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Title: Personality of plants

Author: Royal Dixon
        Franklyn Everett Fitch

Release date: June 5, 2022 [eBook #68239]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Boullion-Biggs

Credits: The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERSONALITY OF PLANTS ***





_PERSONALITY OF PLANTS_

[Illustration: The Fuchsia has a Distinctive and Esthetic Manner.]




  PERSONALITY
  OF PLANTS

  _By_ ROYAL DIXON _and_
  FRANKLYN E. FITCH

  [Illustration]

  New York
  BOULLION-BIGGS
  1923




  Copyright, 1923, by
  BOULLION-BIGGS, Inc.

  _All Rights Reserved_


  PRINTED IN U. S. A.




  CONTENTS


                                  Page

  INTRODUCTION                      11

  ORIGIN OF PLANTS                  17

  LIFE OF A PLANT                   27

  MIGRATIONS OF PLANTS              39

  COMRADES OF THE PLANT WORLD       57

  ALLIES OF THE PLANT WORLD         69

  MARRIAGE CUSTOMS OF PLANTS        83

  ART IN THE PLANT WORLD            95

  MUSIC IN THE PLANT WORLD         110

  SCIENCE IN THE PLANT WORLD       122

  RELIGION IN THE PLANT WORLD      141

  PLANT MYTHOLOGY                  154

  MYSTICISM IN THE PLANT WORLD     167

  PLANT INTELLIGENCE               186

  THE HIGHER LIFE OF PLANTS        204

  PLANTS & MEN                     215




  To

  EDWIN MARKHAM

  and

  ANNA CATHERINE MARKHAM

  who live their poetry.




  “That nothing walks with aimless feet;
    That not one life shall be destroyed;
    Or cast as rubbish to the void,
  When God hath made the pile complete;

  “That not one worm is cloven in vain;
    That not a moth with vain desire
    Is shrivel’d in a fruitless fire,
  Or but subserves another’s gain.”

  --_Tennyson._




INTRODUCTION


“The natural world, so to speak, is the raw material of the spiritual.
Therefore, ere man can understand the spiritual, he must understand the
natural,” writes Thomas Gentry.

The authors of this book would go a step further and say that the
natural world _is_ the spiritual. Soul and body, ephemeral and
material, on this plane of existence are ineffably bound together.
If you would climb to sublime heights of ghostly exaltation, study
first the grass at your feet. If you would unravel the mysteries of
the universe, desert the cloistered hearth for the wonders of woods
and meadows. Slow-thinking man will never understand the secret of his
own existence, until he thoroughly understands the plants outside his
window.

For one to examine dead, withered specimens and hope to understand
Nature is as if a person should analyze hundreds of Egyptian mummies
in order to acquaint himself with the human race. You must seek the
flowers on their native heath and treat them as friends and equals.
Too often is the human creature inclined to look upon members of the
vegetable kingdom as things apart from the world of life--insensate
beings which can be cut down and trampled without offense--mere
“growths,” more akin to earth and stone than to himself.

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

If this, then, is the one characteristic which distinguishes all
terrestrial life, it follows that all creatures from the unicellular
protoza to man himself are intimately related, are all part and
parcel of the same system, are recognizable by differences in degree
but not in kind, and are all interesting manifestations of that
mysterious thing we call life. No creature lives or dies to itself. The
correlation of organisms in Nature is similiar to the correlation of
organs in individual plants and animals.

If the reader will but face this fact, he will approach the study of
Nature with a new reverence. He will recognize the oneness and kinship
of all life.

It is largely the object of this book to explore the inner recesses of
breathing and thinking plantdom--to take the reader beyond the limits
of text-book botany into regions of sympathetic insight--to show how
even human arts and sciences are unchangeably bound up with the lives
and hopes of the grasses and flowers.

To do this comprehensively, it has been thought wise not only to
indicate how plants think and act but to incorporate a broad general
history of their race stretching back to their first appearance on
the planet and carried forward to the Burbank creations. With this
knowledge in hand, we are better equipped to approach that fascinating
realm which touches on the intelligence, the spirituality, the
mysticism, the psychic phenomena, the higher life of plants.

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

While today it is no longer the fashion to believe that plants were
created for man’s _sole_ benefit, yet it cannot be denied that,
because of their physical limitations and inferior intelligence, the
plants frequently become very docile servants of the human race,
thereby thriving mightily and to their own great advantage. This is
as it should be. It is a law of earthly life. The danger lies in the
contempt which this servitude engenders in the consciousness of man,
the master. The plants are inferiors but very wonderful inferiors. We
should accord them the highest respect. We should accept our dominion
over them as a favour of a beneficent Providence,--a priceless gift
which it is criminal to squander or misuse.




CHAPTER I

Origin of Plants

  “_’Tis a quaint thought, and yet perchance,
    Sweet blossoms, ye have sprung
  From flowers that over Eden once
    Their pristine fragrance flung._”


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

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

In the early days of this planet, when its crust was scarcely hardened
from the molten state, there reigned what might be called the age of
water. The entire surface of the globe was covered with a sea of
restless, moving liquid, overcharged with a heavy atmosphere of vapour,
so dense that not a single ray of light could penetrate it. As the
process of cooling went on, more and more moisture condensed out of the
air, until finally the first ray of light reached the universal sea and
terrestrial day began.

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

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

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

Certainly the plants were in the ascendency. The mobile green Algae
were characteristic of the time. It is a remarkable thing that though
they are probably the progenitors of all that vast world of vegetable
life which enriches the world today, the Algae have always gone on
reproducing their own kind. Today we can watch, under a microscope, the
activities of the first form of terrestrial life, born incalculable
aeons ago.

Mayhap the earth would be peopled exclusively by Algae and similar
forms today, if it had not been for a prehistoric accident. One day,
the water suddenly receded from a bit of land and left some Algae in
the mud behind it. Now, the Algae had always been used to plenty of
water and they saw that unless they did some quick thinking, they
were in danger of drying up and blowing away. Accordingly, by common
consent, they secreted and surrounded themselves with a jelly-like mass
capable of absorbing and holding water. The amphibious Liverworts and
the _Ricciocarpus Natans_ do the same thing today.

With the Algae successfully living in the mud, surrounded by their
mucilaginous water-reservoirs, it was but a step for some enterprising
individual to extend a portion of his own tissue in search of more
water. By this simple act, the first root came into being, and lo!
there were terrestrial plants.

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

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

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

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

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

The first plants were non-sexual and propagated by cell division. They
were therefore capable of little advancement. With the introduction
of the sex element, infinite possibilities for racial improvement
and differentiation were opened up. The Mosses and Ferns belonging
to the family _Archegoniatae_ early established an alternation of
generation in which the spores give rise to a small plant which looks
like a Liverwort and bears the reproductive organs. The fertilized ovum
of this plant grows into a leafy, sexless individual which produces
spores non-sexually. We therefore have a generation endowed with sex
organs making for development and progress, alternating with a sexless
generation calculated to continue the tendencies of the race.

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

In the luxurious atmosphere of the early globe, vegetation waxed
strong and vigorous and attained remarkable proportions. The primeval
woods served to draw the superabundant carbon from the air and in
millions of decayed bodies store it up as graphite, coal, petroleum and
illuminating gas. The present day graphite beds alone represent vast
quantities of ancient vegetation. It is a unique experience to be able
to write or draw pictures of these prehistoric plants and use, in the
carbon of our pencils, portions of their very bodies.

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

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

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

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

In the course of evolution, the Conifer trees were the next to develop
extensively. They gained a great ascendency, but were succeeded by
Palms, Alders, Cypress and Elms. By the Miocene period, all the
forms known in tropic Africa today had come into existence, but were
restricted by no such regional limitations as they labour under now.
Oaks and Palms, Birches and Bamboos, Elms and Laurels grew side by
side. The Palms reached as far north as Bohemia, Switzerland and
Belgium. Maples, Lindens, Planes, Spruces, Magnolias, Persimmons
and Pines flourished in Greenland. The Silver Fir and the Southern
Cypress advanced to within two hundred leagues of the North Pole.
The California Redwoods and Sequoias are survivors of a race which
flourished in this age.

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

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

[Illustration: THE LIFE OF A DAISY IS SPENT IN BRIGHTENING OUR FIELDS
AND PASTURES]




CHAPTER II

LIFE OF A PLANT

  “_We cannot pass a blade of grass unheeded by the way,
  For it whispers to our thoughts and we its silent voice obey._”

  --_J. E. Carpenter_


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

To the lay mind, the statement that the plants depend upon the soil
for their nourishment is quite self-evident, yet it is extremely
inaccurate. It is now quite certain that the vegetable world relies
upon the _air_ for its largest and most important food supply. The
great mass of carbon which is the chief constituent of all plant
structure is drawn almost exclusively from the atmosphere. While it is
true that many vital elements are obtained from the earth, all green
plants manufacture the greater part of their solid material out of
the carbon dioxide of the air. Of what the plants do obtain from the
soil, water makes up the largest bulk. The bread and meat of the plant
world is carbon dioxide; the drink is soil water in which is dissolved
certain essential salts and condiments.

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

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

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

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

The first action of the planted Bean is to absorb water to a prodigious
amount, and so wake the quiescent life forces which may have been
slumbering within it for years. It is a law of animal and vegetable
life that all vital processes must be performed in solution. Without
water, life is dead or somnolent.

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

By this time, the seed has burst its walls and split into two halves,
which indicates that it belongs to the dicotyledonous group of plants.
As the seedling continues to grow, these cotyledons begin to shrink
and shrivel. The plant is living on their substance until it can begin
to make its own. In the case of the Bean, the stem lifts the emaciated
cotyledons up into the air, where they act as leaves until the tiny
green things at the stem’s tip have expanded into those important
organs.

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

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

The actual absorption is done by minute filaments or hairs which take
in water and its dissolved contents by osmotic action. They secrete
a digestive fluid which renders certain minerals soluble, and by a
strange intelligence, select the kind and amount of material they
take in. In certain groups of plants, notably the Legumes, colonies
of Bacteria take the place of root hairs, and by a reciprocal action,
provide the plant with the nitrogenous elements which it craves.

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

The root hairs are constructed so as to allow fluids to pass in but not
out. The continual absorption of water results in a mechanical pressure
which automatically forces the sap up through the stem to all parts of
the plant. The process is aided by the evaporation of water from the
leaves, through the partial vacuum created by them at the top of the
system. Pushed from below and pulled from above, the sap of a tree,
for instance, moves with a propulsive power greater than the blood
pressure of the strongest animal.

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

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

In the inner tissue of each leaf is a substance called chlorophyll.
It is the material which gives leaves their green colour. It is one
of the most important substances in plantdom. Under the influence of
sunlight, this chlorophyll takes the carbon dioxide of the air, and,
with water and certain minerals, makes starch, the raw material of
plant construction. This process, called photosynthesis, goes on while
the sun shines, and stops with the approach of darkness. The necessity
of plenty of light cannot be overestimated.

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

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

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

When our seedling grows old enough, it marries and has a family. Among
the higher plants, the sexes are quite distinct. There are such things
as male plants and such things as female plants, but more often both
sexes occur in the same individual and frequently in the same flowers.
The Hop, Nettle, and Date Palm are one-sex plants. Maize has flowers of
different sexes on the same stem.

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

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

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

This is the story in brief, but there are many other details. The
different plants have invented and perfected all kinds of devices
to secure the effective propagation of the race. The Hazel and the
Grasses hang their stamens out in the wind in order that it may blow
their pollen to some other plant, which is waiting with feathered
pistil to catch it. Most garden plants depend on the insects to act as
pollen carriers and display gorgeous flower-petals and nectar pits with
which to attract them. Many plants aim to prevent self-fertilization by
having the stamens and the pistil come to maturity at different times.

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

The problem of food storage is an important one in plantdom. Annuals
die when they have flowered and produced seed. Perennials wither but
persist for a number of seasons and sometimes many years. Those whose
stems or trunks are permanent withdraw their starch and chlorophyll
into their cambium layer where it is safe from freezing. Those which
die down to the ground each fall store up food material in underground
stems and roots in sufficient amount to get a good start the following
season. The Potato is an enlargement of the underground stem, but
Carrots, Beets, and Turnips are bulbous roots. Hyacinths, Tulips,
Daffodils, Snowdrops, Crocuses, and Buttercups all store food material
in bulbs. Practically all wild flowers which come up early in the
spring, feed upon the nutriment manufactured during the previous season.

Buds represent the foliage of the coming season. Each fall, trees and
bushes prepare for next year’s growth by putting forth miniature
shoots and leaves folded up in warm brown overcoats. At spring’s urgent
call, the buds have merely to cast aside their coverings and step out
into the warm sunlight. These buds really make a tree a community of
individuals, because each one is capable of reproducing everything that
has occurred on the plant up to that point. This is the principle on
which grafting is carried on.

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

[Illustration: IF THIS AGED CEDAR COULD TELL ITS LIFE’S STORY, WE WOULD
FIND IT FULL OF ROMANCE AND ADVENTURE]




CHAPTER III

Migrations of Plants

  “_Race after race of leaves and men
    Bloom, wither and are gone;
  As winds and water rise and fall
    So life and death roll on._”


We are so in the habit of thinking of plants as fixed and static things
that it rarely occurs to us that they migrate over the earth’s surface
quite as extensively as do men or animals.

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

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

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

In a general way, there is a measure of fixity to plant distribution.
Certain plants have elected the tropics as their home; and only under
the greatest stress of circumstance can they be induced to go elsewhere.

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

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

When we get into the polar regions, all the plants take on a stunted
and dwarfed appearance and, in some cases, retire almost entirely
under ground. The number of genera and species is much reduced. The
Oak, Walnut, Chestnut and Elm are replaced by the hardy conifers. At
the point where vegetation becomes almost extinct are dwarf Birches,
Willows and polar Blackberries (_Rubus Arcticus_). The simple Mosses
and Lichens mark the last lingering evidences of life.

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

It is illuminating to take a single country in a more favoured climate
and, as far as possible, trace its plant history. The British Isles,
because of their limited area, are a convenient field of study. An
investigation of their settlement by plants gives us many hints about
prehistoric climatic and geographical changes.

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

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

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

“The first phase of the new vegetation, was a thin film of microscopic
fresh-water Algae, forming a green, slimy coating, such as may often
be seen on damp rocks, and furnishing a hygroscopic condition, in the
absence of which it is doubtful whether the Ferns by which they were
followed could have established themselves. Both Algae and Ferns are
reproduced from microscopic spores, which are readily conveyed long
distances by winds. Eleven species of Ferns were found, all of very
wide distribution, and some of them had already become common the
fourth year after the eruption. Scattered here and there among the
Ferns were isolated individuals of flowering plants, belonging to such
kinds as have succulent seed-vessels eaten by birds, or such as have a
light, feathery seed-vessel like the Dandelion and a host of others,
and are wafted from place to place by the winds.

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

The farther such an island is from the land, the longer will vegetation
take to get established. Darwin found that the isolated islands of
Keeling, after thousands of years of existence, contained only twenty
kinds of flowering plants.

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

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

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

To this end practically every seed in existence is provided with
some apparatus or appendage designed to help it make its way in the
world. The Elm, the Linden, and the Ash bear winged seeds, which
are so efficient in riding the breeze that they are really miniature
aeroplanes. The double wings of the Maple are very much like those of
an insect. The seeds are released from their container in such manner
as to acquire a whirling motion as they fall.

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

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

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

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

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

The complete record of plant conquests would fill many volumes. Their
operations have extended into every land and have had influence on the
world’s history. It very often happens that plant invaders become so
quickly and thoroughly naturalized in a strange country that they go
a long way toward supplanting the original inhabitants in a very short
time.

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

It is well known that the most troublesome of the American weeds are of
British origin. On the other hand, the American water weed _Anacharis_
blocks up small English streams. The grass called _Stipa Tortilis_
has captured the steppes of southern Russia. The love of change seems
to be an inherent tendency in plantdom. The Pigweed and the Morning
Glory have come north from the tropics. The Canada Thistle, originally
a foreigner in North America, has spread all over Canada and New
England. The American _Erigeron Canadense_ has emigrated to all parts
of the world. The flora of Scandinavia, like its people, are aggressive
colonizers. More than one hundred and fifty species have reached New
Zealand alone and nearly as many have established themselves in the
eastern United States.

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

On the whole, annuals have a better chance than perennials to gain a
foothold in a new country. Every spring the weeds, grasses, and common
flowering plants have to start all over again from a seed beginning.
The spores of newcomers, therefore, have almost an equal chance
with the established inhabitants. On the other hand, the bodies of
perennials occupy the land in close-packed ranks all the year, ready
to dispute every inch of ground with an aggressor. It is very hard for
new plants to gain entrance into a well-grown forest.

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

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

From an obscure native of Bengal, the Sugar Cane has become an
important plant of wide distribution. Coffee, a wild berry of Arabia,
is now the chief crop of whole countries in the West Indies and South
America. The yellow Maize of America has become a citizen of the world.
The weak and humble Wheat is the sole possessor of thousands of square
miles of land in America, Russia and elsewhere.

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

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

Sometime in 1890, a generously inclined individual threw a Water
Hyacinth into the St. Johns River in Florida. In the space of a few
short years, that single plant had multiplied so prodigiously as to
seriously impede navigation, lumbering and fishing.

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

“And just as the Lantana had taken to itself feet, by the seduction of
its seed it added to itself the wings of the Myna, which distributed
its seed over every island in the group. From a delicate,
hand-manicured, potted plant of the greenhouse, it shot up into a
tough, and belligerent swashbuckler a fathom tall, that marched in
serried ranks over the landscape, crushing beneath it and choking to
death all the sweet native grasses, shrubs and flowers. In the lower
forests, it became jungle, in the open, it became jungle only more so.
It was practically impenetrable to man. The cattlemen wailed and vainly
fought with it. It grew faster and spread faster than they could grub
it out.”

Then ensued a battle royal between man and plant. The man called to
his aid hosts of insect mercenaries. “Some of these predacious enemies
of the Lantana ate and sucked and sapped. Others made incubators out
of the stems, tunnelled and undermined the flower-clusters, hatched
maggots in the hearts of the seeds, or covered the leaves with
suffocating fungoid growths. Thus simultaneously attacked in front and
rear and flank, above and below, inside and out, the all-conquering
swashbuckler recoiled. Today, the battle is almost over, and what
remains of the Lantana is putting up a sickly and losing fight.
Unfortunately, one of the mercenaries has mutinied. This is the
accidently introduced Mani Blight, which is now waging unholy war upon
garden flowers and ornamental plants, and against which some other army
of mercenaries must be turned.”

Such unfortunate occurrences are sure to become more and more
infrequent as plant emigration and immigration finds itself under
increasingly drastic governmental regulation.

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

The agents of the Service are constantly scouring the far corners of
the earth for new and rare plants. In the twenty-four years of its
existence it has introduced from abroad some fifty thousand specimens
of seeds and plant cuttings. Some of the successful immigrants have
been Feterita (from Egypt), Sudan Grass, Bamboo and Alfalfa. New
Zealand has yielded new types of Potatoes. Dwarf Almonds and strange
Cherries and Apricots have come from Turkestan. All these have proven
of commercial importance, as has Durum Russian Wheat, credited with
opening up new areas in the Northwest, and the Navel Orange from Brazil
which has created for itself a California industry covering thirty
thousand acres and valued at fifteen million dollars per annum.

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




CHAPTER IV

COMRADES OF THE PLANT WORLD

  “... _which links by a fraternal tie
  The meanest of His creatures with the high._”

  --_Lamartine_


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

In view of this fundamental fact, we can afford to look with some
degree of charity upon that class of plants which are termed parasites.
These interesting creatures are merely carrying out in a very direct
and apparent way a principle which permeates all domains of life. A
Tiger kills its prey; an Ox devours unoffending Grass; the parasitic
Dodder robs some healthy neighbour of part of its juices.

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

The fact is there are very few plants which are not more or less
dependent upon some living fellow creature for their food supply.
Sometimes the relation is strictly reciprocal; sometimes the advantage
appears to greatly favour one or the other of the participants. In
other cases the occurrence arises accidently through chance proximity,
without a conscious pact or deliberate contract.

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

It must be admitted that there are cases of plant companionship in
which, to all human perception, the material benefits seem directly
one-sided, but who can conclusively deny that the nourishment-giving
partner may not receive some psychic or spiritual benefit from the
union? The Orchids and many other tree-parasites bear flowers of
exquisite beauty. Can we be quite sure that the trees do not like to
adorn themselves with gorgeous ornaments of this kind? Such a desire
would be quite natural.

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

The Fungi and all plants which are “pale, fleshy, as if the decaying
dead with a spirit of life had been animated” have no chlorophyll, the
mysterious green substance which is necessary for the production of
starch. They must either make alliances with plants which possess this
vital elixir or live on decaying matter which contains elaborated
food material. Many choose the latter course, but a goodly number,
especially those of primitive structure, have entered into profitable
partnerships.

The minute one-celled plants called Zoochlorella or Zooxanthella
have chosen the fresh water sponge _Ephydatia Fluviatilis_ for their
messmates. Sometimes they live with the Hydra called _Viridis_ and
impart to it a bright green colour.

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

Cases where Fungi render very valuable services to larger plants are
exemplified by the Monotropa or Indian Pipe. This pallid scavenger
grows on the decaying vegetable matter of the woods. It toils not,
neither does it make plant starch, but it is able to produce pretty,
ghostly flowers and white scale-like leaves. On its roots thrive
species of Fungi which perform the part of root hairs and in return
receive nourishment from their host. Certain authorities claim that the
Fungi get the better of the bargain, as the Monotropa has been known to
maintain its health without them in laboratories. But the fact is the
relation _does_ exist with undisputed benefit to both parties.

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

Prominent among the larger parasitic plants is the Dodder or Devil’s
Thread. This vine derives all its sustenance from other plants and,
as far as can be determined, gives no material return. From this
standpoint, the Dodder is a robber pure and simple, a degenerate
outcast from the community of decent plants. From the viewpoint of
this chapter, it is possible to believe that the host of the Dodder
derives some spiritual or hidden material benefit from the union which
makes it distinctly worth while. If such were not the case, it would
seem that, through ages of evolutionary development, such plants as
Flax would have devised means to escape the Dodder’s clutches.

The Dodder inhabits low ground and pokes an inquiring head above the
surface each spring much like any self-sustaining plant. However, it is
not long before it attaches itself to some lusty neighbour by root-like
suckers, which pierce the stem and extract the nourishing juices. If
the supply seems adequate, the Dodder winds its yellow, yarn-like
tendrils about the host and allows the roots which connect it to the
earth to wither. Its absorbing tubercles look like caterpillar feet;
their cells form a perfect graft with the host and gradually disperse
through its body. If other plants are near enough, the Devil’s Thread
will reach out and tap their food supplies also. A single Dodder
has been known to draw nourishment from five or six other plants of
different families at the same time, thus indicating that it must have
digestive machinery enough to appropriate these varying saps to its own
uses. The Dodder has no chlorophyll and therefore no leaves but bears
pretty little bell-like flowers which later produce seed.

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

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

The beautiful Orchids belong to a botanic group of Epiphytes which
may be classified as guests or lodgers. Being green, they are able to
gather their own living from dust, rain and carbon dioxide in the air.
All they ask from their tree-hosts is a branch on which to perch.
There are probably few trees which are not delighted to have such
delicate, fairy-like creatures add to their own beauty and charm. They
wear them much as a woman wears a rose in her hair.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Almost everything lies in the point of view. No man, no animal, no
plant is so debased and degraded that it does not radiate some little
measure of helpfulness. If “all things work together for good,” even
that member of a plant union which seems to act upon that inverted
principle of “all coming in and nothing going out” has its legitimate
place in the world. As for those numerous examples of share-alike
partnerships, they illustrate the principle of the divine law of love
which lies back of and above the very real hardships and cruelties of
this work-a-day world.

[Illustration: FRIENDLY ALLIES BY THE WATER’S EDGE]




CHAPTER V

ALLIES OF THE PLANT WORLD

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

  --_Elizabeth Fahnestock._


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

Under such strenuous conditions, it is only to be expected that the
plants should seek profitable alliances with birds, insects and animals
having interests similiar to their own. Such pacts are described by
botanists as examples of symbiosis; they most frequently occur between
plants and insects, but the plants also have their working agreements
with members of the other two great kingdoms of life. In fact, all
Nature is a vast system of checks and balances, with every creature
preying more or less upon every other creature, except when they can
gain more by joining their efforts. Certain Humming-Birds lie in wait
near plants which by their nectar-sweets attract swarms of insects, and
hard by, Snakes lie in wait for the Birds. The Birds rid the plants
of destroying pests; the part of the Snakes in a beneficent scheme of
existence is not so apparent, but merely because we cannot see good in
a thing is no argument that it does not exist.

Many of the most important alliances of plants are made in response
to the law that “Nature abhors perpetual self-fertilization”. This
principle is one of the greatest in plantdom; there is a constant
necessity for the intercrossing of independent life-streams. The plants
go to great lengths to see that the multiplication and evolution of the
species is properly carried on.

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

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

An Epiphyte which is particularly solicitous for the welfare of its
insect allies is the Ant-nest Plant, _Rubiaceae Myrme_. This ingenious
creature not only builds nests but builds them made-to-order. Certain
enlargements on its stem are hollowed out into chambers with connecting
galleries quite ready for their intended tenants. All the Ants have to
do is to move in. The kind that usually enter the plant’s service are
fierce warriors, _Iridiomyrmex Myrmecodiae_, with very powerful stings.
They form a formidable bodyguard.

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

The Cherry and Vetch are among plants which secrete a candy-like
substance on their stalks which serves as an allurement for Ants to
climb and establish their homes there. In many cases, these excretions
are also barriers which prevent the Ants from hunting among the
plant’s blossoms for honey, as they would thus destroy the precious
grains of pollen.

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

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

Everyone knows of the large part the industrious Bee plays in the
economy of the plant world. Few plants, there are, which are not aided
in their love-making by this tiny brown buzzer; some flowers depend
upon him entirely in their efforts to propagate the species.

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

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

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

Nettles, Passion-flowers, and Lilies frequently line their interiors
with stiff, in-pointing hairs which oppose a most effective palisade
against anything that crawls, whereas a flyer provided with a proboscis
can stand on the edge and, inserting his straw, drink up the best soda
water in plantdom. This existence of proboscides in insects which help
to cross-fertilize flowers is the very finest example we have of true
mutualism. Here is a case where members of two supposedly different
worlds of life have developed highly specialized organs in order that
they might help each other.

It is said that Charles Darwin, after noting the extraordinary length
of the spur of the Orchid _Angraecum Sesquipedale_ of Madagascar
predicted that some day there would be found in that country a moth
with a proboscis ten to eleven inches long. Not many years after, Dr.
Fritz Müller verified the sagacity of the famous scientist by finding
an insect exactly answering this description.

The Birth-Wort (_Aristolochia Clematitis_) takes no chances with
its insect visitors. In entering it, a Bee brushes easily by the
down-pointing hairs only to find that, when he attempts to go out
again, the bristles present stiff, unyielding obstacles against his
egress. In his excitement at this discovery, he buzzes around quite
angrily and, without noticing it, thoroughly showers the stigma with
pollen and incidentally covers his own body with a good supply to be
carried on to the next stop. When this process is quite complete, the
flower graciously relents, relaxes its hairs and allows the exasperated
insect to escape.

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

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

Night-blooming flowers only entertain after the sun goes down. All day
long they look withered and dead, but with the coming of the stars,
they open up to show conspicuous white or light-tinted interiors. A
flower like the Silene also exhales a rich, sensuous odor, which, with
its light colour, serves to attract such insects as are abroad at night.

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

Pollen of different plants, when examined under the microscope, reveals
wonderful facts about the reciprocal relations which exist between
plants and insects. Wind-fertilized plants are nearly always without
any special beauty of form, colour or scent, while plants which are
fertilized by insects are most always conspicuous, brightly coloured
and highly scented. In the same way, pollen of the Hazel, Birch,
and Balsam Poplar, which is carried by the wind, is small, light,
practically spherical and devoid of protuberances. Pollen of the
Primrose, Cowslip and Polyanthus, often carried by insects, is deeply
furrowed, covered with spines and knobs, strung together by sticky
threads and, in other ways, provided with apparatus which enables it to
adhere to any object which it touches.

The pollen of the Hollyhock and the Dandelion consists of large,
beautiful, spherical grains covered with spikes. The Rhododendrons,
Azalias, and Fuchsias produce great masses of grains bound together by
viscid threads. Many of these bits of life-principle are geometric
masterpieces. A pollen grain of the _Cobaea Scandens_ is one of the
most fascinating objects of the microscopic world. It is perfectly
spherical and cut into small hexagonal facets like the eyes of a fly.
Grains of pollen of all kinds vary between one two-thousandth and one
two-hundredth of an inch in diameter.

Alliances between plants and birds are more important than we imagine.
The tropical Humming-birds and the eastern Sun-birds are in habits
exactly like the pollen-carrying insects. To watch one of these
brilliantly coloured creatures hovering over a flower or flying
directly into a blossom after nectar, is to almost always mistake it
for a Butterfly.

Many birds are invaluable allies of the plant world. They devour
thousands of leaf-eating insects per day and so keep down the army of
enemies which would otherwise destroy whole forests. Birds like the
Woodpeckers rid tree bark of wood-boring crawlers.

In the human world every partner does not always live up to his
agreements. And there are evidences that both plants and their allies
sometimes engage in questionable practices, bordering on deception and
chicanery.

The insects are often enough the offenders, and their crime is most
frequently one of robbery. If they can get the sweets they are
after without carrying out their share of the bargain, they will do
so. Bumble Bees have been observed to cut through the flower-walls
of a Nasturtium and so extract its nectar without coming near the
pollen-producing stamens. Sweet Peas frequently ignore the insects and
fertilize themselves. The Hawkweed (_Hieracium_) has so little faith
in insect allies that it produces seeds parthenogenetically, that is,
without the union of sex elements.

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

While man is the greatest enemy of the plant world, he is also at times
its greatest friend. When it is to his advantage or when he is prompted
by a sincere love of Nature, he becomes a strong and helpful ally. He
aids his fellow creatures of the vegetable world when they are sick or
injured and, by improving their environment and protecting them from
attack and danger, enables them to develop to best advantage. A wizard
like Luther Burbank helps them in their efforts at race improvement and
development.

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




CHAPTER VI

MARRIAGE CUSTOMS OF PLANTS

            “_Pale primroses
  That die unmarried._”--_Shakespeare_


“Love consumes the plants” once wrote Linnaeus, and the observation of
every student of Nature goes to confirm his statement. The plants marry
and are given in marriage. Reproduction is undoubtedly their chief end
in life.

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

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

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

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

One hazy day in the long ago, some plant had a brilliant idea. “There
are a number of insects which are in the habit of paying me unwelcome
visits for the purpose of eating pollen. Why can’t I make use of these
thieves and turn their marauding habits to my own advantage?”

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

This was the idea, and in many diverse and wonderful ways the plants
have carried it out. The first flowers were developed by training
certain stamens to flatten and expand themselves, daub their surfaces
with colour, and so become petals. This evolutionary fact can be
seen today in the white Water Lily, where concentric rows of stamens
gradually merge into petals. Double Roses and Poppies are examples of
the same thing.

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

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

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

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

The English Figwort has adopted repulsive methods of entertainment.
It has contrived to make itself look like and give forth the odour of
decaying meat, because it knows that it will thereby attract certain
Wasps. The South African Stapelia does the same thing with the idea of
alluring Carrion Flies. Still another imitator of similiar kind is the
pale-green Carrion Flower whose visitor is the Blow Fly.

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

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

Down in the shelter of the cup-shaped leaf, the pole is covered with
primitive male flowers, without petals or without sepals, in fact,
nothing more than simple stamens. Below them are rudimentary female
flowers consisting of unadorned pistils. Certain Midges and Flies are
attracted into the leaf cavity of the plant by the store of sweets at
its bottom. Traveling down the pole, these would-be feasters readily
pass the guardian hairs just above the stamens, pass the stamens
themselves and unintentionally fertilize the pistils with pollen they
have picked up on other marauding expeditions. Having partaken of
honey, the Flies seek to escape, but now find the way barred by the
down-pointing hairs which have bristled up in a militant manner. The
insects must stay until the plant decides to release them, which is
never until the stamens have ripened and showered them with a fresh
supply of pollen.

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

In one variety, the English Spotted Orchid, the pollen is enclosed in
two sacks or bags provided with long stems. These sacs are lodged in
special cavities near the pistil in such a manner that the sticky ends
of the stems come in contact with the head of a nectar-sucking Bee.
They adhere firmly. When he departs he has two bulbous ornaments for a
crest. At first they stand erect, but as he flies, the air dries them
and they incline forward on curved stems. When he is ready for his
next cup of honey, they are hanging down in front of his eyes like a
new kind of pawnbroker’s sign. It is no mere happenstance that in this
new position the pollen sacs are deposited on the stigma of the second
flower’s pistil. By such ingenious marriage customs, the Orchids have
become a dominant family in plantdom. They are in the ascendency even
in the tropics, where their frail bodies have to compete with hosts of
plants which are physically much more vigorous.

Between the Yucca and the Yucca Moth exists a wonderful life-long
partnership for the purpose of furthering the reproductive processes of
both. Surely, Nature moves in mysterious ways.

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

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

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

The necessity for dry pollen obtains even among the water plants. If
they are surface-floaters like the Pond Lily or the Victoria Regia, it
is easy enough for them to thrust their blossoms up into the air, where
they may be as dry as though they were on land. The sub-aqueous plants
have a harder problem and are sometimes driven to developing their
flowers in leaf air-chambers below the surface. The Water Chestnut
(_Trapa Natans_) makes itself buoyant at its flowering period with
generated air and rises en masse to the surface. After fertilization,
it sinks again to its sub-aqueous quiet.

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

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

Flowers of the same tree or bush might be called distant cousins. Their
union results in healthy offspring, though the marriage of still more
divergent individuals is preferable. Plants like the Begonia, which
bear single-sex flowers, often grow in somewhat isolated positions and
so must intermarry a great deal among themselves. Staminate flowers at
the top of a stalk can shower pollen over many female flowers growing
below them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Illustration: FLORAL OFFERINGS IN A MOUNTAIN CATHEDRAL]




CHAPTER VII

ART IN THE PLANT WORLD

  “_As if the rainbows of the fresh mild spring
  Had blossomed where they fell._”


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

Plant colours are particularly interesting. The flowers are
master-craftsmen when it comes to the adornment of dainty, delicate
petals with pigments which are the distilled essence of a thousand
rainbows. No other quality in the natural world gives man a deeper
emotional enjoyment. Floral colours speak a whole language of their
own of which we can get only faint interpretations.

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

It should not be imagined that the gayest and most brilliantly coloured
members of the plant world are always residents of the tropics. The
hot countries undoubtedly produce many specimens of startling hue and
pattern, but it is often their ostentation and exotic character, rather
than their beauty or charm, which attract attention. They are apt to be
a bit barbaric and not as numerous as they are reputed to be. For great
masses of beautiful flowers, we do not go to Mid-Africa or Cuba, but
to the mountain-bound meadows of the Alps, the plains of Australia,
or the prairies of America. What is more startlingly beautiful than
a field of Yellow Buttercups or Black-eyed Susans which can be seen
anywhere in the eastern United States? Where can our eyes feast upon a
more wonderful scene than a field of Wild Verbenas and Delphiniums as
found in Texas? In the tropics the flower masses are more scattered.
Even the far-famed Orchids are only abundant in occasional favoured
spots.

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

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

Every tint and hue which we can ever hope to reproduce is present in
the plant world. The flowers by no means monopolize them. On close
examination, a single stalk and leaf exhibit a wonderful variety of
colour. In the Begonia and the Sea Holly, the stalks are exactly the
same colours as the flowers. The wild Cranesbill sports a crimson
stem. The stalks of Poplar leaves are a vivid yellow. To speak of
“green leaves” is to speak in the most general of terms. What is
more exquisite than the silver gray to be seen on the backs of many
tree-leaves, notably the Alders, Willows, and Poplars? Many leaves join
the Wild Lettuce in having purple backs. The reverse sides of Magnolias
and Rhododendrons are red-brown. In the autumn, nearly all leaves show
brilliant patches of colour.

In borrowing Nature’s colours to set forth our ideas, we have become
possessors of a mighty vehicle of expression. With yellow, we can speak
of life, light, cheer and vitality. Red tells of fire, heat, blood,
excitement and passion. Blue indicates coolness, quiet and restraint.
In choosing green for its most universal colour, Nature harmonizes life
and restraint, warmth and coolness, as represented by the component
blue and yellow. In the same way, when she wants to concentrate the
maximum colour power in a single fruit or flower, she uses orange,
a combination of light and heat, vitality and excitement. Purple
represents a neutralized idea. Red vitality is tempered with blue
restraint, which results in mysticism. Nature clothes the Poppy in red
to suggest power and strength. The royal purple of the Aster and the
Violet is purposely calculated to arouse a feeling of mystery and awe.

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

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

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

Each plant, viewed as a whole, has its own peculiar style of structural
beauty--the variation of line and form which stamps it with charm.
This differentiation extends to all parts of the plant and gives
character to leaves, stem, flowers and fruit. Marvellous is the art
worked out in the minute parts. The tendril of the Passion Flower,
the radicle of a Seedling Maple, the feathery hair on a stalk of
Mullein--all these are shaped according to the unknown law of beauty.
Probably every geometrical form exists in some seed pod or fruit. The
artistic little seeds of the Milkweed and the Dandelion are packed into
their containers with a skill which cannot be duplicated, once they
are dislodged. There are a million seeds in the capsules of certain
Orchids. Many seed vessels are tipped, balled, carved and frescoed.

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

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

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

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

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

Grapes and Pomegranates are reproduced with some justice, but the
various small berries almost always appear as miscellaneous spherical
bodies, whereas they are really greatly varied. The Snowberry, Privet,
Laurel and Barberry have distinct characteristics of form and shape.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

American cities are too inclined to be barren wastes of brick and
stone, with but scant provision for plant beauty. Even the rich, who
have their elaborate and beautiful country gardens, seem to forget
the plants and flowers when they come to the city. The self-tending
Ampelopsis and Wistaria vines are the only plants at all common. Our
short summer season and the fact that so many people do not occupy
their city homes in warm weather are a little discouraging, but need
not shake the enthusiasm of any one really interested in plants. For a
few dollars a season florists will assume all care of exterior plants
and vines.

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

A brown stone front, flushed to the sidewalk in the middle of a block,
need not go without floral decoration. Even a terra cotta box on
either side of the entrance is capable of holding much growing joy.
Evergreen shrubs fit well into such surroundings. A window box has
great possibilities. In early spring, Crocus, Narcissus and Hyacinth
flourish in it to advantage. Ivy-Geraniums of smooth waxy leaves and
graceful loose sprays will grow all summer. Vines of various kinds can
be trained so as to make very effective window screens.

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

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

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




CHAPTER VIII

MUSIC IN THE PLANT WORLD

“_Many voices there are in Nature’s choir, and none but were good to
hear Had we mastered the laws of their music well, and could read their
meaning clear; But we who can feel at Nature’s touch, cannot think as
yet with her thought; And I only know that the sough of the pines with
a spell of its own is fraught._”


Music is a language--a species of soft, dreamy speech which makes up
for its lack of definiteness and precision by a beauty and harmony
which can best be described as divine. Indeed, the ancient Greeks
made music an all-inclusive term for the higher conceptions of life.
Dancing, poetry, and even science were supposed to be under its sway,
while the revolution of the heavenly bodies created that “music of the
spheres” which entertained the gods.

It would be better for mankind if this sentiment were more popular
today. It is a narrow notion which confines the idea of musical
harmony to the sounds produced by certain man-made instruments.
Art which is restricted to workings in oil may be very pleasing but
it is also very much limited. Music which is only interpreted on a
violin or a piano falls far short of its grandest possibilities. To
certain minds, the sighing of the wind through a Pine forest is more
exquisitely expressive than a hundred breath-blown symphonies. When men
cannot agree as to what is music among the sounds produced by their
self-created instruments, dare they lightly ignore the many pleasing
sounds which accompany the operations of Nature?

To an American ear, Chinese singing sounds like squealing and a Fiji
concert like a vociferous boiler factory. Yet a Chinaman or a Fiji
Islander will leave our grandest operatic efforts in disgust, though
he may be pleased with the preceding orchestral tunings. Where are we
to set the standard? Is it not safest to fall back on Nature for our
truest conceptions?

The real sublimity of Nature lies in her vocalism. A soundless world
would be greatly lacking in charm. The endearing noises of the woods
and the fields often become so familiar that we fail to notice
their individual merits. Yet they are there. Their sudden cessation
would leave a terrible and unbearable gap. The woods are filled with
gaily costumed feathered minstrels. The meadows are great emerald
stages of song and fancy. The very grass roots are filled with little
insect-fiddlers who chirp cheerfulness. Wind, water and rain all
furnish a grand and beautiful accompaniment.

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

Occasionally, Nature uses the diatonic scale familiar to our western
civilization. When the wind unites its vibrations into the long shrill
note we call the whistle, it is playing according to our musical rules.
Water, when falling perpendicularly from a great height also gives
forth a long, steady note. Even the rhythmical quality so essential to
good music is not lacking in such phenomena as rain pattering on dry
leaves. This sound has proved unusually appealing to many people. The
Mexicans sometimes attempt to imitate it by means of clay rattles.

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

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

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

Almost any tree located on a cliff or on the edge of a mountain,
becomes a musician of the first order. It is apt to take on the
sorrowful tendencies of solitude. The weepings, wailings, murmurings,
groanings, sighs and whispers of the universe vibrate through its
branches. It would seem as if such a tree were trying to express many
mysterious wonders of which man has little knowledge.

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

It is reasonable to believe that every tree and plant has its own
individual voice as set in motion by the wind. A Nature-lover does not
have much difficulty in distinguishing a great many. The desert Sage
whistles in the wind; the Cedar laughs in the storm; the air rustles
through a Wheat field; an agitated Sugar Cane or Corn field gives forth
a sound like tinkling glass. The noise produced by a high wind in the
Southern Smilax has been likened to a harp struck at random.

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

Early man gained more inspiration and pleasure from the music of the
plants than his wiser but more worldly successors. It is said that the
idea for the first flute was obtained by listening to the wind sigh
through the Reeds on the shore of a lake. The first stringed instrument
was probably a fibre accidentally stretched across a hollow shell. The
classic Aeolian harp consisted of a wooden frame containing a thin
sounding-board over which were stretched a number of strips of cat-gut.
If placed before a half-open window so that an air current strikes it
sideways, it gives forth a great volume of harmonious notes in several
octaves. This is a clear case of catching the music of the wind. In a
cruder, less harmonious way, the Japanese glass tinklers of our day do
the same thing. The humming of telegraph wires and the strange chirping
of a wireless instrument are also a kind of singing.

All the plants are not expert musicians, which explains why they often
seek to make up for their own deficiencies by hiring numerous birds and
insects to make melody for them. These musicians are employed in the
truest sense of the word and receive their pay in food, shelter and
protection. In the air and on the ground, by day and by night, they
sing and fiddle for their hosts. The broad leaves of the Water Lily
(_Victoria Regia_) are veritable music schools of Frog practice. Every
voice from croaking bass to youthful tenor is heard! Every tree has its
Frogs and Birds--every bush and shrub innumerable insect warblers.

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

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

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

To Bees, Wasps, Hornets, Flies and Mosquitoes we may ascribe reed
instruments. They depend upon the rapid vibration of their tiny wings
to get their effects. The respiration openings distributed over the
body of a Bee, by giving resonance to the tone, aid in the process and
turn the whole insect’s body into a small clarionet. The drowsy buzz
of the honey-gatherer is only attained by swinging its wings at the
rate of four hundred vibrations a minute. People who have good ears for
music have observed that the ordinary Bee drones his song out on G
sharp. The House-Fly is credited with singing at F with a preliminary
grace note on E. Everyone is familiar with the high thin plaint of the
Mosquito.

There are many drummers in the insect orchestra. The Cicada operates
a small kettle drum. On the front of its body, a tough membrane is
stretched over a small cavity. When set in motion by a special muscle,
it gives out a surprisingly agreeable sound. The Greeks enjoyed this
music so well that they often caged the Cicada much as they would a
bird. In the hatching time of the seventeen-year variety, the energetic
drumming of thousands of the insects rises into a scream which is far
from melodious. Under such conditions, the noise can be heard for half
a mile. Travelers tell of a giant South American species which produces
a drumming which is as loud as a locomotive whistle. An uncanny drummer
is the “Death Watch Beetle.” It uses its head for drumsticks and when
in the wood of furniture often plays a tattoo with considerable skill.
Superstitious people, for no apparent good reason, sometimes insist
this is a warning of impending death. Even the pretty little Butterfly
on occasion is a drummer. With hooks on its wings, it makes a sharp
crackle, not unlike one of the weird noises sometimes used by human
“traps.” Beetles play the bones.

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

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




CHAPTER IX

SCIENCE IN THE PLANT WORLD

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


Plants are profound scientists. Their knowledge may not be as broad and
far-reaching as that of man, but they are more successful workers than
he. With all his wonderful discoveries in physics and chemistry, man as
a class has not yet learned to conduct his own body so as to make it
yield the highest efficiency. In fact, members of the human race are
today wearing out their frames at a faster rate than ever before. Adept
at running huge mechanisms of steel, they are neglectful of those most
delicate and wonderful machines which are bound up with their own life
processes.

Plants are not so prodigal. Whenever they are given a chance, they
develop and expand their powers in the most marvelous way. They bring
out the latent strength in their beings and so conduct themselves as to
conserve their energies. Whether by instinct, reason or blind force
they always know just what to do and how to make the most of their
heredity and environment. Their efficiency rating is one hundred per
cent.

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

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

What is plant growth itself but motion upward and outward? If a
telescope or an instrument such as Sir Jaghadish Bose’s crescograph
be trained on a healthy plant, it is possible to see the growth
actually take place before the eye somewhat as it is managed in motion
pictures. Travelers aver that if a Banana Plant be cut off close to the
ground and the surrounding soil well supplied with water, the sturdy
creature will make such strenuous efforts to destroy the effects of its
mutilation that its growth may easily be perceived with the unaided
eye, and a full-sized leaf produced in a single day.

Leaves and flowers are usually quite mobile. When they go to sleep,
they droop and fold their edges together very carefully, sometimes to
such an extent as to make themselves almost invisible. Even such an
astute man as Linnaeus was once completely deceived by some sleeping
specimens of Lotus. They were very fine red flowers and he was proud
of them. Taking a friend to view them one evening by lantern-light,
what was his dismay to find that they had completely disappeared. He
concluded that they had been stolen or eaten by insects and went away,
only to find them in full array on his return the next morning. It
took several nocturnal visits to unravel the mystery and discover
that the flowers folded themselves and retired so adroitly into the
surrounding foliage each evening that they were completely hidden.

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

There are other movements of leaves and flowers the object of which is
not quite so apparent. For instance, there is the _Hedysarum Gyrans_ or
Oscillating Sainfoin. Each of its leaves has three folioles. The center
one is very large and stands bolt upright, except at night, when it
condescends to bend its head in sleep. The two lateral folioles are in
perpetual oscillation both day and night. Nothing but a very hot sun
seems able to stop their movement. Possibly, this plant is a fresh air
fiend which requires a steady atmospheric flow upon its respiratory
surfaces! The two lateral folioles of each leaf are delegated to act as
fans and blow a constant supply of air upon their majestic brother.

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

The stamens and pistils of flowers sometimes have the power of
movement. If an insect, wandering about in the flower of the Barberry
Tree (Berberis Vulgaris), happens to touch the base of a stamen,
it bends forward with a quick, spring-like motion and presently
straightens up again. The evident intent is to shower some pollen on
the little intruder with the hope that he may carry its vital principle
to some neighbour of the same species.

In the _Parnassia Palustris_, fortunate observers have sometimes seen
the five stamens bend forward and beat on the head of the pistil in
rotation as if on an anvil. Perhaps outside pollen-carrying agencies
have passed this particular flower by and, in desperation, it is
resorting to self-fertilization.

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

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

Botanists tell us that this heliotropism or turning motion toward the
light is due to the tendency of most leaves to arrange themselves
perpendicularly to the sun’s rays. Tendrils may be apheliotropic or
tend to turn away from the light. Morning Glories or Wistaria, which
climb up whatever support is handy, exhibit insensibility to light no
matter from what angle it strikes. Stems, flower and leaves of all
plants each give a different and scientific reaction to light in a way
which looks much like directing thought.

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

A curious motion which is not thoroughly understood is a slight
gyratory movement observable in the tips of all living plants. It is
possible that it is connected in some way with the earth’s rotation or
is it merely a kind of groping, feeling gesture? In the case of roots,
where the same gyrations occur, it undoubtedly serves that purpose. A
revolving root tip makes a very efficient drill with which the hardy
plant may bore a way through refractory soil. It is claimed that the
great whirling sweeps made by tendrils of various climbers are merely
amplifications of the circumnutation occurring in all plant terminals.

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

A motion which has forethought and design behind it occurs in the
leaves of the famous and crafty Venus Fly-Trap. Two sections of
leaves edged with teeth-like nerve-hairs form the two halves of an
enticing-looking bowl and cover. The slightest contact with one of
the delicate hairs will cause the trap to shut together and imprison
any sweet-toothed member of the insect world which has happened to
stray inside. An aquatic form of the same thing occurs in a species of
Bladderwort which spreads a leaf-net cunningly shaped to look like a
fish’s mouth. Frightened baby-fishes, accustomed to seek their mother’s
throat in time of danger, sometimes swim in and, brushing certain
nerve-hairs near the entrance, cause the lips to close and leave them
to slow dissolution. Both sinister and scientific are the movements of
carnivorous plants.

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

Plants show great skill in their use of water. It is their storage
of liquid in their cells which makes their soft bodies rigid and so
makes movement possible. This property sometimes called turgidity
was discovered by the scientist De Vries in 1877, the same year that
Pfeffer established the theory of osmosis. This latter is a phenomenon
which physicists find very difficult to explain and involves the
transmutation of one liquid into another through the medium of an
intervening membrane.

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

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

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

It is well known that plants breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out
oxygen. This can be graphically demonstrated by placing a plant in a
glass jar of carbon dioxide inverted in water. If its life processes
are quickened by exposure to sunlight, the plant will replace the CO₂
with oxygen in a day. A more striking example is furnished by any
aquatic plant accustomed to growing submerged in ponds and rivers.
Placed in a water-filled bottle inverted in a pan of water, it will
generate oxygen so rapidly that the bubbles can be seen forming on
the leaves when the sun is allowed to strike them fully. The bottle
will become filled with oxygen in a few hours, and its presence can be
demonstrated with the usual ember test.

Opposed to the absorption of carbon dioxide and the breathing out of
oxygen, which is really a digestive operation, the plants, queerly
enough, carry on a directly opposite process which involves the
absorption of oxygen and the breathing out of carbon dioxide. This
is a respiratory process akin to breathing in animals. It is carried
on in such a relatively small way that it does not seriously affect
the statement that “plants breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe
out oxygen” and so are purifiers of the air which man and animals
contaminate.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everyone knows what an important part light plays in plant physiology,
but the fact that certain plants produce their own lights, while
generally known, is not universally understood. The Austrian
naturalist, Heller, was the first to demonstrate that the glowing of
decayed wood at night is caused by emanations of light from Fungus
growing in the cavities. A similiar organism called Luminous Peridineas
(sometimes classed as an animal) is responsible for the phosphorescence
of the ocean and the night lights of many flowers.

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

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

[Illustration: MODERN NATURE WORSHIPPERS]




CHAPTER X

RELIGION IN THE PLANT WORLD

  “_Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth._”

  --_Byron_


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

Primitive peoples, who are always closely attuned to natural
influences, early discerned the divine thread which runs through all
plantdom. In their incessant search for God, they did not overlook His
manifestations in the plants and flowers. Along with fire, water,
stars, sun, moon, animals, birds and graven images, our wood-roving
ancestors ascribed supernatural attributes to many trees and flowers.
In various places and at various times, many different plants have been
idolized as the material substance of an ethereal or spiritual being.
Certain plant growths have been repeatedly designated as sacred, and
even in the present day, untutored races have many plant superstitions.
Tree worship was common among the Celts and Teutons. The present day
Christmas tree is a relic of primitive tree veneration. Even the
American Indians worshiped trees at times. Man has been groping for God
all through the ages. His tendency has been to deify those elements
and things which he did not understand or which contained mystery. As
soon as he became acquainted with the causes of these mysteries, the
supernatural collapsed into the natural and he went searching after new
wonders to call God.

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

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

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

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

Sacred flowers were common among the Greeks. The Anemone, Poppy and
Violet were dedicated to Venus. To Diana belonged “all flowers growing
in untrodden dells and shady nooks, uncontaminated by the tread
of man.” The Narcissus and Maiden-Hair Fern were under the special
protection of Proserpina and to Ceres belonged the Willow. The Pink was
Jove’s flower, while Juno claimed the Lily, Crocus and Asphodel.

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

Though the Rose and the Lily are the blossoms which are most frequently
associated with the Virgin, particularly in paintings, there is an
endless list of other flowers of low and high degree which are either
named after her or thought to be under her influence.

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

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

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

Among the many theories regarding the identity of the wood of the
Cross, the one about the Mistletoe is especially fanciful. The
Mistletoe is alleged to have been originally a full-sized tree but
because of its ignoble part in the great Christian tragedy, it was
reduced to its present parasitical form.

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

Among the individual sacred flowers, Orchids and Lotus-Blossoms have
probably been known and reverenced as much as any. There is small
wonder that sentiment approaching veneration should exist toward
the Orchids. Their singular beauty and fragrance have compelled the
admiration of all historic peoples. The primitive Mexicans hold them in
very great esteem. The Lotus-Flower, portrayed through all the ages,
on papyrus, paper, silk, stone, and wood, has a world-wide sanctity.
The ancient Egyptians worshipped the Lotus in connection with the
mysteries of Isis and Osiris. The sculptural remains of the Nile abound
with the sacred plant in every stage of its development, the flowers
and fruit being represented with utmost accuracy. The Brahmans regarded
it as divine and the Hindus used it to decorate their temples and lay
on their religious altars. The Chinese also called it sacred. Brahma,
at his birth, is said to have come forth from the Lotus. Buddha and
other eastern deities, including the Chinese god Pazza, are reported to
have first appeared floating on its leaves.

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

The Yellow Narcissus is a famous fabled flower which originally came
from Palestine. Mahomet once said: “Whoever possesses two loaves of
bread, let him trade one for a blossom of Narcissus, for bread is
nourishment for the body, but the Narcissus for the soul.” The birth
of the Narcissus is narrated thus: In Sussexshire, England, the good
St. Leonhard once battled with a dragon for three whole days. Before
he was able to slay the monster, the doughty warrior was wounded with
consequent loss of blood. God could not bear to see the life fluid of
this holy man spilled heedlessly, so transformed each drop, as it fell,
into a Narcissus.

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

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

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

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

The Greeks and Romans used Verbena extensively in their religious
ceremonies, principally because of its wonderful perfume. The Romans
called it “the sacred herb” and regarded it as an aid in divinations
and omens. On New Year’s Day, it was sent to friends as a token of
greeting. The Roman generals wore a sprig in their pockets as a
protection against bodily injury.

The Soma or Moon-Plant of India (_Asclepias Acida_) is a climbing vine
with milky juice which is said to confer immortality upon its admirers.

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

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

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

If there are many plants which man’s adoration has made religious,
there are almost an equal number which his suspicion and perversity
have branded irreligious. A famous plant of this kind is the
Enchanter’s Nightshade which has long been celebrated in the mysteries
of witchcraft. Perhaps its usual place of growth in old graveyards
among decaying bones and mouldering coffins has much to do with the
sinister superstitions and legends connected with it.

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

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

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

Plant worship holds a more prominent place in the world today than one
would at first thought imagine, and it is not altogether confined to
uncultured peoples. Dr. George Birdwood tells of remarkable instances
of modern flower worship he saw in Bombay. In describing the Victoria
Gardens, he says: “Presently, a true Persian, in flowing robes of
blue, and on his head his sheep-skin hat, ‘black, glossy, curl’d, the
fleece of Kar-kal’, would saunter in, and stand and meditate over every
flower he saw, and always, as if half in vision. And when the vision
was fulfilled, and the flower he was seeking found, he would spread his
mat and sit before it until the setting of the sun, then fold up his
mat again and night after night, until that particular flower faded
away, he would return to it, and bring his friends in ever-increasing
troupes to it, and sit and play the guitar or lute before it, and they
would altogether pray there, and after praying still sit before it,
sipping sherbet, and talking the most hilarious and shocking scandal
late into the moonlight; and so again and again every evening until the
flower died. Sometimes, by way of grand finalé the whole company would
suddenly rise before the flower and serenade it together, with an ode
from Hafiz, and then depart.”




CHAPTER XI

PLANT MYTHOLOGY

  “_I’ll seek a four-leaved clover
  In all the fairy dells,
  And if I find the charmed leaf,
  Oh, how I’ll weave my spells._”


Every Plant is surrounded by a halo of human thought. If one is
able to discern that halo, he finds a new and fascinating interest
attaching itself to each herb and flower. The most humble of them
become fortune-tellers, luck-bringers, and talismen against evil, as
well as dwelling-places of fairies, elves, imps, and other ethereal
mischief-makers.

In the childhood of humanity, the earth was a very romantic place. In
addition to the familiar human inhabitants, there were whole races of
supernatural and invisible beings which wielded great influence over
the every-day world of affairs. Every plant was considered good or
evil, according to the character of the spirits which it was believed
to harbour.

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

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

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

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

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

The devil and his evil spirits have always wielded a large influence
over certain members of the plant kingdom. In Scotland, up until the
seventeenth century, it was customary to allow a small section of each
farm to lie untilled and uncropped as a peace offering to Satan. In
certain English counties, children of today will not pick Blackberries
after a certain date, believing that the Evil One has trampled them and
made them poisonous to humans. German peasants, without batting an eye,
will tell you that the devil, in one form or another, has the regular
habit of stealing portions of their crops.

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

In old Bohemia, the Belladonna was a favourite of the devil. He
could be enticed from it on Walpurgis Night by letting loose a black
hen, after which he ran. In Russia, people shun the Sow-Thistle as a
devil-plant. Some Germans believe that evil spirits lurk in Lettuce
beds. To the same people, the Herban is the “Devil’s Eye.” Many
nationalities are quite sure that the Herb-Bennett, when kept in a
house, takes its owners out from under the devil’s influence. Thistle
is often used for the same purpose. The Greeks used to place a Laurel
bough over their doors to ward off evil. There is an English Fungus
called Lycoperdon, or Puff-Ball, which produces a mass of dusty spores
not unlike snuff. The annoyance experienced by people in the vicinity
of the bursting pods has led to the plant being called “Devil’s
Snuff-Box.” Children use it for various amusing pranks.

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

The witches employ the deadly Night-Shade in their vile concoctions.
It is reputed to spring from the foam of the vicious, many-headed
dog which guards the infernal regions. The Vervain and the Rue are
also ingredients. The fact that the former was at one time sacred to
Thor, and was also used in the rituals of the Druids, is a possible
explanation of its evil name. Rue as a narcotic capable of producing
hallucinations, is most naturally a witch’s plant. Strange to say,
both of these plants are sometimes used as charms _against_ witches.
The Romans used the Vervain in casting lots, telling fortunes, and
foreshadowing national events. Many other plants, ordinarily harmless,
become the possessors of evil charms when gathered under certain
circumstances. Thus, Shakespeare speaks of “root of hemlock digg’d i’
the dark,” and “slips of yew sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse,” as being
cast into the bubbling pot.

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

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

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

Midnight is the fairy magic hour. At the trumpet call of the Harebell,
they gallop to their meeting-places mounted on blades of Grass or
on Cabbage leaves. Sometimes they assemble to the tolling of the
Wood-Sorrel or “Fairy Bell”. For more extended migrations, they travel
in Nuts. They usually dress in green and provide themselves with
mantles of Gossamer. The Irish ones use Fox-Glove blossoms to cover
their hands. In infancy, the fays are cradled in Tulips and throughout
life, they use the Cowslip as a drinking cup, and seek shelter of the
Wood-Anemone in wet weather.

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

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

In England, the Marigold is used for various love divinations, but in
Germany it is carefully excluded from affairs of the heart. In that
latter country the Star-Flower and the Dandelion are popular in such
cases. There was a time when Peas were much in demand for sentimental
forecasts. On opening a pod, the number of green spheres discovered had
a special significance. The dwarves were supposed to be especially fond
of Peas. Even the prosaic Onion has at times been used to explain the
mysteries of the divine emotion.

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

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

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

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

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

Again and again, the Onion, whose name today is only mentioned with
bated breath, crops up among old plant superstitions. Because of its
structure of enveloping sheaths, the Egyptians rightly considered
it a splendid symbol of the universe. In Christian days, St. Thomas
patronized it. Its cousin, the Leek, bears the blossom which Welshmen
still hail as their national flower. It is worn by all loyal patriots
on March first, St. David’s Day.

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

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

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




CHAPTER XII

MYSTICISM IN THE PLANT WORLD

  “_Who passeth by the Rosemarie
    And careth not to take the spraye,
  For woman’s love no care has he,
    Nor shall he though he live for aye._”


One day John G. Allen of Cherry, Arizona, went fishing along a small
tributary of the River Verde. His skill with the rod seeming to fail
him, he decided to make his outing profitable in other directions by
hunting through some neighbouring cliff-dwellings for pottery. While
wandering through those ancient and curious abodes, he accidentally
discovered a section of wall which looked as though it might have
been built to close a former opening. Careful investigation revealed
the truth of this surmise, for, with a little perseverance, he broke
through and removed enough stone to admit his body into a small room or
recess, which contained some pottery and household utensils of extreme
age.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Many flowers show a remarkable appreciation of the passage of time and
open and close at regular hours each day. In fact, a close student
of floral habits can actually tell the time of day by watching the
actions of the flowers around him. It is said that the Swedish botanist
Linnaeus once built himself a flower clock, arranged to count the
passing hours by the folding and unfolding of different blossoms. One
does not really need to go to this trouble. The common flowers of
the field and garden are all accurate time-pieces. Long before the
rising of the sun their activity begins; in fact even the night hours
are all noticed by certain more obscure plants. Along about three in
the morning, the dainty Goat’s-Beard wakes from sleep and spreads
its petals. Promptly at four o’clock the Dandelion begins its day’s
work. The Naked Stalked Poppy, the copper-coloured Day-Lily and the
smooth Sow-Thistle are five o’clock risers. The Field Marigold is a
slug-a-bed, and does not blink its sleepy eyes at the sun until ten
o’clock. The Ice-Plant throws back its downy coverlets exactly at noon.

Shortly after mid-day, the early risers begin to get tired, and
prepare to sleep through the heat of the afternoon. Beginning with the
Hawkweed Picris shortly after noon, and extending to the bed-time of
the Chickweed at ten at night, every quarter hour sees the retirement
of some particular flower. After sundown, the night owls make their
appearance, and such plants as the Night-Blooming Cereus, the
Moonflower, and the Datura check off the fleeting minutes. How can this
marvelous acquaintance with the passage of time be explained in terms
of cold materialism?

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

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

Inasmuch as it is positively known that plants are sensitive to light,
it may be that, in this case, the vine actually perceives the support
through a process akin to animal sight; but if a climbing plant finds
itself growing between two mounds or ridges, and behind one there is
a wall or some other means of support, and behind the other none, it
will invariably bend its creeping steps over the ridge hiding the wall.
The wall was invisible from the plant’s starting-point, and certainly
betrayed its presence through no odour or other manifestation. In
some mysterious way, the creeper simply knew that a vital necessity
of its life lay in a certain direction. Ordinarily, we associate such
phenomena with psychic influences. It is quite evident, that in certain
ways, the plants display a very practical knowledge of such mysteries.

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

In ancient days, many flowers and plants were supposed to possess
the power of discovering the location of lost or hidden riches and
conducting a human searcher to them. The Germans named the Primrose
Schlüsselblume, or key-flower, in the belief that, if held in the
hand, it would unlock to its possessor the location of buried treasure
by some movement or other manifestation. To this day, many country
people in Europe and America have implicit faith in the ability of the
divining rod to seek out underground water. There are many enlightened
folk who claim that reported successes of this method of picking
well-sites are mere coincidences, but in view of the wide-spread
reliance on this theory which is constantly meeting the most practical
tests, would it not be open-minded to suggest that possibly the
branches of the rod do make some slight movement toward the hidden
water with which they have a natural affinity?

As mentioned in a previous chapter, young people through all ages have
gone to flowers for counsel when in love. The most frequent masculine
question has been “Does she love me?” The flowers have given the answer
in a variety of ways, most often by the number of their petals. The
query of the very young girl usually has been “Will I be married?”
and she has been sure to see that the reply is most often in the
affirmative. In _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Oberon tells Puck to lay
Pansies on Titania’s eyes in order that she may fall in love with the
first person she sees upon awakening.

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

Plants have not been the cause of very many ghost stories, but
occasionally one hears of some mysterious night adventure of which some
plant is the central figure.

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

“We entered the side yard through the bamboo gate and approached the
Wistaria. Underneath the Trellis arbour there were dark shadows and
outlines were indistinct. A Palmyra Palm was growing in the corner
of the fence under the arbour, and the fingers of one of the leaves
pointing downward seemed to be the hand of a man. When expectation is
running high, a fingered palm leaf may easily become the hand of a
human being or of a shadowy ghost. We had the electric burners brought
to the windows upstairs and the light thrown toward the arbour, and the
shadows cast by the electric rays rendered the situation all the more
mysterious.

“The noises were plainly among the Wistaria vines. But, strange to
say, the stones which seemed to be striking the vines came from no
particular direction. They seemed to burst like shells the minute
they struck and the pieces were heard to fall or strike in different
directions. By this time the thought of ghosts had not only occurred to
us but was gaining force in our minds. Indeed, a first-rate romance was
developing--subjectively, I should no doubt add.”

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

“Loyal to the heroic determination to go straight to the seat of the
trouble, I walked beneath the Wistaria arbour feeling an atmosphere
charged with electricity as I went. We stood side by side looking
about and waiting, when suddenly a Fuji pod exploded before our
eyes. The seeds flew in different directions and the divided halves
of the pod fell to the ground and lay like sabers dropped in the
attack of battle. When the discovery was made, one of us called out
to the upstairs window that it was the explosion of the Wistaria pods
that caused the noises. There was a general laugh and the ghosts
disappeared. Not affected by rain or darkness, by heat or cold, by
human foot-steps or voice, there is one thing ghosts cannot endure; to
be laughed at literally slays them.”

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

Two centuries ago it was believed that every plant, as well as every
human being, was under the influence of some particular planet. The
plants over which Saturn claimed an ascendency were characterized by
ill-favoured leaves, ugly flowers and repellent odours. On the other
hand the plants of Jupiter displayed smooth leaves and graceful,
fragrant flowers. Today we believe that all plants belong to only one
planet, and that is the planet earth.

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

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

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

Other floral symbols have been chosen for more remote but quite
apparent characteristics. Impatience is indicated by the Balsam
seed-pods, which, when ripe, curl up at the slightest touch, and shoot
forth their seeds with great violence. A popular name for the plant
is “Touch-Me-Not.” The very name of Heliotrope tells of its constant
turning toward the sun. It is often referred to as a symbol of devoted
attachment. Aspen, because of its tremulous motion has been made a sign
of fear. When people think of the Poppy and its narcotic product, they
likewise think of sleep and oblivion. A less apparent symbol is found
in the Wild Anemone, which is taken to denote brevity because its
frail petals are soon scattered by the boisterous wind. The Snow-Drop,
first flower of spring, peeping from its immaculate snow bank, is an
unmistakable emblem of purity.

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

In their enthusiasm, flower-lovers have sometimes allowed their
imagination to carry them into unnatural and artificial symbolism. It
is not difficult to associate the White Lily with purity but when we
are told that the Flowering Almond represents hope, the Common Almond
indiscretion and stupidity, and the Floral Almond perfidity, one is
reduced to looking up this curious code in an indexed book. When each
variety of the Rose family has different and fluctuating significance,
a swain hesitates to summon the floral language of love to his aid.

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

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

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

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

Such beliefs have fallen into disuse, but man is still a long way off
from a solution of the various mystic phenomena of the plant world.
Botanists should leave off indexing and classifying plants for a while
and endeavour to discover the subtle and fascinating laws of their
psychic existence.




CHAPTER XIII

PLANT INTELLIGENCE

  “_The Marigold goes to bed with the sun,
  And with him rises weeping._”--_Shakespeare_


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

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

[Illustration: ALLIES OF THE DESERT ARM THEMSELVES WITH PRICKLES AND
THORNS AGAINST THEIR ANIMAL ENEMIES]

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

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

What causes the radicle or root of the smallest sprouting seedling
always to grow down and the plumule or stem always to grow up? It
cannot be gravity because that great earth pull would affect both parts
equally. This same radicle, when it has developed into a full-fledged
root, feels and pushes its way through the earth in a marvellous
fashion searching out water and traveling around obstructions with
unerring exactness. The slightest pressure will serve to deflect it;
aerial roots have been observed to avoid obstacles without actually
coming in contact with them. The plants use their roots to feel their
way to moisture and nourishment just as a man would feel his way with
his hands. The great Darwin, himself, wrote many years ago: “It is
hardly an exaggeration to say that the tip of the radicle thus endowed,
and having the power of directing the movements of the adjoining parts,
acts like the brain of one of the lower animals.”

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

Practically all plants show a full knowledge of the importance of
sunlight to their life processes. They usually strain all their
energies and exert all their ingenuity in an effort to display as great
a leaf surface as possible. That this action is not always purely
instinctive is indicated by the response of certain carnivorous plants
to light. Having learned that success in capturing their prey depends
upon a static position of their leaves, they make no effort to adjust
their parts to strong or concentrated light. This is clearly a case of
intelligent adjustment to environment.

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

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

A human faculty which few people associate with plants, is an acute
sense of taste. How else do the plants know what elements to absorb out
of the soil? Certain experiments have enabled investigators to discover
marked taste preferences of a number of microscopic plants. Bacteria
are exceptionally fond of kali salts. Though they thrive equally well
on glycerine, they can be lured from it at any time by the toothsome
kali solution.

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

All through the plant world we see actions and habits which are the
reverse of automatism or mere instinctive response. Every plant
continually has to meet new and trying conditions, and while its
reactions, just like those of man, are frequently in the terms of
racial and individual experience, it is constantly called upon to make
new and novel decisions.

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

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

Isolated instances of plant intelligence might be mere coincidences if
it were not for the fact that they multiply greatly the further one
investigates. The common Potentillas and Brambles show remarkable
sagacity in searching out hidden veins of soil among the rocks where
they grow. Nothing is more ingenious than the way in which Hyacinths,
Primroses and Irises smother competitive seedlings by putting forth
large, low-lying leaves to cut off the light of neighbours.

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

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

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

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

Anent the same question Edward Step says, “Modern thought denies
consciousness to plants, though Huxley was bold enough to say that
every plant is an animal enclosed in a wooden box; and science has
demonstrated that there is no distinction between the protoplasm of
animals and plants, and that if we get down to the very simplest forms
in which life manifests itself we can call them animals or plants
indifferently.”

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

Of only one thing are we sure, and that is that all life is one--an
expression of the intelligence and power which pervades the universe.

Many readers may vaguely feel and believe these facts and yet not be
certain that plants are individually and personally intelligent; long
training makes them still feel that the many admittedly clever and
ingenious acts recorded every day in plantdom are but the indications
of some external mind or force working through Nature. The plants act
in certain ways because they have no choice in the matter; they are
passive tools in the hands of such craftsmen as “instinct,” “heredity,”
and “environment.” The answer to this is that you can ascribe an
exactly similar fatalistic interpretation to every human thought, word
or deed. What you consider the freest decision of will you made today
can be shown conclusively to be the result of a long train of acts and
influences which stretches back to Adam. It would have been impossible
for you to have acted differently.

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

Even in the terms of man’s own science, the plants can be shown to be
intelligent. The psychologist Titchner classifies the three stages of
mental processes as (1) Sensations (2) Images and (3) Affections. The
term “affection” is here used in the special sense of a capacity for
entering into intellectual states of pleasure or pain.

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

The touch sense of the Sundew is developed to such an extent that it
can detect the pressure of a human hair one twenty-fifth of an inch
long. The tendrils of the Passion Flower attempt to coil up at the
slightest contact of the finger and as quickly flatten out upon its
removal. The stamens of the Opuntia or Prickly Pear have specialized
papillae of touch exactly similar to the papillae of the Hermione Worm.
When rubbed by the body of an insect, they transmit an impulse which
causes the anthers to let loose a shower of pollen on the intruder.
The animal world cannot exhibit a higher sensitiveness to touch than
that displayed by the celebrated Venus Fly-Trap. On each side of the
leaf midrib stand three sharp little bristles. They are the sense
organs controlling the closing of the vegetable spring. Quick must an
insect be to escape their vigilance.

Sensation and imagery are so closely connected in the human brain that
the existence of one would seem to predicate the other. Fortunately, we
have very good evidence to indicate the faculty of plant memory, which
must necessarily be built up of images of one kind or another.

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

By what faculty do plants become aware of the approach of spring?
Only occasionally are they deceived by January thaws, and no matter
how unseasonably cold a March may be, they go right ahead with the
preparation of April buds and leaves. So accurate is plant knowledge
about the seasons that Alpine flowers often bore their way up through
long-lingering snow, even developing heat with which to melt the
obstruction, when they feel that spring has really come. What gives
plants such courage in the face of contradicting elements, if not an
accurate sense of the passage of time and therefore the memory of other
seasons, which implies imagery?

Until we develop a workable system of thought communication with
plants, we can never scientifically prove that plants are capable
of psychological “affections” or emotions. Mental states are purely
personal matters. We would never be sure that any other human being
went through feelings of love, anger, hate and pity, similiar to our
own, if he were not able to tell us of them. Until the plants can
describe to us their inner emotions, we can never definitely know
whether they have real feelings, and if they parallel the human variety
in any degree. But just as we have become able to read a man’s mental
processes by his facial expressions, tone of voice and bodily posture,
so we can guess at plant emotion by external manifestations. When a
flower greets the morning sun with expanded petals, uplifted head and
a generally bright appearance, why should we not say it is happy and
contented? When an approaching storm causes a plant to droop its body
and contract its petals and leaves into the smallest compass possible,
why is not fear, apprehension and melancholy indicated? When the jaws
of the Venus Fly-Trap close on its hapless victim, they must do so with
a savage joy akin to that of a Tiger springing on its prey.

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

If plants were not conscious, at least under stimulation, they would
have long since perished from the earth through inability to react to
new conditions. Francis Darwin says: “We must believe that in plants
exists a faint copy of what we know as consciousness in ourselves.”
Many scientists believe that life and consciousness always precede and
are superior to organization. It is urged that possibly many plants
possess consciousness without self-consciousness or introspection.

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

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

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

Though science is now beginning to verify the fact of plant
intelligence most conclusively great and independent thinkers of all
times have long felt its truth. Certain minds are always in advance
of their age. While science laboriously proves every step of its way
with painstaking and commendable exactness, they are soaring far ahead
in new and fascinating fields. Sometimes they go astray, but quite as
frequently they are the pioneers of great and progressive ideas.




CHAPTER XIV

THE HIGHER LIFE OF PLANTS

  “_I swear I think now that everything, without exception,
    has an immortal soul!
  The trees have, rooted in the ground! the weeds of the sea
    have! the animals!
  I swear I think there is nothing but immortality!_”

  --_Walt Whitman_


Maurice Maeterlinck, in one of his delightful essays, pays a remarkable
tribute to the spiritual powers of plants.

“Though there be plants and flowers that are awkward or unlovely,” he
says, “there is none that is wholly devoid of wisdom and ingenuity. All
exert themselves to accomplish their work, all have the magnificent
ambition to overrun and conquer the surface of the globe by endlessly
multiplying the form of existence which they represent. To attain this
object, they have, because of the law which chains them to the soil, to
overcome difficulties much greater than those opposed to the increase
of animals.... If we had applied to the removal of the various
vicissitudes which crush us, such as pain, old age, and death, one-half
the energy displayed by any little flower in our gardens, we may well
believe that our lot would be very different from what it is.”

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

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

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

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

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

Love? There is no higher devotion than that shown by the water plant
called Vallisneria. The female flowers reach the surface of the water
at the end of long, tapering, spiral-like stalks, but the males are
compelled to remain far down near the bottom. At the flowering season,
the males, responding to the universal mating instinct, deliberately
break themselves from their stalks and rise to the surface to be near
their loves for a little while. All too soon, however, they are carried
away by unruly currents to an untimely death, leaving behind them, in
their pollen, the principle from which another generation of their
species shall arise. They have presented themselves a living sacrifice
on the altar of love.

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

Faith? Hope? What sustains the perennials through long, bleak winters
and makes them sure of the promise of spring? When the Alpine flowers
are so positive that spring has really come that they push their
inquiring heads up through the snow which still covers the mountains,
they are showing a superhuman faith, literally risking death in order
that they may get a strong and early start in life.

Charity? When trees like the Oak and the Maple allow a whole multitude
of lesser plants to dwell in the snugness of their shadows, they are
showing forth some of the kindly qualities of plantdom. If they chose
to they could discourage lowly neighbours after the manner of the
monopolistic Beech or the aristocratic Pine.

Name a human sin or virtue, good quality or bad, and one does not
have to search far in the plant world for its counterpart. Along with
kindness, mercy, gratitude, submissiveness, and parental love we also
find cruelty, hard-heartedness, ingratitude, arrogance and neglect
of offspring. Even at that, the credit side always exceeds the debit
and no plant is guilty of self-destruction. It must be borne in mind,
that what we call sin and malignity are to them legitimate courses of
action.

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

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

The language of the Bible classifies man with all life under the Hebrew
term _Nephesh chayiah_, that is, living soul or creature. The Old
Testament favours a rigorous protection of animals and plants against
wanton destruction. Is not the equality of the three kingdoms of life
hinted at in the following passage from Jonah?

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

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

Some marvelous experiments carried on by Sir Jaghadish Chaundra Bose in
Calcutta, India, offer interesting light on the higher life of plants.
By exceptionally delicate and ingenious instruments, Sir Jaghadish has
been able to measure the plant movements associated with growth, shock
and response to stimuli in general. He has come to the conclusion that
plants not only have a conscious intelligence, but have their good and
bad days, their moods, their whims. He believes they react to slight or
pleasurable stimuli by general expansion. Violent stimuli cause pain
and contraction. A plant struck a blow quivers and shakes in veritable
agony. Plants about to die undergo a violent spasm and then by making
no response at all to outside influences, show that they have actually
given up the ghost.

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

All this strongly suggests a soul or driving spiritual force in every
living creature. Regarding its exact nature there are many opinions.
Maeterlinck believes that there is a general scattered intelligence, a
sort of universal fluid, which penetrates all organisms in an amount
proportionate to their conductivity. Man offers the least resistance
to the divine principle and so receives a generous share. The plants
receive lesser amounts, but really belong to the same intellectual
order. They exhibit the same ideas, the same hopes, the same logic
and undergo the same trials in a lesser degree than their more
educated brothers. The plants and man both grope, hesitate and correct
themselves in their labourious evolutionary development.

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

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

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

Every plant has racial and family traits, and each one also has a
marked personality. If immortality is a fulfilling, a conserving
continuance of the present earthly existence, then the plants deserve
and have a right to expect a chance for infinite development.

The plants serve to make this earth a floral paradise. Why should they
not be equally necessary in a world of spirit? It is to man’s credit
that he has always pictured heaven as a place made beautiful by great
hosts of trees and flowers.




CHAPTER XV

PLANTS AND MEN

            “_Our human souls
  Cling to the grass and water brooks._”

  --_Athanase_


The average city man gives little thought or attention to his vegetable
neighbours, yet their continued existence is quite as vital to him as
the air he breathes. Directly or indirectly he is utterly dependent
upon them.

Every time he sits down to a dinner table, he is paying an unconscious
tribute to the food-producing abilities of plantdom. In a general
way, plants are the world’s food producers and the animals are the
consumers. Plants are able to build up living tissue from inorganic
material. Animals must prey upon that elaborated structure to keep
themselves alive. Plants separate oxygen from carbon dioxide and water,
thereby storing up sunshine as potential energy. Animals reverse the
process, and, re-combining oxygen with the plant tissue, liberate
heat and power. In a desert region, animals soon perish, because even
carnivorous species live on herbivorous fellows which in turn are
eaters of plants. This is why the distribution of men and animals is so
greatly influenced by that of plants.

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

Man has made many plants his servants. His first attention was
naturally given to such species as he could use for food. Two thousand
years ago, the ancients were growing practically all the food plants
that are known today. Maize, Potatoes, Rice, Beans, Dates and Bananas
have been cultivated for an even longer period. Fodder plants,
calculated to furnish food for man’s domestic animals, were the next to
receive attention, and following those, medical plants, edible fruits,
garden vegetables and aromatic leaves and seeds, such as Tea and
Coffee, came to the fore.

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

The vast changes which human efforts make in the surface of the earth
have a correspondingly important effect on vegetation. Every time a
tract of woods is cut down, every time a lake is drained, every time a
field is plowed--whenever any alteration is made in the landscape--the
vegetation is affected. Sometimes this disturbance of the natural order
of things becomes a serious menace, as in the case of deforestation.
The welfare of the world is bound up with the welfare of the plants.

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

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

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

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

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

Among the Burbank floral creations the Shasta Daisy is notable.
It combines strains from Europe, Japan, and America. A new giant
Amaryllis has twelve-inch blossoms. The Tigridias is spectacular, the
blue Poppies are odd and there are many extraordinary Lilies.

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

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

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

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

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


THE END




INDEX


  Acacia, 125

  Acanthus, 103

  Agave, 67

  Aglaia, 139

  Air Plants, 41

  Alder, 25, 41, 99

  Alfalfa, 56

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

  Almond, 56, 103, 182

  Aloe, 93

  Amaryllis, 221

  Ampelopsis, 108

  Anacharis, 49

  Anemone, 97, 144

  Antirrhinum, 75

  Ant Nest Plant, 72

  Apple, 61, 82, 220

  Apricot, 51, 56, 220

  Arrowhead, 47, 92

  Arum, 146

  Ash, 46, 218

  Aspen, 181

  Asphodel, 145

  Aster, 97, 100, 103

  Asterophyllites, 24

  Azalia, 79, 97


  Bacteria, 31, 55, 66, 135, 139, 190

  Balm of Gilead, 150

  Balsam, 181

  Balsam Poplar, 78

  Bamboo, 26, 56, 103, 121

  Banana, 124, 126

  Banibusa, 139

  Barberry, 105, 126

  Barley, 26

  Barrel Cactus, 67

  Basil, 151

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

  Beech, 62, 139, 208, 218

  Beech Drops, 62

  Beet, 37, 132

  Begonia, 93, 98

  Belladonna, 152, 158

  Birch, 25, 41, 42, 78, 218

  Birth-Wort, 76

  Blackberry, 42, 158

  Black-eyed Susan, 97

  Bladderwort, 46, 131

  Brambles, 192

  Broom-Rape, 62

  Butter-and-Eggs, 50

  Buttercup, 37, 92, 96, 103

  Butternut, 47

  Butter-Wort, 75


  Cabbage, 105

  Cactus, 34, 66, 98, 132, 207, 221

  Calamites, 24

  Calceolarias, 97

  Camellia, 97

  Cardoon Artichoke, 49

  Carrion Flower, 88

  Carrot, 37, 109, 132

  Castor Oil Tree, 41

  Catalpa, 116

  Cat-Tail, 116

  Cecropia, 73, 81

  Cedar, 116

  Cherry, 51, 56, 72, 103, 175, 220

  Chestnut, 42, 221

  Chickweed, 171

  Cinerarias, 97

  Clover, 66, 165

  Club-Mosses, 24

  Cobaea Scandens, 79

  Cockle-bur, 48

  Cocoanut, 45

  Coffee, 51, 52, 217

  Compass-Plant, 172

  Conifers, 25, 42

  Corn, 116, 168

  Cotton, 216

  Cottonwood, 115

  Cow Horn Orchid, 71

  Cowslip, 78, 162

  Cranesbill, 98

  Crocus, 37, 108, 145

  Cuckoo-Pint, 66, 88

  Cucumber, 51, 82

  Currant, 175

  Cyclamen, 161

  Cypress, 25, 175, 182


  Daffodil, 37

  Daisy, 104, 162, 220

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

  Date, 82, 216

  Date Palm, 35

  Datura, 171

  Day-Lily, 171

  Delphinium, 97

  Devil’s Snuff Box, 159

  Devil’s Thread, 62

  Dewberry, 220

  Diatoms, 127

  Dodder, 58, 62

  Duckweed, 46

  Dutch Clover, 165

  Dutchman’s Pipe, 106


  Elder, 152, 159

  Elm, 25, 26, 42, 46, 115

  Enchanter’s Nightshade, 151

  Epiphytes, 64, 72

  Eryptogams, 24


  Ferns, 22, 41, 43, 44, 190

  Feterita, 56

  Figwort, 87

  Fir, 103

  Fire Weed, 47

  Flagellates, 18

  Flax, 63, 216

  Four-leaved Clover, 162, 165, 175

  Fox Glove, 160, 161

  Fuchsia, 79, 93

  Fungus, 22, 34, 48, 58, 60, 62, 139


  Gas Plant, 135

  Gentian, 97

  Giant Cactus, 67

  Goat’s Beard, 171

  Goldenrod, 184

  Gorse, 86, 97

  Gossamer, 161

  Gourd, 210

  Grape, 67, 104

  Grass, 36, 41

  Grass of Parnassus, 193

  Groundsel, 146


  Harebell, 161

  Hawkweed, 80

  Hawkweed Picris, 171

  Hawthorn, 104

  Hazel, 36, 78

  Heliotrope, 181

  Hemlock, 160

  Hemp, 62

  Henna, 151

  Herban, 158

  Herb-Bennett, 159

  Herb-Paris, 160

  Hollyhock, 79, 97

  Hop, 35

  Horse Chestnut, 104

  Hortensia, 137

  Hyacinth, 37, 97, 108, 192


  Ice-Plant, 171

  Imba-uba Tree, 73

  Indian Licorice, 170

  Indian Pipe, 61

  Indigo, 93

  Iris, 92, 103, 192

  Ivy, 103

  Ivy-Geranium, 108


  Jessamine, 97, 175

  Job’s Tears, 157

  Junger Mania, 127


  Lantana, 53, 54

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

  Leek, 165, 184

  Legumes, 26, 31

  Lepidodendrons, 24

  Lettuce, 99, 158

  Lichen, 22, 42, 48, 60

  Lilac, 34, 97

  Lily, 79, 97, 103, 145, 149, 156, 175, 181, 221

  Lime, 78

  Linden, 26, 46

  Liverwort, 19, 20, 21, 22

  Lomatophylos, 24

  Loosestrife, 77

  Lotus, 103, 124, 144, 147

  Love in the Mist, 193

  Lucerne, 51, 93

  Luck Flower, 160

  Luminous Peridineas, 139

  Lupine, 86

  Lycoperdon, 159


  Magnolia, 26, 99

  Maiden-Hair Fern, 145

  Maize, 26, 35, 51, 216

  Mandrake, 179

  Mani Blight, 55

  Manioc, 26

  Maple, 26, 47, 101, 103, 208

  Mares’ Tails, 24

  Marigold, 125, 162, 171

  Melastroma Plant, 73

  Melon, 82

  Mermidones, 73

  Mexican Grape, 66

  Mildew, 61

  Milkweed, 102

  Mimosa, 122, 121

  Mistletoe, 47, 65, 147

  Molluka, 146

  Monotropa, 61

  Monstera, 191

  Moonflower, 171

  Moon-Plant, 151

  Moonwart, 160

  Morning Glory, 49, 128

  Moss, 20, 21, 22, 42, 48, 190

  Mountain Laurel, 88

  Mulberry, 51

  Mullein, 75, 101

  Murderer Liana, 206

  Myrtle, 182

  Myxomycetes, 194


  Naked Stalked Poppy, 171

  Narcissus, 108, 145, 148

  Nasturtium, 80, 108

  Navel Orange, 56

  Nephelium, 139

  Nettle, 35, 76

  Night-Blooming Cereus, 171

  Night-Shade, 159

  Nostoc, 22


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

  Olive, 103, 175, 182

  Onion, 156, 163, 164

  Opuntia, 197

  Orange, 56

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

  Oscillating Sainfoin, 126

  Oxalis, 36, 116, 125


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

  Pansy, 108, 175

  Papyrus, 103

  Paradox Berry, 220

  Parnassia, 127

  Parsley, 164

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

  Pea, 26, 51, 105, 163

  Peach, 51, 61, 220

  Pear, 51, 61, 220

  Pelargoniums, 97

  Peony, 97, 103

  Persimmon, 26

  Phenomenal Berry, 220

  Pigweed, 49

  Pimpernel, 160, 169

  Pine, 26, 111, 114, 208

  Pink, 145

  Pistachio, 82

  Plane, 26

  Plum, 175, 220

  Plumcot, 220

  Poa Annua, 40

  Polyanthus, 79

  Polygalas, 93

  Polygonums Tree, 73

  Pomegranate, 103, 104, 151

  Pond Lily, 91

  Pond Weeds, 83

  Poplar, 98, 99, 218

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

  Potato, 26, 37, 55, 157, 216

  Potentillas, 192

  Prickly Pear, 67, 197

  Primrose, 37, 79, 86, 174, 192

  Privet, 105

  Protozoa, 12

  Prune, 220

  Psilophyton, 24

  Puff-Ball, 159

  Purple Orchid, 146


  Quince, 220


  Rafflesia Arnoldi, 64

  Ragwort, 160

  Raspberry, 220

  Rattlesnake Iris, 116

  Red Anemone, 146

  Redwood, 26, 101

  Rhododendron, 79, 97, 99

  Rice, 26, 216

  Rock-Lichens, 75

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

  Rose of Jericho, 146

  Rose-blight, 61

  Rosemary, 181

  Rue, 159


  Saffron, 51

  Sage, 87, 116

  Sainfoin, 126, 146

  Scarlet Runner, 91

  Sea Holly, 98

  Sea Poppy, 160

  Sensitive Plant, 130

  Sequoia, 26

  Service Tree, 191

  Shamrock, 165, 184

  Shasta Daisy, 220

  Siberian Raspberry, 220

  Sigillarias, 24

  Silene, 78

  Silver Fir, 26

  Smilax, 116

  Snowberry, 105

  Snowdrop, 37, 182

  Soma, 151

  Sow-Thistle, 158, 171

  Spanish Moss, 65

  Spinach, 51

  Spineless Cactus, 221

  Spotted Persicaria, 146

  Spruce, 26

  Squash, 168

  Squirting Cucumber, 116

  Stapelia, 87

  Star-Flower, 163

  Stinging Nettle, 75

  Strawberry, 146

  String Bean, 105

  St. John’s Wort, 150, 161

  Sudan Grass, 56

  Sugar Cane, 51, 116

  Sundew 193, 197

  Sunflower, 116, 128

  Sweet Gum, 102

  Sweet Pea, 80, 108

  Sweet Potato, 109

  Sycamore, 47, 78, 131


  Tea, 217

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

  Thorn-Apple, 104

  Thyme, 146

  Tigridias, 221

  Toadstool, 158, 162

  Tobacco, 26, 62

  Tococa, 73

  Touch-me-not, 48, 181

  Tree-ferns, 24

  Trefoil, 86, 103, 165

  Trumpet Vine, 97

  Tulip, 37, 97, 104, 162

  Tumble Weed, 46

  Turmeric, 157

  Turnip, 37, 132


  Vallisneria, 206

  Venus Fly-Trap, 130, 198, 200

  Verbena, 97, 150

  Veronica, 125

  Vervain, 159, 160

  Vetch, 66, 72

  Victoria Regia, 91, 118

  Violet, 36, 93, 100, 144, 181


  Walnut, 42, 47, 51, 221

  Water Chestnut, 92

  Water Hyacinth, 52

  Water Lily, 86, 118, 133

  Watermelon, 51

  Weather-Plant, 170

  Weeping Willow, 100

  Wheat, 26, 51, 56, 116, 217

  Wheat-Rust, 61

  Wild Anemone, 181

  Willow, 42, 46, 99, 100, 115, 145

  Wistaria, 48, 95, 97, 103, 108, 128, 176

  Witch Hazel, 116

  Wolffias, 46

  Wood-Anemone, 162

  Woodroof, 146

  Wood-Sorrel, 146, 161, 165

  Wormwood, 151


  Xanthium Spinosum, 37


  Yam, 26

  Yellow Narcissus, 148

  Yew, 160

  Yucca, 90


  Zoochlorella, 61

  Zooxanthella, 61




Transcriber’s Notes

Page 14: “in the consciouness” changed to “in the consciousness”

Page 24: “trees called Calamities” changed to “trees called Calamites”

Page 25: “many excellent speciments” changed to “many excellent
specimens”

Page 26 and Index: “Manico” changed to “Manioc”

Page 29: “herbacious annual” changed to “herbaceous annual”

Page 42: “Chesnut and Elm” changed to “Chestnut and Elm”

Page 51: “Cucumber, Lucern” changed to “Cucumber, Lucerne”

Page 55: “propogation purposes” changed to “propagation purposes”;
“objectional” changed to “objectionable”

Page 62: “Prominate among” changed to “Prominent among”

Page 64: “Rafflessia Arnoldi” changed to “Rafflesia Arnoldi”

Page 78: “under the miscrope” changed to “under the microscope” “devoid
of proturberances” changed to “devoid of protuberances”

Page 79: “Azalias, and Fuchias” changed to “Azalias, and Fuchsias”

Page 97: “Pelargoiums” changed to “Pelargoniums”

Page 121: “_Sumatratran_ species” changed to “_Sumatran_ species”

Page 125: “quite inconspicous” changed to “quite inconspicuous”

Page 131 & 189: “carniverous plants” changed to “carnivorous plants”

Page 132: “have aquired” changed to “have acquired”

Page 148: “Whoever posseses” changed to “Whoever possesses”

Page 152: “The Belladona” changed to “The Belladonna”

Page 157: “Tumeric” changed to “Turmeric”

Page 171: “marvelous aquaintance” changed to “marvelous acquaintance”

Page 174: “Primose Schlüsselblume” changed to “Primrose Schlüsselblume”

Page 175: “Olives, Jasamines” changed to “Olives, Jessamines”

Page 190: “seed-animalicules” changed to “seed-animalcules”

Page 202: “in Protoza” changed to “in Protozoa”

Page 206: “giving away” changed to “giving way” “villian” changed to
“villain”

Page 208: “aristrocatic Pine” changed to “aristocratic Pine”

Page 221: “is suectacular” changed to “is spectacular”

The Table of Contents in the original was missing the chapter on
Science in the Plant World, which has been added. The Music in the
Plant World page reference has been accordingly corrected.



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