and one Crystal
White Blackberry make one Paradox Berry.

Among the Burbank floral creations the
Shasta Daisy is notable. It combines strains
from Europe, Japan, and America. A new giant

[220]

PLANTS AND MEN

Amaryllis has twelve-inch blossoms. The Tigri-
dias is suectacular, the blue Poppies are odd and
there are many extraordinary Lilies.

The substitute for Grass developed by the
California naturalist thrives through the most
severe drought and so is of practical economic.
value. His improved Walnut Trees grow to a
large size in a few years and his Chestnuts bear
abundant crops when they are mere _ bushes.
Spineless Cactus is a very valuable creation.

All these results are obtained in what seems
to be a very simple way, yet their successful
outcome is only made possible by the mind of
genius working with infinite patience over long
periods of years. To select out of a group of
plants a few individuals which show excep-
tional quality of a desirable type; to save the
seed of these favoured few and make further
selections among their progeny; to couple with
this the cross-pollenizing of different varieties
or species showing a tendency to greater varia-
tion or accentuation of characteristics—all this
may seem only high grade garden practice,
but only one man in two or three generations
has the exceptional and sympathetic perceptive

[221]

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS

faculties which enable him to attain really
striking results.

On his experimental farms near Santa Rosa,
California, Luther Burbank has made many
thousand distinct experiments involving a wide
range of plant species. It is said that at times
he has had as many as three thousand tests, call-
ing for observations on a million plants and
flowers, under way at once. Probably no similar
area of the earth’s surface has grown such a
variety of vegetable products or had such in-
finite care lavished upon it.

These are the practical aspects of the rela-
tions of plants to men. On the esthetic and
pleasurable side they are equally important.

The love of plants and flowers is a universal
sentiment slumbering in the most prosaic breast.
Plants are a perpetual source of joy. They are
friends which never change. In youth, they give
zest to our outdoor pleasures. In age, they be-
speak the happiness of days gone by. In death,
they strew our last resting place with fragrance.
At all times, they stand for purity, beauty and
peace.

THE END

[222]

INDEX

Acacia, 125

Acanthus, 103

Aglaia, 139

Agave, 67

Air Plants, 41

Alder, 25, 41, 99

Alfalfa, 56

Algae, 18, 19, 22, 24, 44, 60,
127

Almond, 56, 103, 182
Aloe, 93
Amaryllis, 221
Ampelopsis, 108
Anemone, 97, 144
Anacharis, 49
Antirrhinum, 75
Ant Nest Plant, 72
Apple, 61, 82, 220
Apricot, 51, 56, 220
Arrowhead, 47, 92
Arum, 146
Aspen, 181

Ash, 46, 218
Asphodel, 145
Aster, 97, 100, 103
Asterophyllites, 24
Azalia, 79, 97

Bacteria. 31, :55,'.66,' 135, 139,
190

Balm of Gilead, 150
Balsam, 181

Balsam Poplar, 78
Bamboo, 26, 56, 103, 121
Banana, 124, 126
Banibusa, 139

Barberry, 105, 126
Barley, 26

Barrel Cactus, 67

Basil, 151
Bean, 29, 35, 51, 66, 91, 116,
125, 164, 216

Beech, 62, 139, 208, 218
Beech Drops, 62

Beet, 37, 132

Begonia, 93, 98
Belladonna, 152, 158
Birch, 25, 41, 42, 78, 218
Birth-Wort, 76
Blackberry, 42, 158 __
Biack-eyed Susan, 97
Biadderwort, 46, 131
Brambles, 192
Broom-Rape, 62
Butter-and-Eggs, 50
Buttercup, 37, 92, 96, 103
Butternut, 47
Butter-Wort, 75

Cabbage, 105
Cactus, 34, 66, 98, 132, 2607,
221

Calamites, 24

Calceolarais, 97

Camellia, 97

Cardoon Artichoke, 49

Carrion Flower, 88

Carrot... 37; (109, 1132

Castor Oil Tree, 41

Catalpa, 116

Cat-Tail, 116

Cecropia, 73, 81

Cedar, 116

Cherry, 54,56; 72,403; 275,
220

Chestnut, 42, 221
Chickweed, 171
Cinerarias, 97

Clover, 66, 165
Club-Mosses, 24
Cobaea Scandens, 79
Cockle-bur, 48
Cocoanut, 45

Coffee, 51, 52, 217
Compass-Plant, 172
Conifers, 25, 42
Corn, 116, 168
Cotton, 216
Cottonwood, 115
Cow Horn Orchid, 71
Cowslip, 78, 162
Cranesbill, 98
Crocus, 37, 108, 145
Cuckoo-Pint, 66, 88
Cucumber, 51, 82
Currant, 175
Cyclamen, 161
Cypress, 25 ,175, 182

Daffodil, 37

Daisy, 104, 162, 220

Dandelion, 45, 47, 79, 102, 162,
171,. 175

Date, 82, 216

Date Palm, 35

Datura, 171

Day-Lily, 171

Delphinium, 97

Devil’s Snuff Box, 159

Devil’s Thread, 62

Dewberry, 220

Diatoms, 127

Dodder, 58, 62

Duckweed, 46

Dutch Clover, 165

Dutchman’s Pipe, 106

Elder, 152, 159

Elm, 25, 26, 42, 46, 115
Enchanters’ Nightshade, 151
Epiphytes, 64, 72
Eryptogams, 24

Ferns, 22, 41, 43, 44, 190

Feterita, 56

Figwort, 87

Fir, 103

Fire Weed, 47

Flagellates, 18

Flax, 63, 216

pene Clover, 162, 165,
1

Fox Glove, 160, 161

Fuchia, 79, 93

Fungus, 22, 34, 48, 58, 60,

39

b

Gas Plant, 135
Gentian, 97
Giant Cactus, 67
Goat’s Beard, 171
Goldenrod, 184
Gorse, 86, 97
Gossamer, 161
Gourd, 210

Grape, 67, 104
Grass, 36, 41
Grass of Parnassus, 193
Groundsel, 146

Harebell, 161
Hawkweed, 80
Hawkweed Picris, 171
Hawthorn, 104

Hazel, 36, 78
Heliotrope, 181
Hemlock, 160

Hemp, 62

Henna, 151

Herban, 158
Herb-Bennett, 159
Herb-Paris, 160 -
Hollyhock, 79, 97
Hop, 35

Horse Chestnut, 104
Hortensia, 137
Hyacinth, 37, 97, 108, 192

Ice-Plant, 171
Imba-uba Tree, 73
Indian Licorice, 170
Indian Pipe, 61
Indigo, 93

Iris, 92, 103, 192
Ivy, 103
Ivy-Geranium, 108

Jessamine, 97, 175
Job’s Tears, 157
Junger Mania, 127

Lantana, 53, 54

Laurel, 26, 88, 97, 105, 159,
175, 182

Leek, 165, 184

Legumes, 26, 31

Lepidodendrons, 24

Lettuce, 99, 158

Lichen, 22, 42, 48, 60

Lilac, 34, 97

Baily, °°79, 97,103, 145,
$56,975, 381,« 221

Lime, 78

Linden, 26, 46

Liverwort, 19, 20, 21, 22

Lomatophylos, 24

Loosestrife, 77

Lotus, 103, 124, 144, 147

Love in the Mist, 193

Lucrene, 51, 93

Luck Flower, 160

Luminous Peridineas, 139

Lupine, 86

Lycoperdon, 159

Magnolia, 26, 99

Maiden-Hair Fern, 145
Maize, 26, 35, 51, 216
Mandrake, 179

Mani Blight, 55

Manico, 26

Maple, 26, 47, 101, 103, 208

149,

Mares’ Tails, 24
Marigold, 125, 162, 171
Melastroma Plant, 73
Melon, 82
Mermidones, 73
Mexican Grape, 66
Mildew, 61

Milkweed, 102
Mimosa, 122, 121
Mistletoe, 47, 65, 147
Molluka, 146
Monotropa, 61
Monstera, 191
Moonflower, 171
Moon-Plant, 151
Moonwart, 160
Morning Glory, 49, 128
Moss, 20, 21, 22, 42, 48, 190
Mountain Laurel, 88
Muiberry, 51

Mullein, 75, 101
Murderer Liana, 206
Myrtle, 182
Myxomycetes, 194

Naked Stalked Poppy, 171
Narcissus, 108, 145, 148
Nasturtium, 80, 108

Navel Orange, 56
Nephelium, 139

Nettle, 35, 76
Night-Blooming Cereus, 171
Night-Shade,159

Nostoc, 22

Oak, 25, 42, 103, 139, 208, 218

Olive, 103, 175, 182

Onion, 156, 163, 164

Opuntia, 197

Orange, 56

Orchid, 60, 64, 74, 89, 97, 102,
126, 144, 146, 147

Oscillating Sainfoin, 126

Oxalis, 36, 116, 125

Palm, 25, 26, 41, 94, 100, 103,
105, 175, 182

Pansy, 108, 175

Papyrus, 103

Parauox Berry, 220

Parnassia, 127

Parsley, 164

Passion Flower, 76, 101, 103,
145, 197

Pea, 26, 51, 105, 163

Peach, 51, 61, 220

Pear; “51, 61, 220

Pelargoniums, 97

Peony, 97, 103

Persimmon, 26

Phenomenal Berry, 220

Pigweed, 49

Pimpernel, 160, 169

Pine, 26, 111, 114, 208

Pink, 145

Pistachio, 82

Plane, 26

Plum, 175, 220

Plumcot, 220

Poa Annua, 40

Polyanthus, 79

Polygalas, 93

Polygonums Tree, 73

Pomegranate, 103, 104, 151

Pond Lily, 91

Pond Weeds, 83

Poplar, 98, 99, 218

Poppy, 86, 97, 100, 144, 156,
181, 221

Potate,./26).,37,..0o, 2o7,) 216

Potentillas, 192

Prickly Pear, 67, 197

Primrose, 37, 79, 86, 174, 192

Privet, 105

Protozoa, 12

Prune, 220

Psilophyton, 24

Puff-Ball, 159
Purple Orchis, 146
Quince, 220

Rafflessia Arnoldi, 64

Ragwort, 160

Raspberry, 220

Rattlesnake Iris, 116

Red Anemone, 146

Redwood, 26, 101

Rhododendron, 79, 97, 99

Rice, 26, 216

Rock-Lichens, 75

Rose, 86, 95, 97, 98, 100, 103,
104, 145, 150, 156, 163,
175 182 184

Rose of Jericho, 146

Rose-blight, 61

Rosemary, 181

Rue, 159

Saffron, 51

Sage, 87, 116
Sanfoin, 126, 146
Scarlet Runner, 91
Sea Hoily, 98

Sea Poppy, 160
Sensitive Plant, 130
Sequoia, 26

Service Tree, 191
Shamrock, 165, 184
Shasta Daisy, 220
Siberian Raspberry, 220
Sigillarias, 24

Silene, 78

Silver Fir, 26
Smilax, 116
Snowberry, 105
Snowdrop, 37, 182
Soma, 151
Sow-Thistle, 158, 171
Spanish Moss, 65
Spinach, 51
Spineless Cactus, 221

Spotted Persicaria, 146
Spruce, 26

Squash, 168

Squirting Cucumber, 116
Stapelia, 87

Stinging Nettle, 75
Strawberry, 146

String Bean, 105
Star-Flower, 163

St. John’s Wort, 150, 161
Sundew 193, 197

Sudan Grass, 56

Sugar Cane, 51, 116
Sunflower, 116, 128
Sweet Gum, 102

Sweet Pea, 80, 108
Sweet Potato, 109
Sycamore, 47, 78, 131

Tea, 217

Thistle, 47, 49, 159, 165, 175,
184

Thorn-Apple, 104

Thyme, 146

Tigridias, 221
Toadstool, 158, 162
Tobacco, 26, 62
Tococa, 73
Touch-me-not, 48, 181
Tree-ferns, 24

Trefoil, 86, 103, 165
Trumpet Vine, 97
Tulip, 37, 97, 104, 162
Tumble Weed, 46
Tumeric, 157

Parmp, 3/7; 132
Vallisneria, 206

Venus Fly-Trap, 130, 198, 200
Verbena, 97, 150

Veronica, 125

Vervain, 159, 160

Vetch, 66, 72

Victoria Regia, 91, 118

Violet, 36, 93, 100, 144, 181

Walnut, 42, 47, 51, 221
Water Chestnut, 92
Water Hyacinth, 52
Water Lily, 86, 118, 133
Watermelon, 51
Weather-Plant, 170
Weeping Willow, 100
Wheat, 26, 51, 56, 116, 217
Wheat-Rust, 61
Wild Anemone, 181
Willow, es 46, 99, 100, 115,
14

Wistaria, 48, 95, 97, 103, 108,
128,

Witch Hazel, 116

Wolffias, 46

Wood-Anemone, 162

Woodroof, 146

Wood-Sorrel, 146, 161, 165

Wormwood, 151

Xanthium Spinosum, 37

Yam, 26

Yellow Narcissus, 148
Yew, 160

Yucca, 90

Zoochlorella, 61
Zooxanthella, 61

New York Botanical Garden Library

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