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 APPLETONS' HOME 
 *r\ READING BOOKS 
 
 Hi 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 ChapQlKSfopyriglit No,.. 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
Hppleton^' Ibome IReabing I&ooI^b 
 
 EDITED BY 
 WILLIAM T. HARRIS, A.M., LL. D. 
 
 UNITED STATES COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION 
 
 DIVISION I 
 
 Natural History 
 
BOOKS BY FRANK VINCENT. 
 
 Actual Africa ; or, The Coming Continent. 
 
 A Tour of Exploration. With Map and 104 full-page 
 
 Illustrations, 8vo. Cloth, $5.00. 
 
 " Nothing more complete on the subject of Africa has yet ap- 
 peared than this really marvelous record of personal observation." 
 — St. Paul Pioneer Press. 
 
 " One of the most important contributions to our works of 
 reference that has appeared in recent years." — New York World. 
 
 Around and About South America: 
 
 Twenty Months of Quest and Query. With Maps, Plans, 
 and 54 full-page Illustrations. 8vo. Cloth, $5.00. 
 
 " The most informing book on the subject of the South Ameri- 
 can continent that has ever been produced." — Philadelphia Even- 
 ing Bulletin. 
 
 ' ' Mr. Vincent far surpasses any of his predecessors who have 
 written of South America in the clear, comprehensive, and almost 
 exhaustive view he affords of it." — Boston Saturday Evening 
 Gazette. 
 
 In and Out of Central America; 
 
 And Other Sketches and Studies of Travel. With 
 Maps and Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $2.00. 
 
 " The cleverest, the most comprehensive, and the best book we 
 have yet had on Central America. " — New York Christian Work. 
 
 "The narrative is very skillfully handled, and comprehensive 
 information regarding the little republics is afforded in highly in- 
 teresting fashion." — New York Sun. 
 
 New York: D. APPLETON & CO,, 72 Fifth Avenue. 
 
A Part of the Avenue of Royal Palms. 
 
/ 
 
 APPLE TONS' HOME READING BOOKS 
 
 THE PLANT WORLD 
 
 ITS ROMANCES and REALITIES 
 
 ^ READING-BOOK OF BOTANY 
 
 COMPILED AND EDITED BY 
 
 FRANK VINCENT, M. A. 
 
 AUTHOR OF ACTUAL AFRICA, AROUND AND ABOUT SOUTH AMERICA, ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK I'Knl^-^' 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY ^ | A 
 
 1897 
 
 V 
 
Copyright, 1897, 
 By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 
 
mXEODUCTIO]^ TO THE HOME EEADI:N^G 
 BOOK SEEIES BY THE EDITOR. 
 
 The new education takes two important direc- 
 tions — one of these is toward original observation, 
 requiring the pupil to test and verify what is taught 
 him at school by his own experiments. The infor- 
 mation that he learns from books or he^rs from, his 
 teacher's lips must be assimilated bj incorporating it 
 with his own experience. 
 
 The other direction pointed out by the new edu- 
 cation is systematic home reading. It forms a part of 
 school extension of all kinds. The so-called " Univer- 
 sity Extension " that originated at Cambridge and Ox- 
 ford has as its chief feature the aid of home reading by 
 lectures and round-table discussions, led or conducted 
 by experts who also lay out the course of reading. 
 The Chautauquan movement in this country prescribes 
 a series of excellent books and furnishes for a goodly 
 number of its readers annual courses of lectures. The 
 teachers' reading circles that exist in many States pre- 
 scribe the books to be read, and pubHsh some analysis, 
 conunentary, or catechism to aid the members. 
 
 Home reading, it seems, furnishes the essential 
 basis of this great movement to extend education 
 
vi EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 beyond the school and to make self -culture a habit 
 of life. 
 
 Looking more carefully at the difference between 
 the two directions of the new education we can see 
 what each accomplishes. There is first an effort to 
 train the original powers of the individual and make 
 him seK-active, quick at observation, and free in his 
 thinking. jN^ext, the new education endeavors, by the 
 reading of books and the study of the wisdom of the 
 race, to make the child or youth a participator in the 
 results of experience of all mankind. 
 
 These two movements may be made antagonistic 
 by poor teaching. The book knowledge, containing as 
 it does the precious lesson of human experience, may 
 be so taught as to bring with it only dead rules of 
 conduct, only dead scraps of information, and no 
 stimulant to original thinking. Its contents may be 
 memorized without being understood. On the other 
 hand, the self -activity of the child may be stimulated 
 at the expense of his social well-being — his originality 
 may be cultivated at the expense of his rationality. 
 If he is taught persistently to have his own way, to 
 trust only his own senses, to cling to his own opinions 
 heedless of the experience of his fellows, he is pre- 
 paring for an unsuccessful, misanthropic career, and 
 is likely enough to end his life in a madhouse. 
 
 It is admitted that a too exclusive study of the 
 knowledge found in books, the knowledge which is 
 aggregated from the experience and thought of other 
 people, may result in loading the mind of the pupil 
 with material which he can not use to advantage. 
 
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. yii 
 
 Some minds are so full of lumber that there is no 
 space left to set up a workshop. The necessity of 
 uniting both of these directions of intellectual activity 
 in the schools is therefore obvious, but we must not, 
 in this place, fall into the error of supposing that it is 
 the oral instruction in school and the personal influ- 
 ence of the teacher alone that excites the pupil to ac- 
 tivity. Book instruction is not always dry and theo- 
 retical. The very persons who declaim against the 
 book, and praise in such strong terms the self -activity 
 of the pupil and original research, are mostly persons 
 who have received their practical impulse from read- 
 ing the writings of educational reformers. Yery few 
 persons have received an impulse from personal con- 
 tact vdth inspiring teachers compared with the num- 
 ber that have received an impulse from such books as 
 Herbert Spencer's Treatise on Education, Kousseau's 
 Emile, Pestalozzi's Leonard and Gertrude, Francis 
 W. Parker's Talks about Teaching, G. Stanley 
 Hall's Pedagogical Seminary. Think in this connec- 
 tion, too, of the impulse to observation in natural sci- 
 ence produced by such books as those of Hugh Miller, 
 Faraday, Tyndall, Huxley, Agassiz, and Darwin. 
 
 The new scientific book is different from the old. 
 The old style book of science gave dead results where 
 the new one gives not only the results, but a minute 
 account of the method employed in reaching those re- 
 sults. An insight into the method employed in dis- 
 covery trains the reader into a naturalist, an historian, 
 a sociologist. The books of the writers above named 
 have done more to stimulate original research on the 
 
viii EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 part of their readers than all other influences com- 
 bined. 
 
 It is therefore much more a matter of importance 
 to get the right kind of book than to get a living 
 teacher. The book which teaches results, and at the 
 same time gives in an intelligible manner the steps of 
 discovery and the methods employed, is a book 
 which will stimulate the student to repeat the ex- 
 periments described and get beyond these into fields 
 of original research himself. Every one remem- 
 bers the pubhshed lectures of Faraday on chemistry, 
 which exercised a wide influence in changing the style 
 of books on natural science, causing them to deal 
 with method more than results, and thus to train 
 the reader's power of conducting original research. 
 Eobinson Crusoe for nearly two hundred years has 
 stimulated adventure and prompted young men to 
 resort to the border lands of civihzation. A library 
 of home reading should contain books that stimulate 
 to self -activity and arouse the spirit of inquiry. The 
 books should treat of methods of discovery and evo- 
 lution. All nature is unified by the discovery of 
 the law of evolution. Each and every being in the 
 world is now explained by the process of development 
 to which it belongs. Every fact now throws light on 
 all the others by illustrating the process of growth in 
 which each has its end and aim. 
 
 The Home Beading Books are to be classed as 
 follows : 
 
 First Dwision. IS'atural history, including popular 
 scientific treatises on plants and animals, and also de- 
 
EDITOR'S IISrTRODUCTION. ix 
 
 seriptions of geographical localities. Tlie branch of 
 study in the district school course which corresponds 
 to this is geography. Travels and sojourns in distant 
 lands ; special writings which treat of this or that 
 animal or plant, or family of animals or plants ; any- 
 thing that relates to organic nature or to meteorol- 
 ogy, or descriptive astronomy may be placed in this 
 class. 
 
 Second Division. Whatever relates to physics or 
 natural philosophy, to the statics or dynamics of air or 
 water or Hght or electricity, or to the properties of 
 matter ; whatever relates to chemistry, either organic 
 or inorganic — books on these subjects belong to the 
 class that relates to what is inorganic. Even the so- 
 called organic chemistry relates to the analysis of 
 organic bodies into their inorganic compounds. 
 
 Third Division. History and biography and eth- 
 nology. Books relating to the lives of individuals, and 
 especially to the social life of the nation, and to the 
 collisions of nations in war, as well as to the aid that 
 one gives to another through commerce in times of 
 peace; books on ethnology relating to the manners 
 and customs of savage or civilized peoples ; books on 
 the primitive manners and customs which belong to 
 the earhest human beings — books on these subjects be- 
 long to the third class, relating particularly to the hu- 
 man will, not merely the individual will but the social 
 will, the mil of the tribe or nation ; and to this third 
 class belong also books on ethics and morals, and on 
 forms of government and laws, and what is included 
 under the term civics or the duties of citizenship. 
 
X EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Fourth Division. The fourtli class of books in- 
 cludes more especially literature and works that make 
 known the beautiful in such departments as sculpture, 
 painting, architecture and music. Literature and art 
 show human nature in the form of feelings, emotions, 
 and aspirations, and they show how these feelings 
 lead over to deeds and to clear thoughts. This de- 
 partment of books is perhaps more important than 
 any other in our home reading, inasmuch as it teaches 
 a knowledge of human nature and enables us to un- 
 derstand the motives that lead our fellow-men to 
 action. 
 
 To each book is added an analysis in order to aid 
 the reader in separating the essential points from the 
 unessential, and give each its proper share of atten- 
 tion. 
 
 W. T. Haeris. 
 
 Washington, D. C, November 16, 1896. 
 
PEEF ACE. 
 
 Professor Johonnot, author of valuable works on 
 the principles and practice of teaching, has well said 
 that " mechanical and unintelligent reading is the 
 great reproach of our schools at the present time. In 
 the process of instruction, whenever the attention is 
 almost exclusively directed to words, such reading in- 
 evitably results. The cause of the evil at once sug- 
 gests the remedy : make thought the primary object 
 of attention, and regard words as important only as 
 containing the thought." 
 
 The old-fashioned school readers do not meet these 
 nor other vital requirements. Imperfectly arousing 
 attention and interest, they are not calculated to form 
 habits of observation, comparison, and deduction. 
 Besides, they are so little entertaining and instructive 
 that they rarely excite an eagerness and enthusiasm 
 in students to afterward pursue the special subjects of 
 which they treat. Literary, like more material food, 
 should be palatable as well as nutritious. 
 
 It is not denied that successful attempts have 
 lately been made to provide such feasts. We have 
 
xii THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 had excellent "readers" in science, in industry, and 
 in both human and natural history. The fascinating 
 field of botany, however, seems to have been quite 
 overlooked, and yet surely no subject is better calcu- 
 lated to develop the mind and furnish knowledge of 
 the greatest use and value. 
 
 In the range and diversity of the fifty extracts of 
 the present volume an endeavor has been made to 
 secure the lively interest which comes from broad and 
 characteristic treatment, and poetry has been invoked 
 in addition to prose, itself oftentimes scarcely less 
 picturesque and romantic. The illustrations force- 
 fully reproduce several salient features of the vege- 
 table kingdom. They are unique in a work of this 
 kind. 
 
 All the selections having been properly accredited, 
 both in the text and in the Table of Contents, no fur- 
 ther acknowledgment or additional detail is here 
 thought necessary. 
 
 F. Y. 
 
 New York, December, 1896. 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 Spring .... 
 
 To a Student of Botany 
 
 The Date-Palm . 
 
 Pitcher-Plants 
 
 Virgin Forest in Brazil 
 
 Distribution of Ferns . 
 
 The Sensitive-Plant 
 
 Uses of the Cocoa-nut Tree 
 
 The Botanic Garden of Paredenia 
 
 The Bamboo . 
 
 Marine Plants 
 
 Diffusion of Plants 
 
 Autumn 
 
 The Bread-Fruit-Tree 
 
 On the Uses of Plants 
 
 Some Wonderful Gardens 
 
 The Chestnut-Tree 
 
 The Banana. 
 
 The Water-Lily . 
 
 Plant-Lore . 
 
 The Longevity of Trees 
 
 Grasses. 
 
 W. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 . Thomson. 1 
 
 Yolney M. Spalding. 2 
 
 Anonymous. 5 
 
 . M. C. Cooke. 9 
 
 Charles Rileyrolles, 16 
 
 Francis George Heath. 23 
 
 . Shelley. 29 
 
 Bonifas-Guizot, 30 
 
 . Ernst Haeckel. 33 
 
 Anonymous. 40 
 
 G. Hartwig. 43 
 
 Anonymous. 48 
 
 Longfellow. 52 
 
 Fulgence Marion. 53 
 
 S. W. Ruschenherger. 59 
 
 F. M. Colby. 63 
 
 Louis Figuier. 70 
 
 G. Hartwig. 74 
 
 Hemans. 76 
 
 Anonymous. 77 
 
 Elias Lewis. 84 
 
 Margaret Flues. 95 
 
 Xlll 
 
XIV 
 
 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 Giants of the Vegetable Kingdom 
 
 Six Great Groups of Plants 
 
 The Lotus .... 
 
 The Habitation of Plants . 
 
 The Victoria Regia . 
 
 The Arab to the Palm 
 
 The Life of Plants . 
 
 Sea- Weeds .... 
 
 An Autumn Garland 
 
 The Giant Trees of California 
 
 Mountain Vegetation 
 
 Indian Summer . 
 
 The Sleep of Plants . 
 
 The Baobab 
 
 Valuable Woods of Brazil 
 
 Giants in the Vegetable World 
 
 The Feast of Roses . 
 
 The Chocolate-Plant . 
 
 The Cinnamon Gardens of Ceyh 
 
 Curiosities in the Vegetable Kingdom 
 
 The Pumpkin 
 
 Carnivorous Plants . 
 
 The Cotton-Plant 
 
 The Rose among the Ancients 
 
 A Chapter on Flowers 
 
 The Talipot-Tree 
 
 A Talk about Useful Plants 
 
 Subterranean Vegetation . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 . F. A. Fouchet. 103 
 
 Charles Barnard. 110 
 
 Anonymous. 115 
 
 Count Fcdix. 118 
 
 Faul Marcoy. 132 
 
 Bayard Taylor. 128 
 
 F. A. Fouchet. 130 
 
 . Q. Hartwig. 134 
 
 F. M. Colby. 139 
 A. D. Richardson. 144 
 
 Louis Figuier. 147 
 
 Anonymous. 155 
 
 F. A. Fouchet. 157 
 
 . G. Hartwig. 161 
 
 James Orton. 163 
 
 M. C. Coohe. 167 
 
 . Moore. 173 
 
 Anonymous. 175 
 
 G. Hartwig. 181 
 I. Piatt. 184 
 
 Whitiier. 188 
 
 Anonymous. 190 
 
 Q. Hartwig. 198 
 
 Samuel B. Farsons. 201 
 
 Emma C. Embury. 206 
 
 . Anonymous. 213 
 
 Charles Barnard. 218 
 
 . G. Hartwig. 224 
 
illusteatio:ns. 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 Avenue of Royal Palms, Rio Janeiro . . Frontispiece 
 
 Blu-Blu Waterfall, St. Thomas, West Coast of Africa . 23 
 
 Gathering Cocoa-nuts 30 
 
 The Bread-Fruit-Tree 53 
 
 Climbing for Palm Wine 77 
 
 A Dragon-Tree, Teneriffe 93 
 
 Umbrella-Tree . .103 
 
 Central American Fruits 110 
 
 A Canal full of Victoria Regia Lilies 122 
 
 Coffee Picking in Guatemala 130 
 
 The " Grizzly Giant " 145 
 
 The Flower of the Baobab-Tree 161 
 
 The Giant Cactus 168 
 
 A Clove Plantation, Zanzibar 187 
 
 Central American Vegetables 218 
 
THE PLAINT WOELD. 
 
 SPEma. 
 
 Faie-handed Spring imbosoms every grace, 
 Throws out tlie Snowdrop, and the Crocus first ; 
 The Daisy, Primrose, Yiolet darkly blue, 
 And Polyanthus of unnumbered dyes ; 
 The yellow Wallflower, stained with iron brown ; 
 And lavish Stock that scents the garden round : 
 From the soft wing of vernal breezes shed, 
 Anemonies; Auriculas, enriched 
 "With shining meal o'er all their velvet leaves ; 
 And full Ranunculus, of glowing red. 
 Then comes the TuHp-race, where Beauty plays 
 Her idle freaks ; from family diffused 
 To family, as flies the father- dust. 
 The varied colors run ; and while they break 
 On the charmed eye, th' exulting florist marks, 
 With secret pride, the wonders of his hand. 
 'No gradual bloom is wanting ; from the bud. 
 First-born of Spring, to Summer's musky tribes : 
 Nor Hyacinths, of purest virgin white. 
 Low-bent, and blushing inward : nor Jonquils, 
 2 1 
 
THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 Of potent fragrance ; nor Narcissus fair, 
 
 As o'er the fabled fountain hanging still ; 
 
 ]^or broad Carnations, nor gay-spotted Pinks ; 
 
 Nor, showered from every bush, the Damask Rose. 
 
 Infinite numbers, delicacies, smells, 
 
 With hues on hues expression cannot paint. 
 
 The breath of Nature, and her endless bloom. 
 
 Thomson. 
 
 TO A STUDENT OF BOTANY. 
 
 1. You are beginning the study of living things, 
 and it is very important that you should begin in the 
 right way. There are a few things that you ought to 
 consider at the outset. First of all, it is essential that 
 you should learn to see things just as they are, and to 
 report exactly what you have seen. Agassiz used to 
 say to his students : " Study to know what is ; be 
 courageous enough to say, ' I do not know.' " Tyn- 
 dall said to the teachers at South Kensington : " In 
 every one of your experiments endeavor to feel the 
 responsibility of a moral agent. ... If you wish to 
 become acquainted with the truth of Nature, you 
 must from the first resolve to deal with her sin- 
 cerely." Darwin in his autobiography writes : " I 
 had during many years followed a golden rule, namely, 
 that whenever a published fact, a new observation or 
 thought, came across me, which was opposed to my 
 
TO A STUDENT OF BOTANY. 3 
 
 general results, to make a memorandum of it without 
 fail and at once, for I had found bj experience that 
 such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape 
 from the memory than favorable ones." 
 
 2. When jou have seen a thing clearly, be sure 
 to express your conception, whether by drawing, or 
 written description, or both, as accurately as possible. 
 Learn to use scientific language with precision. Write 
 out your observations in full, in the best English at 
 your command. Avoid abbreviations and every other 
 device for saving time. Make your drawings so that 
 an engraver could copy them. Do not hesitate to 
 do your work all over again, if it can be improved, as 
 it probably can be, and do not leave a thing until 
 you have not only a complete observation, but a com- 
 plete expression of it. 
 
 3. Do not be hasty in drawing conclusions. Make 
 a constant practice of comparing the object you are 
 studying with others of the same kind. I^ote dif- 
 ferences and resemblances. Learn by the actual 
 process what it is to acquire a general conception. 
 " Honesty in science means, first, facts well proved, 
 and then conclusions slowly and painfully deduced 
 from facts well proved." In all your work stojp and 
 think. The mere accumulation of facts, if nothing is 
 done with them, is of little consequence. Constant- 
 ly ask the question. What does this fact mean ? You 
 may or may not be able to answer the question, but 
 there is no reason for not raising it. 
 
 4. Cultivate self-reliance, but not self-sufiiciency. 
 Study things themselves rather than book descriptions 
 
4 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 of them, but habitL' llj use the books you are referred 
 to, comparing point by point your own observations 
 with what the authors have to say. The writers cited 
 may or may not be right; they are more likely to 
 be than you are; but both of you may be wrong. 
 The best way is to observe for yourself, then consult 
 the books ; then observe ag-ain, and continue your ob- 
 servations and comparisons until the exact truth is 
 ascertained. This is the way investigations are con- 
 ducted, and you are learning how to investigate. 
 
 5. This leads to a word on the use of books. 
 Make it a regular practice to look up the references 
 that are given with the exercises. By doing this you 
 will not only become acquainted with some of the 
 most valuable botanical literature, but, what is more 
 important, you will come, in some measure, to un- 
 derstand the habits and methods of the great workers 
 in science, and will, perhaps insensibly to yourself, 
 catch something of their spirit, and learn to work as 
 they did, honestly, accurately, and " with infinite pa- 
 tience." 
 
 6. One of the greatest investigators who has ever 
 lived wrote a few years ago : " Whenever I have 
 found out that I have blundered, or that my work 
 has been imperfect, and when I have been contemp- 
 tuously criticised, and even when I have been over- 
 praised, so that I have felt mortified, it has been my 
 greatest comfort to say hundreds of times to myself 
 that ' I have worked as hard and as well as I could, 
 and no man can do more than this.' " 
 
 VoLNEY M. Spalding, " Guide to the Study of Common Plants." 
 
THE DATE-PALM. 5 
 
 THE DATE-PALM. 
 
 I. The date-palm {Phoenix dactyliferd) is often 
 found to be tlie only tree cultivated and wild, not 
 only in Arabia, but throughout the whole of northern 
 Africa and the country of the Euphrates to the valley 
 of the Indus. A line drawn from Cape Blanco to 
 Cape Gardafui marks its southern limit in Africa; 
 but there are many places besides where it will thrive 
 as a cultivated tree. Even in Europe, in the southern 
 parts of Spain, there exists a noble forest of fine date- 
 palms, relics of the past Moorish civilization, and the 
 tree has been transplanted to some parts of America 
 with success. Its true home, however, is that part of 
 the tropic zone where there is no rainfall, and where 
 its roots are fed by the ground-water lying in the 
 sand ; since the hardness of the leaves and the thick- 
 ness of their outer skin enable the tree to resist the 
 heat of the sun. The palms can only thrive in the 
 plains. In Syria they are found inland as far as 
 the base of Lebanon ; but they never grow on the 
 heights, and are rarely found above 2,000 to 3,300 
 feet above the sea. On Mount Sinai they are said 
 to flourish as high up as 1,638 feet above the sea ; but 
 beyond this they degenerate. Along their southern 
 boundary they seem to prefer the coasts, and are 
 found in great abundance upon the island of Soco- 
 tra. Magnificent date forests are found throughout 
 the delta of the Euphrates and the Tigris. In the 
 
6 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 marsliy depressions of the soil tlie stems of the wild 
 palms take root ; they do not grow here, as elsewhere, 
 to a height of sixty feet, but form a dense under- 
 growth with their roots and offshoots. The fruit 
 of the date-palm of Bagdad is still fine and pleas- 
 ant flavored. The traveler, descending the moun- 
 tains of Kurdistan towards Mesopotamia, meets with 
 the first date-palm near Altyn Kopru (35° 40' ]N". 
 lat.), and its northern limit extends eastward from 
 that place and parallel to the mountain chain which 
 is hostile to its growth. But still farther eastward, 
 where the coast is visited by the southwest mon- 
 soons, the conditions necessary to its healthy growth 
 are lacking, and therefore it is only found in British 
 India along the upper course of the Indus, and on 
 the southwestern slopes of Cashmere. 
 
 2. It may be truly said of the date-palm, that no 
 other plant has played such a part in the world's re- 
 ligion, in history, or in poetry. It ranks in this re- 
 spect before the Egyptian lotus, the Celtic mistletoe, 
 the lily of France, the genista (broom) of the N^orth- 
 men, or the rose, thistle, and shamrock, of our own 
 country. The writer of the Canticles borrows from 
 its height and graceful beauty the imagery in which 
 he depicts the royal maiden of whom he sings ; and 
 when the noble hero of the Grecian epic approaches 
 the king's daughter T^ausicaa with suppliant words, 
 he says — 
 
 " For never saw I yet one like to thee. 
 Or man or woman ; and I gaze with joy. 
 So once in Delos have mine eyes beheld, 
 
THE DATE-PALM. 7 
 
 Beside Apollo's altar, a fair palm 
 
 Whose slender, graceful stem enthralled my sight ; 
 
 For the earth holds not such another growth." 
 
 3. The palm is " the queen of the oasis, whose foot 
 is bathed in water, and her head uplifted to the fii-e of 
 heaven." l^o storm breaks or uproots her ; no sun- 
 beam penetrates through the sheltering roof of its 
 feathery, rustling leaves, often more than three yards 
 in length. Sheltering the spring of water, and pro- 
 tecting the growth of vegetables and low shrubs at 
 her feet, she is the creator, ornament, protectress, and 
 wealth of the oasis. The traveler looks with joy on 
 the distant vision of her crown of leaves as thej rise 
 above the horizon of the desert ; they are the sure 
 sign of inhabited homest-eads and a welcome resting 
 place. The pleasant fruit, in shape and size like a 
 plum, hangs down in rich clusters, and in many places, 
 especially in Arabia, its sweet, pleasant-tasted fruit 
 forms the daily bread of the inhabitants, and one of 
 their most valuable articles of commerce. A single 
 date tree bears yearly from five to six hundredweight. 
 The fastidious European owns the delicacy of its fla- 
 vor, although it is very rare that good specimens of 
 the fruit are sold in Europe. But the tree has not 
 always been what it has now become. The plains of 
 the lower Euphrates and of the Tigris were the para- 
 dise where men cultivated and improved the life-giv- 
 ing tree, and whence it spread to other countries. 
 
 4. It is a remarkable fact in. the history of civili- 
 zation, only to be paralleled with the other fact that 
 the dromedary, "the ship of the desert," was not 
 
8 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 •known in Africa until the third century of the Chris- 
 tian era ; and yet the dromedary seems created espe- 
 cially for the Libyan Desert, and by its means the 
 inaccessible region has been thrown open to men of 
 other races and other rehgions. The camel and the 
 date-palm, two blessings of creation, closely connected 
 in the necessities of their existence, and apparently an 
 integral part of desert life and scenery, do not even 
 belong originally to desert lands. They are the prod- 
 uct and growth of the inhabitants of the desert, who 
 tamed the one, and developed the luscious honey- 
 sweet fruit of the other, which made this part of the 
 globe habitable. The palm in its present state of 
 perfection makes life only too easy for its lord and 
 master, giving him almost all he needs without any 
 labor; and thus adding a link to his gloomy, indo- 
 lent fatalism, and to the dignified repose with which 
 he veils the hot passions slumbering below his assumed 
 cahn. We need not specify in greater detail the mani- 
 fold uses of the date-palm ; we content ourselves with 
 referring, after Strabo and Plutarch, to the Persian 
 or Babylonian hymn in which the praises of the date- 
 palm are sung, and three hundred ways in which it 
 may be used are fully set forth. 
 
 Anonymous, " Wonders of Living Nature." 
 
I/' 
 
 PITCHER-PLANTS. Q 
 
 pitchee-pla:n^ts. 
 
 1. Theee are some plants whicli have commended 
 themselYes to notice either by their singular form, 
 peculiar habit, showy flowers, or beautiful odor. Be- 
 fore carnivorous plants attracted any attention on ac- 
 count of their flesh-devouring proclivities, the Pitcher- 
 plants had acquired notoriety, not on account of 
 their showy flowers or beautiful odors — because these 
 are attractions which they do not possess — but sim- 
 ply on account of their singular form. The pitchers, 
 from whence the name is derived, hang suspended at 
 the ends of the leaves, of which they are simply pro- 
 longations and modifications. Most Pitcher-plants 
 consist of a clump of long, narrow green leaves. The 
 extremities of the latter are attenuated down to the 
 midrib, which becomes reduced to a cord, at the end 
 of which hang suspended, one from each of many of 
 the leaves, a curious bag or pouch, not unlike a small 
 and delicate jug or pitcher, with a smaller leaf-Uke 
 flap hanging over the mouth like a lid. These pitchers 
 usually contain a little fluid, looking like water, at the 
 bottom, in which are drowned insects. Such were 
 the Pitcher-plants to our forefathers, and they were 
 regarded simply as "curiosities of vegetation." To 
 us they are something more, now that their history is 
 better known, and for reasons which it shall be our 
 object to explain. 
 
10 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 2. Botanically, the Pitclier-plants proper are 
 known by the name of ]^epenthes, an old classical 
 name, the application of which to these plants is some- 
 what obscure. One writer has attempted an apology 
 for it in the following manner : "I have often won- 
 dered why Linnaeus gave to this genus the name of 
 IS'epenthes. Every reader of classic story remembers 
 that when Telemachus reached the court of Mene- 
 laus, tired and famished, the beautiful Helen gave 
 him nepenthe to drink. 'No one has ever been able 
 to say what this nepenthe was, though no doubt one 
 of the ' drowsy sirups of the East.' Johnson defines 
 nepenthe as an ' herb that drives away sadness.' Lin- 
 naeus, perhaps, intended to refer to the tankard-like 
 structure, so like also in the original species to a hot- 
 water jug with its lid. Sometimes I am disposed to 
 think that old Homer may have meant by nepenthe 
 no physical beverage, but the sweet graces of Helen's 
 queenly and consummate hospitality and welcome, 
 touching, as they did, her guest's inmost feelings of 
 love and reverence. If so, J^epentlie is well applied 
 to its present owner, for assuredly no plant appeals 
 more strongly to our sense of the admirable and the 
 unique." 
 
 3. These tropical plants can only be cultivated in 
 hot-houses in this country, and hence there are many 
 persons to whom they are utter strangers. It may be 
 true that all recent horticultural exhibitions have in- 
 cluded specimens, but there are thousands of unfor- 
 tunate individuals who can never visit " flower-shows," 
 although there are but few in the neighborhood of 
 
PITCHER-PLANTS. 11 
 
 the metropolis who could not search out the Pitcher- 
 plant in that favorite hohday resort — Kew Gardens. 
 Travelers have described for us the appearance of 
 these plants in their native homes, and especially 
 those who have visited Borneo and the other islands 
 of the Indian archipelago. Among others, Mr. Al- 
 fred Wallace thus alludes to them. He says : " We 
 had been told we should find water at Padangbatu, 
 but we looked about for it in vain, as we were ex- 
 ceedingly thirsty. At last we turned to the Pitcher- 
 plants, but the water contained in the pitchers (about 
 half a pint in each) was full of insects, and other- 
 wise uninviting. On tasting it, however, we found 
 it very palatable, though rather warm, and we all 
 quenched our thirst from these natural jugs." 
 
 4. And again, when at Borneo, the same traveler 
 writes : " The wonderful Pitcher-plants, forming 
 the genus I^epenthes of botanists, here reach their 
 greatest development. Every mountain-top abounds 
 with them, running along the ground or climbing 
 over shrubs and stunted trees ; their elegant pitchers 
 hanging in every direction. Some of these are long 
 and slender, resembling in form the beautiful Phil- 
 ippine lace-sponge, which has now become so com- 
 mon ; others are broad and short ; their colors are 
 green, variously tinted, and mottled with red or pur- 
 ple. The finest yet known were obtained on the 
 summit of Kini-balou, in northwest Borneo. One 
 of the broad sort Avill hold two quarts of water in its 
 pitcher. Another has a narrow pitcher twenty inches 
 long, while the plant itseK grows to the length of twenty 
 
12 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 feet." In 1847, when Lindley published the second 
 edition of his " Vegetable Kingdom," he recorded, 
 with somewhat of doubt, the number of different 
 species as six, whereas, so many have been discovered 
 since, that we may consider them equal to ^ve times 
 that number. 
 
 5. There are, says Dr. Hooker, " upward of thir- 
 ty species of Kepenthes, natives of the hotter parts of 
 the Asiatic archipelago, from Borneo to Ceylon, with 
 a few outlying species in 'New Caledonia, in tropical 
 Australia, and in the Seychelles Islands on the Afri- 
 can coast. The pitchers are abundantly produced, es- 
 pecially during the younger state of the plants. They 
 present very considerable modifications of form and 
 external structure, and vary greatly in size, from little 
 more than an inch to almost a foot in length ; one 
 species indeed, from the mountains of Borneo, has 
 pitchers which, including the hd, measure a foot and 
 a half, and the capacious bowl is large enough to 
 drown a small animal or bird." 
 
 6. In most species the pitchers are of two forms, 
 one pertaining to the young, the other to the old state 
 of the plant, the transition from one form to the 
 other being gradual. Those of the young state are 
 shorter and more inflated; they have broad fringed 
 longitudinal wings on the outside, which are probably 
 guides to lead insects to the mouth ; the lid is smaller 
 and more open, and the whole interior surface is 
 covered with secreting glands. Being formed near 
 the root of the plant, these pitchers often rest on the 
 ground, and in species which do not form leaves near 
 
PITCHER-PLANTS. 13 
 
 the root they are sometimes suspended from stalks 
 which may be fully a yard long, and which bring 
 them to the ground. In the older state of the plant 
 the pitchers are usually much longer, narrower, and 
 less inflated, trumpet-shaped ; the wings also are nar- 
 rower, less fringed, or almost absent. The lid is 
 larger and slants over the mouth, and only the lower 
 part of the pitcher is covered with secreting glands, 
 the upper part presenting a tissue of different char- 
 acter. 
 
 7. The difference of structure in these two forms 
 of pitcher, considered in reference to their different 
 positions on the plant, forces the conclusion on the 
 mind that the one form is intended for ground 
 game, the other for winged game. In all cases the 
 mouth of the pitcher is furnished with a thickened 
 corrugated rim, which serves three purposes : it 
 strengthens the mouth, and keeps it distended ; it se- 
 cretes honey, and it is in various species developed 
 into a funnel-shaped tube, that descends into the 
 pitcher, and prevents the escape of insects, or into a 
 row of incurved hooks, that are in some cases strong 
 enough to retain a small bird, should it, when in 
 search of water or of insects, thrust its body beyond 
 a certain length into the pitcher. In one species 
 {Nepenthes hicalcarata) there are also two strong 
 pointed hooks, or teeth, which are directed down- 
 ward towards the mouth of the pitcher. Such ap- 
 pendages would doubtless be of service in preventing 
 the free exit of any large insect after it had once 
 entered the pitcher. 
 
14 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 8. The attractive surfaces of Nepenthes are two, 
 those namely of the rim of the pitcher, and of the 
 under surface of the hd, which is provided in almost 
 every species with honey-secreting glands, often in 
 great abundance. It is a singular fact that the only 
 species known to the writer of these observations, 
 in which the honey -glands on the lid were absent, was 
 a species in which the lid, unlike that of other species, 
 is thrown back horizontally. The secretion of honey 
 on a lid so placed would tend to lure insects away 
 from the pitcher instead of into it. 
 
 9. From the mouth downward, for a variable dis- 
 tance inside the pitchers, the glassy glaucous surface 
 affords no foothold for insects. The rest is entirely 
 occupied with the secretive surface, which consists 
 of a cellular floor crowded with spherical glands in 
 inconceivable numbers. Each gland resembles the 
 honey-glands of the lid, semicircular, with the mouth 
 downward, so that the secretive fluid all falls to the 
 bottom of the pitcher. In one species three thou- 
 sand of these glands were ascertained by Dr. Hooker 
 to occur on a square inch of the inner surface of the 
 pitcher, and upwards of a million in an ordinary-sized 
 pitcher. The glands secrete the fluid which is con- 
 tained at the bottom of the pitchers previous to 
 their opening, and this fluid is alway acid. When 
 the fluid is* emptied out of a fully-formed pitcher, that 
 has not received animal matter, it forms again, but 
 in comparatively very small quantities, and the for- 
 mation goes on for many days, even after the pitcher 
 has been removed from the plant. " I do not find," 
 
PITCHER-PLANTS. 15 
 
 says Dr. Hooker, " that placing inorganic sub- 
 stances in the fluid causes an increased secretion, 
 but I have twice observed a considerable increase 
 of fluid in pitchers after putting animal matter in 
 the fluid." 
 
 10. A series of experiments performed with the 
 pitchers of these Pitcher-plants, resembled those ap- 
 plied previously to the Sundews and Fly-trap, with 
 similar results. "White of egg, raw meat, fibrin, and 
 cartilage were employed for feeding. In all cases 
 the action was most evident, and in some surprising. 
 After twenty-four hours' immersion, the edges of the 
 cubes of white of egg were eaten away, and the sur- 
 faces gelatinized. Fragments of meat were rapidly 
 reduced, and pieces of fibrin weighing several grains 
 were dissolved, and had totally disappeared in two 
 or three days. With cartilage the action was most 
 remarkable. Lumps of this, weighing eight and ten 
 grains, were half -gelatinized in twenty-four hours, 
 and in three days the whole mass was greatly dimin- 
 ished, and reduced to a clear, transparent jelly. 
 
 11. That this action, which is comparable to diges- 
 tion, is not wholly due to the secretion, as at first 
 deposited, seems probable, since very little change 
 took place in any of the substances when placed in 
 the fluid drawn from the pitchers, and put in glass 
 tubes, nor even in substances immersed in the pitch- 
 ers, when the plants have been removed into a room 
 the temperature of which was far below that of the 
 normal temperature in which the plant flourishes. 
 In the latter case, as soon as the plant was taken back 
 
16 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 into a higher and more normal temperature, the im- 
 mersed substances were immediately acted upon. 
 
 M. C. Cooke, " Freaks and Marvels of Plant Life." 
 
 YIEGIJS^ FOEEST IN BEAZIL. 
 
 1. I NEVER entered one of these free wild sanctu- 
 aries, without a most profound emotion. It was not 
 fear, it was not respect. I paid little heed to the 
 spirits or the fairies of the wood. I recalled no leg- 
 end, and the prophetic worship of the ancients of the 
 mysteries of sacred forests in no degree inclined my 
 soul toward the giant trees, these altars of shades. 
 
 2. It was the infinity, the mystery of this rich 
 creation, gigantic and inexhaustible, the universal life, 
 which beckoned me to enter. In the midst of this 
 circulation of sap, this expansion of form, I felt my- 
 self small, feeble, powerless ; the internal gloom, the 
 night of science overwhelmed me, and the modern 
 spirit of seeking possessed me with its fever. I ad- 
 mire the savants^ who, bending over a herbal, say to 
 you, " Study carefully the structure of internal tissues, 
 mark the absence or the number of cotyledons, follow 
 the evolution of the germs, verify the sex, and you 
 can place every plant in one of the four classes of the 
 vegetable kingdom." 
 
 3. Eeally is this all the difficulty ? Is the secret 
 of the life of plants a question of cotyledons ? God 
 
VIRGIN FOREST IN BRAZIL. 17 
 
 forbid that I should blaspheme patience and genius. 
 The great masters of botany, Gesner, Adanson, Lin- 
 naeus, and Laurent de Jussieu, having justly merited 
 human gratitude, in giving us rules for examination, 
 the natural affinities, and the organic analogies. But 
 wherein have these methods and classifications re- 
 vealed the being of the plant ? To describe is not to 
 explain, and the phenomenon is not the law. But 
 yet, let museums be arranged, and cabinets secured, 
 conservatories built ; but if you should enter the pri- 
 meval woods, and amuse yourseK in counting the 
 cotyledons, cyclopaedias would not suffice to name, nor 
 centuries to number ! 
 
 4. Tropical forests resemble very little the great 
 woods of Europe, where the species are grouped and 
 massed. Here the infinitely varied natures are con- 
 fusedly mingled. 
 
 5. A rich disorder marries plant, flower, and sap, 
 life overflows in leaves and fruits, to the risk of dew- 
 filled chalices. The carpet is no regular design of 
 grasses, or cryptogamige, of herbs or mosses, it is a 
 chaos of capricious vegetation, of enameled flowering, 
 intermingled with giant ferns ; and as for the trees, 
 which shade or arch it, !N^ature and the winds have 
 thrown them in by thousands, as the suns are scattered 
 through space by the hand of God. 
 
 6. All that one can dare to attempt in this laby- 
 rinth is a general sketch of forms, a modest draught 
 of the interior plan of these marvelous constructions. 
 
 7. The general appearance of a virgin forest such 
 as is seen on the Brazilian hills, is that of a grove in 
 
18 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 tlie form of an amphitlieater. From the deptlis of 
 the gorges rise the primitive trees, the trunks of which 
 are hidden under a giant juicy growth, the shooting 
 branches of which form an arch or basket. You 
 would saj the roots of the secondary plan gave the 
 leaves and flowers; and so they rise from rank to 
 rank, to the very summits where sometimes immense 
 granite blocks appear above the last clusters of foliage, 
 now bathed in sunshine, now crowned with clouds. 
 Shading upward, from the deepest green to slaty 
 gray, from a purple red to pure lilac and white, every 
 shade, every tone, every delight of the eye in color 
 is found on this forest mantle fringed with flowers. 
 
 8. But if you will penetrate the secret of the 
 woods, its arrangements, its freaks and fantasies of 
 architecture, you must go under the arch and wander 
 as far as possible, opening a path, hatchet in hand. 
 Then the internal economy of these wild woods, so 
 wise in its disorder, is seen. The three elements are 
 before us — herb, vine, and tree — and if we can fathom 
 neither the mystery nor the power of the creations, 
 we can at least study and follow in its external form 
 this vast and rich organism. The grasses and modest 
 woody plants, the Brazilian creepers with tuberous or 
 fleshy roots, Eusentes, and Liseroles, with white or 
 blue flowers, climb, creep, twist, and interlace them- 
 selves, while parasites are attached to the shrubs and 
 trunks of the trees. These charming vampires all 
 absorb the juices, but do they give nothing in return ? 
 IS'ot a single one of these malvaceas but has its prop- 
 erty, purgative or f ebrifuginous, and if medical botany 
 
VIRGIN FOREST IN BRAZIL. 19 
 
 ever minutely studies these humble climbers, in root, 
 bark, and flower, they will find more than one treasure. 
 These plants secrete Hfe. 
 
 9. Above the grasses and ConvolvulaGece rise the 
 vines with hardy flexible branches. They run from 
 tree to tree, enveloping the trunks almost to suffoca- 
 tion, describing curves and spirals stretching out into 
 airy bridges, then descend, only to climb again hke 
 ladders. This vegetation is wild as caprice itself, and 
 in its athletic evolutions it defies art and fantasy. It 
 has undulations which charm, lines which astonish us. 
 It involves everything, intermingles with everything, 
 grasses, trees, branch and trunk, the lively orchids, 
 which form cornices for the socles of the trees or 
 flowers for their capitals. It is the gluttonous para- 
 site, the butterfly, its kingdom is the whole forest. 
 
 10. The artist dreaming of monuments, studies the 
 old cartoons of the museums, the Ionic, the Doric, 
 the Corinthian, the Composite, the Tuscan orders, and 
 the Mauresque with its rich carvings. Why does he 
 not go to the forest and study the vine, that grand 
 worker, which day and night alike advances, inter- 
 laces, constructs, and extends ? He would find here 
 all the divine forms of Grecian art, all the fantasies 
 of the spirit of the present, but varied to infinity, 
 attaching themselves to, and leaning upon, the two im- 
 mortal conditions of beauty — strength and grace. 
 
 11. Callimachus, the sculptor-architect, formerly 
 borrowed the acanthus leaf from the tomb of a Corin- 
 thian maiden, and this flower of art made him immor- 
 tal. How many similar flowers might there not be 
 
20 • THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 ravished from these virgin forests, and how fruitful 
 would be the study of the full, rich, perspective of 
 these marvelous constructions ! Art, like Science, 
 should renew itself, rejuvenate itseK on the breast of 
 IS'ature. There lies the path of the age. 
 
 12. And the dealers in wood, the wood-carvers, 
 the fabricators of household furniture, those who fur- 
 nish the raw material and the timber, what do thej in 
 their lumber-yards and work-shops with their nut- 
 wood, their oak, and their northern pine ? For build- 
 ing and for ornament, there are here hundreds and 
 hundreds of varieties of trees tall and perfect, which 
 spring up, develop and die^ useless creations, substances 
 ignored, forces lost. 
 
 13. Dye-woods, gum-producing and resinous trees, 
 or trees with heahng bark ; what rich varieties would 
 be found in these virgin forests ! Many have been 
 discovered, and a few have been classed; but what 
 numbers of substances are still unknown, and how 
 many precious juices are lost under the bark which 
 covers them ! Between the creeper which corrodes 
 the trees at the foot, and the flowers which crown 
 them, there are indeed many secrets and more than 
 one specific. 
 
 14. But I have no inducement to the study of these 
 matters. I belong neither to medicine, to the axe, nor 
 to the plane ; and regretting all these lost values, I 
 enter the forest to dream there. 
 
 15. It is early morning, the sun gilds but does not 
 penetrate the dark-green curtains. A single pencil of 
 rays comes across the dry white branches of a light- 
 
VIRGIN FOREST IN BRAZIL. 21 
 
 ning-stricken irribera, and caresses the red flowers of 
 the ipomea at my feet. Little caravans on the march 
 make a rusthng in the leaves and grass. These are 
 the travelers of the forest, insects, ants, and lizards, 
 who go either to the harvest or the hunt. 
 
 16. Butterflies bend over the flower cups which 
 the bees have visited. The tribe of neutral ants go 
 out in squadrons seeking for the puceron ; and the 
 timid agouti, squat under the mosses, gnaws at the 
 leaves and roots. 
 
 IT. The water-hog — capibara — the deer, and the 
 tapir, they breakfast farther away under retired 
 bowers at the foot of precipices ; and one might go 
 for leagues through the wood without finding the 
 ounce ; the striped huntress is in pursuit of the boto- 
 cudos. 
 
 18. Above the creepers and ferns, from among 
 the high branches, paroquets scream under the green 
 leaves. 
 
 19. Monkeys, red and brown and with furry tails, 
 are there howling and grimacing, rolled round the 
 branches like moss. 
 
 20. The ouistitis, greedy lover of insects, watches 
 or gambols in the sun, the locust exhausts its stridu- 
 lous monotones, and the colibris chase the pollen. The 
 bird-flies ruby-winged, the narcissus of the flowers, 
 green coleopteras and 'butterflies with their blazing 
 corselets and blue wings, all the graceful atoms in the 
 sun's beams, fly, intermingle, rise, and fall like the 
 sparks of a feu d^ artifice, and shimmer, bathed in 
 gold, in the light of the glades and distant vistas. 
 
22 THE PLANT WOULD. 
 
 21. There is less noise and less luster in the mosses 
 below, but there is a whole living, busy, animated 
 world there, notwithstanding. The tree-trunks are 
 peopled, the roots have their hives, the bark hides its 
 legions, the sap trickles, there is life everywhere. 
 Creation, incessant, universal, infinite, inexhaustible, 
 which lives from death. 
 
 22. These are what I have found, and what I have 
 seen in the forest: a rich and varied panorama, a 
 sweet and powerful orchestra, a conservatory opulent 
 in perfumes, a casket of flowers. It has given me all 
 the joys of sense ; the mind too has had its enlighten- 
 ment and its enchantment. 
 
 23. This grand tree, with its straight smooth 
 trunk, shooting up hke the pahn, toward the clouds — 
 what is its fate ? 
 
 24. I see it prone, naked, in the hands of the ship- 
 wright ; then it rises, the shapely mast of a noble ship, 
 carrying a flag, and the ideas which it represents, to 
 the ends of the earth. It will hold the blessed canvas, 
 perhaps, which shall waft us to the wished-f or port of 
 our lost country. 
 
 25. Mount, ever mount, tree of our dreams and 
 hopes ! May the gnawing worm be far from thy pow- 
 erful trunk ! May the hghtning spare thy head ! 
 
 26. How generous and fruitful is the virgin forest 
 of southern lands ! Like Cybele, her mother, she bares 
 her breast to all. She has germs and essences, she has 
 sap and hidden forces, for science, for art, and for la- 
 bor. She shelters under her arches all that vast un- 
 known animal kingdom, from the insect to the jaguar, 
 
DISTRIBUTION OF FERNS. 23 
 
 from the infusoria to tlie monkey. The Indian, too, 
 finds there his shelter and his food, like the plants and 
 the bee. But it is sufficient for itself, it renews itself 
 with the ages, clothed like them in unfading youth. 
 It is one of the grand, free, and sovereign beings, 
 which remain on the earth. What is its secret ? Hu- 
 midity and heat, sunshine and dew. 
 
 27. What sun and dew are to the forest, science 
 and labor are to humanity. A forest is not alone a 
 poetic grouping, the great poem of the eyes ; it is a 
 profound system of philosophy, a revelation which 
 promulgates one of the great laws of creation. 
 
 Charles Ribeyrolles, " The Sublime in Nature." 
 
 DISTEIBUTIOIS' OF FEE:N'S. 
 
 1. Ferns are associated with the most beautiful 
 portions of this world's surface. The most graceful 
 of Nature's garments, they seek to clothe, not the dull 
 expanse of level plain, or the bare, straight side of hiU 
 or mountain. They do not grow on sandy flats, on the 
 even margin of a sluggish river, or on the smooth and 
 reckless lines of seacoast. Where the scorching sun- 
 rays fall unscreened upon arid earth, and where no 
 shadows relieve the course of a far-reaching expanse 
 of open country, no ferny growths are found. It is 
 where ^Nature is in her wildest moods, and assumes 
 her grandest aspects, or where the beauty which is 
 spread over rock and wood and stream is of that 
 
24 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 dreamy kind which most powerfully stirs the imagina- 
 tion and enthralls the soul, that ferns are found in the 
 greatest perfection, waving their graceful fronds in 
 response to the mountain breeze, or bending under 
 the weight of spray drops flung upon them from the 
 impetuous mountain torrent. 
 
 2. Ferns love to grow where the land is musical 
 with running water; where great woods fling their 
 shadows upon the hillside, and hang darkly over 
 stream-crossed valleys ; where rivers, wandering over 
 the crests of towering rocks, and leaping from the 
 sunhght, fall foaming into dark pools, bristling below 
 with sharp points of stone, to be carried thence, in 
 fury, down steep inclines to the sea ; where for long 
 miles the landscape undulates into heathery waves, 
 broken by clumps of gorse on rocky mounds, shel- 
 tered by prickly hawthorn or trailing sprays of black- 
 berry ; where undulating meadows, cleft into many a 
 sheltered hollow, roll gracefully away as far as the 
 eye can reach ; where storm-tossed waves roar upon 
 the rugged points of a rocky coast, and echo into many 
 a cavernous hollow moist with the perpetual drop- 
 pings of percolating water ; where, in short, mountain 
 and valley or hill and glen commingle ; and towering 
 rocks or stately woods, jutting knolls and arching 
 branches, play with sunshine and shadow, and caress 
 the sides of running streams, whose sparkling waters 
 give birth to soft, moist vapors. 
 
 3. Enough has been said to show that ferns de- 
 light in moist and shady places, and, thoroughly in 
 keeping with their soft and graceful habit, they love 
 
DISTRIBUTION OF FERNS. 25 
 
 light and porous soils, where their roots can keep free 
 from stagnancy. On shady slopes and modest eleva- 
 tions they mostly like to dwell. Fibrous peat and 
 sand, and the spongy mold of fallen leaves, form 
 soils in which these plants delight. Through such 
 soils water always percolates freely; for stagnant 
 moisture is fatal to fern life. Hence the sloping sides 
 of a mound or hedge-bank ; the crest and sides of 
 rocky elevations ; the forks of trees, where leaf -mold 
 has accumulated; the shaded margins of running 
 brooks or larger streams; the moist caverns in the 
 sides of cliffs above the tide-mark ; the mossy crests 
 of islets in mid-stream ; the sloping, sheltered hill- 
 sides ; even the moister hollows of the plain, and the 
 broken depths of forest glades and forest coverts, are 
 the sites which are most congenial to ferny forms, 
 and which most readily adapt themselves to ferny 
 growths. 
 
 4. It will be seen that the presence of ferns in any 
 place assumes the pre-existence of conditions favor- 
 able to their growth. They are never found absent 
 from an old forest. Let us inquire the reason of this, 
 and examine into Nature's preparations for their re- 
 ception. The presence of clustered trees for a long 
 period of years gives rise to the formation of a surface 
 soil which is composed of the decomposed remains of 
 the crops of leaves which, in the deciduous species of 
 trees, annually fall to the ground. Leaves upon leaves 
 accumulating form the most perfect vegetable mold, 
 and this, built up upon the porous subsoil, and largely 
 intermixed with the root libers of plants which have 
 
26 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 sprung up and died down each year, constitutes a soil — 
 at once rich, hght, and porous — in which ferns espe- 
 cially delight. The sheltering canopy of trees, while 
 it keeps out the sunlight, keeps in the moist emana- 
 tions from the ground, and thus creates other condi- 
 tions which are essential to fern life. Within a forest 
 the ground is generally uneven and diversified. Banks 
 of rock or earth are found scattered about — the former 
 cleft into various shapes, forming hollows and crevices 
 of various kinds — the latter mostly covered by some 
 species of vegetation of dwarf or shrubby growth, and 
 overarched by the taller growths of the forest. In 
 the hollows and crevices of the rocks, and upon the 
 top and sides of the earthy banks leaves perpetually 
 fall and decay, and in course of time form a leafy soil, 
 which mingles with crumbling rock or earthy granules, 
 it may be, of sand or gravel. Upon such places fern 
 spores drop, and find the situation suited for them by 
 reason of its moist and sheltered position. Soil and 
 position being congenial, the spores develop into plant- 
 lets, and these in time into full-grown ferns. The 
 conditions which favored their early existence are 
 maintained. The soil is annually enriched by addi- 
 tional deposits of leaf -mold, and, the moisture and 
 shelter continuing, the ferns grow to maturity, and 
 then spread their myriad atoms of reproduction, which, 
 wafted to other rocky holes, marshy banks, and old, 
 moist forks of trees, soon fill the forest with graceful 
 ferny forms, covering sloping banks, waving from the 
 crowns of pollard trunks, and draping rock and river 
 with their feathery tresses. 
 
DISTRIBUTION OF FERNS. 27 
 
 5. Or take the case of a stream which flows rapidly 
 through a mountain gorge, or along the bowlder-strewn 
 bed of a valley. Yegetation of large growth — trees 
 or giant shrubs — will follow the course of such a stream, 
 for its moist channel is favorable to the development 
 of vegetable life. The stream brings moisture ; the 
 trees or other growths biding shelter ; the force of the 
 current makes and maintains holes and fissures in its 
 earthy or rocky bed. These are filled with leaf -mold 
 from dropping leaves, and with sand and fibers from 
 the carrying stream. Then Xature begins her work, 
 and plants her smaller growths of moss, hchen, and 
 fern on the dark, moist surfaces of earth or rock. The 
 process of dwarf forestry commences, and slowly and 
 surely the whole ground-plan is draped with a mantle 
 of living green. 
 
 6. Chance, perhaps, has thrown together in mid- 
 stream some shapeless masses of rock ; the water brings 
 do^vn a contingent of broken branches torn from their 
 parent stems by the force of high winds, or fallen un- 
 der the process of natural decay. The jutting masses 
 of stone arrest the woody fragments, and these in their 
 turn catch the passing whirl of stream-borne leaves, 
 and dam the earthy substances washed down from the 
 banks of the stream above. A process of accumula- 
 tion commences. The mass thickens and strengthens, 
 and some bold plant starts up from its center. Others 
 follow, and their matted roots consohdate the sub- 
 stance, which by degrees acquires increased consistency 
 and becomes an islet. Among the earliest of vege- 
 table inhabitants are the mosses and lichens, and then 
 
28 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 the domain is appropriated as another portion of the 
 fern world bj the appearance of some representative 
 of the moisture-loving family. 
 
 7. Again, the face of the country may be traversed 
 by gentle risings of the ground, and intersected by 
 hedge-banks dividing the domains of pasture or corn 
 land and skirting a network of roads and lanes. If 
 the soil be rich and the roadways narrow, the banks 
 of earth or loosely built stone may be crowned by 
 stately shrubs or trees, whose branches cross the way 
 between and meet each other. Then upon the hedge- 
 top, or on the hedge-bank, leaf -mold gathers, and 
 ferny forms assemble and greet the passerby. 
 
 8. Let it be remembered, however, that the vari- 
 ous members of this beautiful family of plants have 
 varying predilections in the matter of soil and posi- 
 tion. Some seek the drenching moisture of the water- 
 fall or the dripping walls of sea-caves. Others can 
 live and thrive in the moderate moisture of sloping 
 banks under the shelter of shrubs or trees, while 
 others still will grow on the open surface of an un- 
 dulating plain. But, with few exceptions, ferns mostly 
 love to be elevated, even if but slightly, above level 
 surfaces. It is percolating moisture which they love — 
 moisture which does not rest about their roots, but 
 passes away immediately into the soil below. And 
 there is a beautiful consistency in the love of these 
 plants for sloping banks and jutting knolls, for only 
 in such positions can they show to advantage their 
 graceful and beautiful forms. 
 
 Francis George Heath, " The Fern World." 
 
THE SENSITIVE-PLANT. 29 
 
 THE SEJSTSITIYE-PLAIS^T. 
 
 1. A Sensitiye-Plant in a garden grew, 
 And the young winds fed it with silver dew, 
 And it opened its fan -like leaves to the light, 
 And closed them beneath the kisses of night. 
 
 2. And the Spring arose on the garden fair, 
 And the Spirit of Love fell everywhere ; 
 
 And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast 
 Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest. 
 
 3. But none ever trembled and panted with bliss 
 In the garden, the field, or the wilderness, 
 
 Like a doe in the noontide with love's sweet want. 
 As the companionless Sensitive-Plant. 
 
 4. The snowdrop, and then the violet, 
 
 Arose from the ground with warm rain wet, 
 And their breath was mixed with fresh odor sent 
 From the turf, like the voice and the instrument. 
 
 5. Then the pied windflowers and tulip tall. 
 And narcissi, the fairest among them all. 
 Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess. 
 Till they die of their own dear loveliness ; 
 
 6. And the ]^aiad-like lily of the vale, 
 
 Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale, 
 That the hght of its tremulous bells is seen 
 Through their pavilions of tender green ; 
 
30 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 7. And the hyacintH purple, and wMte, and blue, 
 Whicli flung from its bells a sweet peal anew 
 Of music so delicate, soft, and intense, 
 
 It was felt like an odor within the sense ; 
 
 8. And the rose like a nymph to the bath addressed, 
 Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast, 
 Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air 
 
 The soul of her beauty and love lay bare ; 
 
 9. And the wand-like Hly, which lifted up. 
 As a Mgenad, its moonlight-colored cup, 
 Till the fiery star, which is its eye, 
 
 Gazed through the clear dew on the tender sky ; 
 
 10. And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose, 
 The sweetest flower for scent that blows ; 
 And all rare blossoms from every clime 
 Grew in that garden in perfect prime. 
 
 Shelley. 
 
 USES OF THE COCOA-NUT TEEE. 
 
 1. Imagine a traveler passing through one of those 
 countries, situated under a burning sky, where cool- 
 ness and shade are so rare, and where habitations, in 
 which to take the repose so necessary to the traveler, 
 are only to be found at considerable distances. Pant- 
 ing and dispirited, the poor traveler at length per- 
 
USES OP THE COCOA-NUT TREE. 31 
 
 ceives a hut surrounded bj some trees with straight 
 erect stems, surmounted by an immense tuft of green 
 leaves, some being upright and the others pendent, 
 giving an agreeable and elegant aspect to the scene. 
 Nothing else near the cabin indicates cultivated land. 
 At this sight the spirits of the traveler revive ; he col- 
 lects his strength, and is soon beneath the hospitable 
 roof. His host offers him an acidulous di-ink, with 
 which he slakes his thirst ; it refreshes him. When 
 he has taken some repose, the Indian invites him to 
 share his repast. He produces various courses, served 
 in a brown-looking vessel, smooth and glossy ; he 
 serves also some wine of an extremely agreeable fla- 
 vor. Toward the end of the repast his host offers 
 him sweetmeats, and he is made to taste some excel- 
 lent spirits. 
 
 2. The astonished traveler asks who in this desert 
 country furnishes him with all these things. *'My 
 cocoa-nut tree," was the reply. " The drink I pre- 
 sented you with on your arrival was drawn from the 
 fruit before it is ripe, and some of the nuts which 
 contain it weigh three or four pounds. This kernel, 
 so dehcate in its flavor, is the fruit when ripe. This 
 milk, which you find so agreeable, is drawn from the 
 nut ; this cabbage, whose flavor is so delicate, is the 
 top of the cocoa-nut, but we rarely regale ourselves 
 with this delicacy, for the tree from which the cab- 
 bage is cut dies soon after. This wine, with which 
 you are so satisfied, is still furnished by the cocoa- 
 nut tree. In order to obtain it an incision is made 
 into the spathe of the flowers. It flows from it in a 
 
32 THE PLANT WOULD. 
 
 white liquor, which is gathered in proper vessels, and 
 we call it palm wine ; exposed to the sun, it gets sour 
 and turns to vinegar. By distillation we obtain this 
 very good brandy which you have tasted. This sap 
 has supplied the sugar with which these sweetmeats 
 are made. These vessels and utensils have been made 
 out of the shell of the nut. 
 
 3. " Nor is this all ; this habitation itseK I owe 
 entirely to these invaluable trees ; with their wood my 
 cabin is constructed ; their leaves, dried and plaited, 
 form the roof ; made into an umbrella, they shelter 
 me from the sun in my walks ; the clothes which 
 cover me are woven out of the fibers of their leaves. 
 These mats, which serve so many useful purposes, are 
 produced by them also. The sifter which you see was 
 ready made to my hand in that part of the tree whence 
 the leaves issue ; with these same leaves woven to- 
 gether we can make sails for ships. The species of 
 fiber that envelops the nut is much preferable to tow 
 for calking ships ; it does not rot in the water, and 
 it swells in imbibing it ; it makes excellent string, and 
 all sorts of cable and cordage. Finally, the delicate 
 oil that has seasoned many of our dishes, and that 
 which burns in my lamp, are expressed from the fresh 
 kernel." 
 
 4. The stranger would listen with astonishment to 
 the poor Indian, who having only his cocoa-nut tree, 
 had nearly everything which was necessary for his 
 existence. When the traveler was disposed to take 
 his departure, his host again addressed him : " I am 
 about to write to a friend I have in the city. May I 
 
THE BOTANIC GARDEN OF PAREDENIA. 33 
 
 ask you to charge yourself with my communication ? " 
 " Yes ; but will your cocoa-nut tree supply you with 
 what you want?" "Certainly," said the Indian; 
 " with the sawdust from the wood 1 made this ink, 
 and with the leaves this parchment ; in former times 
 it was used to record all public and memorable acts." 
 BoNiFAs-GuizoT, " Botany for Youth." 
 
 THE BOTANIC GAEDEIST OF PAEEDEl^IA. 
 
 1. In the central province of Ceylon, 1,500 feet 
 above the sea, hes the former capital of the island, the 
 celebrated pity of Kandy, and but a few miles distant 
 from it Paredenia, a small town that for a brief sea- 
 son, five hundred years ago, likewise enjoyed the 
 honor of being the regal residence of an ancient king. 
 Here, in 1819, the English Government established a 
 botanic garden, and intrusted Dr. Gardner with its 
 management. His successor. Dr. Thwaites, the learned 
 author of an excellent " Flora Ceylonica," for thirty 
 years did everything in his power to raise the garden 
 to a standard that would correspond with its pecuhar 
 climatic and local advantages. On his retirement, a 
 few years ago. Dr. Henry Trimen was appointed di- 
 rector of the garden, and from this gentleman I re- 
 ceived a cordial invitation to visit Paredenia. I 
 accepted the kind invitation all the more readily, be- 
 cause I had already in Europe heard and read a great 
 deal about the splendid collection of rare plants in the 
 
34 
 
 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 Botanic Garden of Paredenia, and my great expecta- 
 tions were not disappointed. If Ceylon is in truth a 
 paradise for the botanist, as well as for every plant- 
 friend, then Paredenia may justly be termed the heart 
 of this botanical Eden. 
 
 2. The entrance to the garden is through an avenue 
 of noble India-rubber trees (Ficus elastica). This is 
 the tree whose inspissated milk- sap forms the caout- 
 chouc of commerce, and whose young plants are fre- 
 quently seen in the greenhouses of our rugged north. 
 While these India-rubber plants with us are objects 
 of admiration when their slender stems grow to the 
 height of the ceiling, and their few branches bear 
 from fifty to one hundred leathery, egg-shaped leaves, 
 here in their hot mother-country they develop into 
 gigantic trees of the highest rank, and rival our proud- 
 est European oaks. The immense crown of many 
 thousands of leaves covers with its mighty branches 
 (forty to fifty feet long) the superficial surface of a 
 stately palace, while from the base of the thick trunk 
 extends a network of roots that frequently measures 
 from one hundred to two hundred feet in diameter — 
 far more than the height of the tree itself. This as- 
 tounding root crown consists mostly of twenty or 
 thirty main roots, from each of which branch as many 
 more — all of them curving and twisting over the 
 ground like so many gigantic serpents, for which rea- 
 son the Cingalese call it the " snake-tree," and poets 
 at various times have likened it to the snake-entwined 
 Laocoon. The spaces between the roots form verita- 
 ble closets or sentry-boxes, in some of which a man 
 
THE BOTANIC GARDEN OF PAREDENIA. 35 
 
 standing upright may effectually conceal himself. 
 Similar root-columns are developed by other large 
 trees of different orders. 
 
 3. Scarcely had I expressed my admiration for 
 this avenue of snake-trees, when my eyes were en- 
 chained by another wonderful sight near the garden 
 gate. There, as if to greet the new-comer, stood a 
 huge bouquet of palms, composed of those species in- 
 digenous to the island, and a number of foreign rep- 
 resentatives of this noblest of tropical families ; gar- 
 lands of lovely creepers festooned their crowns, while 
 their stems were ornamented with the most exquisite 
 parasitic ferns. .A similar but handsomer and more 
 extensive group stands near the end of the main alley, 
 and is encircled by a lovely wreath of flowering plants. 
 Here the alley branched, the path on the left leading 
 to a slight eminence on which stands the bungalow of 
 the director. This enviable home is, like most Cey- 
 lonese villas, a low, one-storied structure, encircled by 
 an airy veranda whose wide, projecting roof is sup- 
 ported by a row of white pillars. Roof and pillars 
 are adorned with luxurious vines, large-flowered or- 
 chids, odorous vanilla, showy fuchsias, and other bright 
 flowers; choice collections of flowering plants and 
 ferns embellish the garden beds which surround the 
 house, and above them rise the shade-dispensing 
 crowns of India's noblest trees. IS'umerous gorgeous 
 butterflies and beetles, lizards and birds animate this 
 charming picture. 
 
 4. As the villa stands on the highest eminence in 
 the garden, and the broad velvety lawn slopes away 
 
36 
 
 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 from it on every side, the view from the veranda em- 
 braces a large portion of the garden with several of 
 its most attractive tree-groups, and the belt of tall 
 forest trees which incloses the meadow land. Beyond 
 them rise the wooded summits of the mountain chain 
 which encircles Paredenia valley. 
 
 5. The Mahawelh-ganga flows in a wide, semi- 
 circular sweep around the garden, and separates it- 
 f rom yonder chain of . hills ; consequently it lies on a 
 horseshoe-shaped peninsula whose land side, where it 
 adjoins the Kandyan valley, is effectually protected 
 by a tall, impenetrable hedge of bamboo, thorny rat- 
 tan, and other equally formidable plants. As the cli- 
 mate (at 1,500 feet above sea-level) is extraordinarily 
 favorable, and the tropical heat of the sheltered valley, 
 in conjunction with the copious rains which fall in 
 the neighboring mountains, transform the Paredenia 
 Garden into a natural forcing-house, it will be readily 
 understood that the tropical flora here develops her 
 wonderful productive power in the highest degree. 
 My first ramble through the garden, in company with 
 the well-informed director, convinced me that this 
 was indeed the case ; and although I had read and 
 heard so much about the wonderful attractions of the 
 exuberant tropical vegetation, had longed for so many 
 years to behold it with my own eyes, the actual reality, 
 the actual enjoyment of the fabled glories, far sur- 
 passed my highest expectations, and that, too, after I 
 had been prepared by what I had seen in Bombay and 
 Colombo. In the four days I spent at Paredenia I 
 gained more information concerning the life and hab- 
 
THE BOTANIC GARDEN OF PAREDENIA. 3Y 
 
 its of the plant world than I could have acquired at 
 home in as many months by the most diligent botan- 
 ical study. And when, two months later, I returned 
 to the garden for a farewell visit, my delight was as 
 great as when I first beheld its manifold attractions. 
 I can not adequately express my gratitude for the 
 courteous hospitality and wealth of information I re- 
 ceived from my good friend Dr. Trimen. The seven 
 days in his enchanting bungalow were, for me, seven 
 veritable days of creation ! 
 
 6. Vastly unlike most of the botanic gardens of 
 Europe, whose stiff rows of beds remind one of files of 
 soldiers, the Paredenia Garden (one hundred and fifty 
 acres) is arranged with regard to aesthetic effect, as 
 well as for the systematic classification of the plants. 
 The principal tree-groups, and plants of kindred spe- 
 cies, are tastefully distributed over grassy lawns, with 
 pleasant paths leading from one to the other. In a 
 more retired part of the garden are the less attractive 
 beds for the cultivation of useful plants. Almost all 
 the useful plants of the torrid zone (of both hemi- 
 spheres) are here represented ; seeds, scions, and fruits 
 of many of them are annually distributed among the 
 planters and gardeners on the island. Thus the gar- 
 den is not only an experimental station and acclimati- 
 zation garden, but it has for years conferred important 
 practical benefits on the colonists. 
 
 7. If, among the many wonders in Paredenia Gar- 
 den only a few are to be briefly noticed, then I shall 
 begin with the celebrated giant bamboo, the astonish- 
 ment and admiration of every visitor. Rambling from 
 
38 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 the entrance gate toward the river and along its lovely 
 bank, we see, while still at a distance, huge green 
 bushes over one hundred feet high, and as many broad, 
 which spread their plumed heads — ^like the feather 
 brushes of giants — high above the river and the road, 
 casting delightful shadows over both. Approaching 
 nearer we see that this stupendous mass of verdure is 
 composed of numerous (from eighty to one hundred) 
 slender stems from one to two feet thick, which have 
 sprung from a common root, and bear, on delicate, 
 nodding branches dense clusters of the daintiest leaves. 
 And these gigantic trees are nothing but grasses! 
 Like all grass-stalks these prodigious tubes are jointed ; 
 but the sheaf which, in the delicate species, is a thin 
 small scale at the base of the leaf is, in this bamboo 
 giant, a firm woody partition that, without further 
 preparation, might serve as a shield for the breast of 
 a vigorous man. A child of three years might hide 
 in one of the joints ! As is well known, the bamboo 
 belongs to the useful plants of the tropics ; but to 
 fully describe the manifold uses to which these tree- 
 grasses — as well as the palms — are turned to account 
 by the natives would fill a whole volume. 
 
 8. JSText to the bamboos — or, indeed, before them 
 — come the palms. Besides the orders indigenous to 
 the island, we find here a number of palms that are 
 natives of the mainland of India, the Sunda Islands, 
 Australia, and tropical America — as, for instance, the 
 Livistonia chinensis, with its huge crown of fan- 
 shaped leaves ; the celebrated Lodoicea from the 
 Seychelles, with its colossal fans ; the Eloeis, or oil- 
 
 1 
 
THE BOTANIC GARDEN OF PAREDENIA. 39 
 
 palm of Gruinea, with its long, plume-like foliage ; tlie 
 famous Mauritia from Brazil ; the lofty Areodoxa, or 
 king's palm, from Havana, etc. Of the latter I ad- 
 mired and sketched, on Teneriffe (1866), a splendid 
 specimen, and was therefore not a little surprised and 
 delighted to behold here a whole avenue of the stately 
 trees. No less interesting were splendid groups of 
 thorny climbing palms or rattans ( Calamus) with deli- 
 cate, vibrating leaves ; their slender but firm and elas- 
 tic stems climb to the tops of the highest trees, often 
 attaining a length of three or four hundred feet. 
 They belong to the longest of all land plants. 
 
 9. One of the most attractive parts of Paredenia 
 is the fern garden. In the dense shade of tall trees 
 along the cool banks of a murmuring brook is assem- 
 bled a company of small and large, delicate and vig- 
 orous, herbaceous and arboreous ferns, such as it would 
 be impossible to imagine any more charming and 
 agreeable. The entire charm of form which distin- 
 guishes the dainty feathery foliage of our native ferns 
 is here displayed in an endless variety of different spe- 
 cies, from the simplest to the most complex; and 
 while some of the pretty little dwarf ferns might 
 easily be confounded with dainty mosses, the giant 
 tree-ferns, whose slim, black stems bear a lovely crown 
 of feathery leaves, attain the proud height of the 
 palm. 
 
 10. Like the ferns, the fern-palms, or Cycadece^ as 
 well as the dainty selanginella and lycopodia families, 
 are represented in Paredenia by choice collections of 
 the most interesting species, from the most minute, 
 
40 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 moss-like forms to the robust shrub sorts that ahnost 
 remind one of the extinct tree-ljcopodia of the Stone- 
 coal period. Indeed, many plant-groups in this gar- 
 den recall to mind the fossil flora so admirably por- 
 trayed by linger in his views from an antediluvian 
 world. If, in conclusion, but two more plant orders, 
 which are of pecuHar interest to me, are to be intro- 
 duced to your notice, then the first shall be the 
 lianas, and the second the banyans. Although creep- 
 ing and climbing plants are abundant everywhere on 
 the island, the Paredenia G-arden contains several 
 splendid examples, the like of which are rarely found ; 
 for instance, colossal vines of the Yitis, Cissus, Pur- 
 tada, Bignonia, Ficus, etc. Also the banyans, and 
 several kindred fig-trees {Ficus galaxifera^ etc.), are 
 the finest, most magnificent tree-forms I saw on Ceylon. 
 Ernst Haeckel, " India and Ceylon." 
 
 THE BAMBOO. 
 
 1. ]!^EXT to the palms, the bamboo tribe claims pre- 
 cedence among the plants of India, both by its variety 
 of form and its great numbers. According to Zollin- 
 ger's table of the different Javanese species, certain 
 kinds which grow to the height of more than ninety 
 feet, individual examples one hundred and thirty feet 
 high have been measured, but the average height varies 
 between twenty and fifty feet. The prickly bamboo 
 does not grow so high, but twines closely round the 
 
THE BAMBOO. 41 
 
 nearest stem, and forms an impenetrable jungle or 
 bush. The thickness of the stem varies between 
 about twelve inches and the tenth of an inch. The 
 color of the leaves shades from bright green to a pale 
 yellow tint. The climbing hanas, for instance, the 
 Dinochioa, which resembles the rotang palm in its 
 circular formation, hangs down its graceful branches 
 tipped \vdth a feathery tuft of leaves. The slenderer 
 forms put out fresh growth at the summit of the 
 stem, 'which hardens by the amount of silica which it 
 contains, and is covered with joints from which short 
 branches tipped ^vith leaves are put forth all the way 
 down the stem. ^ When they are joined together, they 
 shoot upward hke a gigantic cane bush, and at last 
 bend down on all sides in gently curving arches to 
 the ground. Their social life, the close disposition of 
 the stems which sway with a soft rustling murmur at 
 every breath of wind, the dead leaves which cover 
 every inch of the soil, exclude all other kinds of 
 vegetation from the interior of a bamboo jungle. 
 When the water supply is abundant, the growth of 
 the bamboo increases with almost mii-aculous speed, 
 60 that m a few days the stem gains several feet, and 
 lengthens as it were visibly before the eye ; it is nev- 
 ertheless able to support the interruption caused by 
 long seasons of drought, and is therefore equally at 
 home m the swampy forest as in the parched savan- 
 nas. The largest bamboo indigenous to Siam devel- 
 ops its sheaf of stem of eighty-two to ninety-eight 
 feet high in the space of three or four months, and 
 then begins to fade in the dry season, and sinks to the 
 
42 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 ground. A tropical climate is not an absolute neces- 
 sity for the growth of the bamboo, some of which 
 are seen in Sikkim at a height reaching to the hmit 
 of tree growth. 
 
 2. The numberless ways in which the bamboo en- 
 ters into the national life of the countries where it is 
 found have attracted the attention of every traveler. 
 The longer he sojourns in Eastern lands, the greater is 
 his astonishment at the myriad purposes to which cer- 
 tain plants are applied by the Orientals. In the first 
 rank among these necessaries of Eastern life come the 
 cocoa-palm and the bamboo. The Javanese builds 
 his house of bamboo ; every article of household fur- 
 niture is made of the same material ; he lights a fire 
 of bamboo, and over it he cooks his rice in a bamboo 
 dish, which is charred but not destroyeu in the pro- 
 cess. Yery possibly the dish may contain, instead of 
 rice, some young shoots of the bamboo, which form a 
 tender and succulent vegetable. Sometimes no other 
 material is seen in a whole village ; the fairy -like pali- 
 sading which incloses it, and the gates themselves, are 
 all made of bamboo. 
 
 3. The prickly bamboo, a species which grows to 
 the height of thirty-nine feet, in thick bush branches 
 covered with formidable thorns, forms a rampart 
 hardly to be broken through, even by the aid of artil- 
 lery ; so that the Dutch, taught by their experience in 
 Sumatra, always plant it round their fortresses. The 
 sportsman and the soldier use it for lances, arrows, 
 and a blow-pipe, by means of which poisoned arrows 
 are shot. It is constantly employed to form bridges, 
 
MARINE PLANTS. - 43 
 
 and it provides the fisherman with incomparable rafts, 
 masts, and creels. In China nearly all the paper is 
 manufactured from bamboo, even paper used in Eu- 
 rope for art printing. The canes in use among us are 
 bamboos, while the cane employed for chairs, etc., is 
 obtained from palms, natives of the East Indies, espe- 
 cially the Calamios rotang and Calamus -verus. To 
 add one more use to which the inexhaustible bamboo 
 may be put, we may mention that a wedge-shaped 
 piece of the cane cut the cross way of the stem, so 
 that the sharp edge is formed of the outer silicious 
 stratum, makes a knife good enough to be even used 
 in surgical operations. 
 
 Anonymous, " Wonders in Living Nature." 
 
 1/ 
 
 MAEI^E PLAINTS. 
 
 1. The dry land develops the most exuberant 
 vegetation on the lowest grounds, the plains, and deep 
 valleys, and the size and multiplicity of plants gradu- 
 ally diminish as we ascend the higher mountain re- 
 gions, until at last merely naked or snow-covered rocks 
 raise their barren pinnacles to the skies ; but the con- 
 trary takes place in the realms of ocean, for here the 
 greater depths are completely denuded of vegetation, 
 and it is only within six hundred or eight hundred 
 feet from the surface that the calcareous nuUipores 
 begin to cover the sea-bottom, as mosses and lichens 
 clothe the lofty mountain-tops. Gradually corallines 
 
44 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 and a few algae associate with them, until finally about 
 eighty or one hundred feet from the surface begins 
 the rich vegetable zone which encircles the margin of 
 the sea. The plants of which it is corny osed do not 
 indeed attain the same high degree of development as 
 those of the dry land, being deprived of the beauties 
 of fl.ower and fruit ; but as the earth at different 
 heights and latitudes constantly changes her verdant 
 robe, and raises our highest admiration by the endless 
 diversity of her ornaments, thus also the forms of the 
 sea-plants change, whether we descend from the brink 
 of ocean to a greater depth, or wander along the coast 
 from one sea to another ; and their delicate fronds are 
 as remarkable for beauty of color and elegance of out- 
 line as the leaves of terrestrial vegetation. 
 
 2. The difference of the mediums in which land- 
 and sea-plants exist naturally requires a different mode 
 of nourishment, the former principally using their 
 roots to extract from a varying soil the substances 
 necessary for their perfect growth, while the latter 
 absorb nourishment through their entire surface from 
 the surrounding waters, and use their roots chiefly as 
 holdfasts. 
 
 3. The constituent parts of the soil are of the 
 greatest importance to land-plants, to whose organiza- 
 tion they are made to contribute ; while to the sea- 
 plant it is generally indifferent whether the ground to 
 which it is attached be granite, chalk, slate, or sand- 
 stone, provided only its roots find a safe anchorage 
 against the unruly waters. 
 
 4. Flat rocky coasts, not too much exposed to the 
 
MARINE PLANTS. 45 
 
 swell of the waves, and interspersed with deep pools 
 in which the water is constantly retained, are thus the 
 favorite abode of most algge, while a loose sandy sea- 
 bottom is generally as poor in vegetation as the Ara- 
 bian desert. 
 
 5. But even on sandy shores extensive submarine 
 meadows are frequently formed by the grass wrack 
 {Zostera marina\ whose creeping stems, rooting at the 
 joints and extending to a considerable depth in the 
 sand, are adirdrably adapted for securing a firm posi- 
 tion on the loose ground. Its long ribbon -like leaves, 
 of a brilliant and glossy green, wave freely in the 
 water, and afford shelter and nourishment to numerous 
 marine animals and plants. In the tropical seas it 
 forms the submarine meadows on which the turtles 
 graze, and in the north of Europe it is used for the 
 manufacture of cheap bedding. It also furnishes an 
 excellent material for packing brittle ware. 
 
 6. Sea-weeds are usually classed in three great 
 groups — green, olive-colored, and red; and these 
 again are subdivided into numerous families, genera, 
 and species. 
 
 7. On the British coast alone about four hundred 
 different species are found, and hence we may form 
 some idea of the riches of the submarine flora. Thou- 
 sands of algge are known and classified, but no doubt 
 as many more at least still wait for their botanical 
 names, and have never yet been seen by human eye. 
 
 8. The green sea- weeds, or Chlorospermece, gener- 
 ally occur near high-water mark, and love to lead an 
 amphibious life, half in the air and half in salt-water. 
 
46 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 The delicate EnteromorphcB, similar to threads of fine 
 silk, and the broad brilliant Vlvoe, which frequently 
 cover the smooth bowlders with a glossy vesture of 
 lively green, belong to this class. . Many of them are 
 remarkable for their wide geographical distribution. 
 Thus the Ulva latissima and the Enteromorphoj 00771- 
 jpressa of our shores thrive also in the cold waters of 
 the Arctic Sea, fringe the shores of the tropical ocean,^ 
 and project into the southern hemisphere as far as the 
 desolate head-lands of Tierra del Fuego. But few 
 animals or plants possess so pliable a nature, and such 
 adaptability to the most various climates. 
 
 9. The ohve-colored group of sea-weeds, or Me- 
 lanospermem^ plays a much more considerable part in 
 the economy of the ocean. The common fuci, which 
 on the ebbing of the tide impart to the shore cliffs 
 their peculiar dingy color, belong to this class ; as 
 well as the mighty LaminaricB^ which, about the level 
 of ordinary low water and one or two fathoms below 
 that limit, fringe the rocky shore with a broad belt 
 of luxuriant vegetation. 
 
 10. The first olive-colored sea- weed we meet with 
 on the receding of the fiood is the small and slender 
 FuGus canaliculatus^ easily known by its narrow 
 grooved stems and branches and the absence of air- 
 vessels. Then follows Fucus nodosus, a large species, 
 with tough thong-like stems, expanding at intervals 
 into knob-like air-vessels, and covered in winter and 
 spring with bright yellow berries. Along with it we 
 find the gregarious Fucus vesicidosus, with its forked 
 leaf traversed by a midrib, and covered with numer- 
 
MARINE PLANTS. 47 
 
 OTIS air-vessels situated in pairs at eacli side of the rib. 
 Finally, about the level of half -tide, a fourth species 
 of fucus' appears, Fugus serratus^ distinguished from 
 all the rest by its toothed margin and the absence of 
 air-vessels. 
 
 11. These four species generally occupy the litto- 
 ral zone of our sea-girt isle, being found in greatest 
 ^^bundance on flat, rocky shores, particularly on the 
 western coasts of Scotland and Ireland, where they 
 used formerly to be burned in large quantities for the 
 manufacture of kelp or carbonate of soda, which is 
 now obtained by a less expensive process. In Orcadia 
 alone more than twenty thousand persons were em- 
 ployed during the whole summer in the collection and 
 incineration of sea-weeds, a valuable resource for the 
 poverty-stricken islanders, of which they have been 
 deprived by the progress of chemical science. 
 
 12. The fuci are, however, still largely used, either 
 burned or in a fermented state, as a valuable manure 
 for green crops. Thus every year several small ves- 
 sels are sent from Jersey to the coast of Brittany to 
 fetch cargoes of sea-weeds for the farmers of that 
 island. 
 
 13. The largest of indigenous sea-weeds are the 
 Lamina/ria saccharina and digitata, or the sugary and 
 fingered oar-weeds. Their stout woody stems and 
 broad, tough, glossy leaves of dark olive-green, often 
 twelve or fourteen feet long, must be familiar to 
 every one who has sojourned on the coast. When 
 gliding over their submerged groves in a boat, their 
 great fronds floating like streamers in the water aflord 
 
48 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 the interesting spectacle of a dense submarine thicket, 
 through whose palm-Kke tops the fishes swim in and 
 out, emulating in activity the birds of our forests. 
 
 14. But our native oar- weeds, large as they seem 
 with regard to the other fuci among which they grow, 
 are mere pygmies when compared with the gigantic 
 species which occur in the colder seas. 
 
 vl5. None of the members of this family grow in 
 the tropical waters, but they extend to the utmost 
 polar limits, and seem to increase in size and multi- 
 plicity of form as they advance to the higher latitudes. 
 The northern hemisphere has generally different gen- 
 era from the southern. To the former belong the 
 gigantic Alarias with their often forty feet long and 
 several feet broad fronds, the singularly perforated 
 .Thalassophyta, and the far-spreading Nereocystis, 
 which is only found in the l^orthern Pacific ; while 
 the genera Macrocystis and Lessonia are denizens of 
 the Southern Ocean. 
 
 G. Hartwig, " The Sea and its Living Wonders." 
 
 DIFFUSION OF PLANTS. 
 
 1. As the earth does not bring forth in every place 
 all the plants which could hve upon its surface, so the 
 several kinds of animals have a definite and probably 
 for the most part a very limited territory allotted to 
 them for their reproduction ; but animals and plants 
 have ventured to overstep these narrow limits, and 
 
DIFFUSIOX OF PLAXTS. 49 
 
 win for themselves large tracts of tlie earth's snrface 
 outside the boundaries of their original birthplace. 
 
 2. Chained to its clod of earth, and incapable of 
 altering its localitT at Avill, the plant is apparently 
 helpless ; bnt it has powerfnl allies, of which the most 
 important are wind, water, and animals. For the 
 present we will not speak of culture and acclimatiza- 
 tion, by which men foster and promote the growth of 
 certain foreign plants. Marvelous are the contrivances 
 by which Xature herself provides for the wide distri- 
 bution of seeds. Somotimes the fruit, sometimes the 
 seeds, are furnished with wings or hairy crowns, by 
 which the wind may carry them far and wide, ^e 
 have only to remember these contrivances, as shown 
 in the dandelion, elm, poplar, and maple. Sometimes 
 the plants open with an elastic movement, and scatter 
 their o^vn seed, as in the case of balsams, wood-sorrel, 
 and a kind of cucumber {EcbaUium officinale). TVe 
 must not forget to mention the tenacity of life pos- 
 sessed by the seed. 
 
 3. In the year 1176. at Linz on the Ehine, some 
 of the Crejjis jjulchra^ a flower extremely rare in Ger- 
 many, and which had certainly not been seen at Linz 
 within the last twenty years, was found in some earth 
 which had been dug out of the church in the preced- 
 ing year ; so that the seed must have slept for many 
 years in the ground, and yet retained its germinating 
 power. In a similar manner there appeared suddenlv 
 near the old mines of Mount Laurion, in Attica, the 
 plants Glau^iurn serpien and Silene jiivetialis — plants 
 entirely unknown, or at least never seen in that neis^h- 
 
50 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 borhood. These seeds had lain buried for an indefi- 
 nite length of time three yards below the surface, and 
 were brought to light by the workmen who were pre- 
 paring to extend the mines. This long sleep of the 
 seeds, a sleep which it is thought may last for cen- 
 turies, explains how it is that tunnelings and railway 
 cuttings are often the scenes of valuable discoveries of 
 new and rare plants, the seed buried for years in the 
 earth being unintentionally and unconsciously dug out 
 by the hand of man. 
 
 4. Other plants follow the courses of rivers and 
 running streams, by which their seeds are carried 
 down into suitable places. Thus the (Enothera bien- 
 nis^ a native of Virginia, is said to have reached Padua 
 in 1612, and spread thence throughout Europe ; and 
 this flower is much more abundant on the shores of 
 the middle and lower Rhine than in the adjoining 
 sandy plains, which are equally suited for its growth. 
 Another example is given by the Collomia gro/ndiflora, 
 a herb belonging to ]!^orth America, which was sud- 
 denly found in the year 1855 on the banks of the Ahr, 
 near Ahrweiler. It is not known how it reached the 
 spot, but in 185Y it was found already at the mouth of 
 the Ahr, and in 1862 on the banks of the Ehine, near 
 Bonn; so that in the course of seven years it had 
 spread along forty miles of the river banks, notwith- 
 standing the unwearied efforts of the students of Botm 
 to uproot it and transfer it by handfuls to their her- 
 baria. 
 
 5. Animals are of great use in furthering the dis- 
 tribution of plants. Yery many fruits and seeds are 
 
DIFFUSION OF PLANTS. 51 
 
 carried bodily away by being caught and fastened 
 with thorns and brambles in the fleece of woolly ani- 
 mals. The seeds of many Australian plants, for in- 
 stance, have been carried to Europe in the fleeces of 
 Austrahan sheep. Many animals eat berries without 
 destroying the seed, which passes through them unin- 
 jured. The seed so sown is so far from having less- 
 ened its powers of fructification that, in the opinion 
 of Altum, it must have been specially intended to be 
 prepared for sowing in that manner. It is known also 
 that, to the great annoyance of the Dutch Trading 
 Company, the pigeons who fed on the valuable Muscat 
 nuts in the Moluccas transplanted it with increased 
 powers of germination,, increased by its passage 
 through their bodies, although it is said to have pre- 
 viously defied every method of artificial cultivation. 
 The seeds of the white thorn do not germinate until 
 they have lain buried in the earth for a whole year ; 
 but if turkeys are fed with the seed in autumn, and 
 the birds' manure sown, the seeds will come up in the 
 following spring. 
 
 6.- There is no doubt, then, that many plants have 
 been distributed in this manner by the aid of birds. 
 While some plants spread abroad to almost incredible 
 distances in the course of time, others seem bound to 
 one narrow home ; for instance, a member of the palm 
 tribe {Lodoicea sechellavum)^ which grows only in two 
 of the Seychelle Islands. Its fruits are often carried 
 by the ocean currents to the Maldives, where they are 
 known as Maldive nuts, and their great size and mys- 
 terious appearance on the shore gave rise to number- 
 
52 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 less fantastic suppositions until their true home was 
 discovered. One of the most effectual barriers against 
 the complete and wholesale intermingling of plants is 
 the sea, for although its currents tend to spread them 
 abroad, its great extent hinders their passage to the 
 opposite shore. The greater the distance between two 
 coasts the more sharply sundered is their vegetation. 
 'Next to the sea, the great desert wastes, such as that 
 of Sahara, act as barriers, and the inaccessible forests 
 of tropical America divide the floras of the adjoining 
 countries. In ordinary cases, however, the changes of 
 climate are sufficient to preserve the distinct character 
 of the natural flora, and the high peaks of mountains, 
 like those of the European Alps, form a limit to the 
 exchange of neighboring vegetation. 
 
 Anonymous, '' Wonders in Living Nature." 
 
 AIJTUMlsr. 
 
 1. With what a glory comes and goes the year ! 
 The buds of spring, those beautiful harbingers 
 Of sunny skies and cloudless times, enjoy 
 Life's newness, and earth's garniture spread out ; 
 And when the silver habit of the clouds 
 Comes down upon the autumn sun, and with 
 A sober gladness the old year takes up 
 His bright inheritance of golden fruits, 
 A pomp and pageant fill the splendid scene. 
 
The Breadfruit Tree. 
 
THE BREAD-FRUIT-TREE. 53 
 
 2. There is a beautiful spirit breathing now 
 Its mellow richness on the clustered trees, 
 And from a beaker full of richest dyes, 
 Pouring new glory on the autumn woods^ 
 And dipping in warm light the pillared clouds. 
 
 3. Oh, what a glory doth this world put on 
 For him who with a fervent heart goes forth 
 Under the bright and glorious sky, and looks 
 On duties well performed, and days well spent ! 
 For him the wind, ay, and the yellow leaves, 
 Shall have a voice, and give him eloquent teachings. 
 He shall so hear the solemn hymn that Death 
 Has lifted up for all, that he shall go 
 
 To his long resting-place without a tear. 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 THE BEEAD-FEIJIT-TEEE. 
 
 1. Among the examples which in a special degree 
 attest the watchful care of Providence, we have to 
 mention that of the bread-tree, discovered in the 
 isles of Oceania. This invaluable tree belongs to the 
 genus Artocarpus^ of the fig family. The leaves in 
 this family are simple, plain, or serrated, and the flow- 
 ers very small and imperfect, some having no corolla, 
 and others no calyx, but all appearing alike upon the 
 same tree at the extremities of the branches. 
 
54 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 2. The true bread-tree lias indented or serrated 
 leaves. We saj the true bread-tree, for this genus 
 embraces many other species, which, in spite of a very 
 remarkable organization, do not possess the properties 
 of the one we have mentioned. Thus there is an 
 Artocarpus incisa^ with small leaves and flowers, but 
 bearing fruits which are, perhaps, the largest borne 
 by any tree on earth. These round fruits are some- 
 times so large that a man can not lift them ! The 
 kernels are eaten, roasted like chestnuts, but they are 
 not easily digestible. Then there is the Jack (Arto- 
 carpus integrifolia\ of the Indian Archipelago, with 
 a huge trunk, and dense foliage on the broad-branch- 
 ing summit, while the fruit measures eighteen inches 
 by fifteen. Travelers are not agreed as to the merits 
 of the latter. Rheede says they have an agreeable 
 taste and odor, but Commerson could not summon 
 courage even to put a morsel of it in his mouth. 
 " Tastes differ," but it seems difficult to explain such 
 contradictory opinions, unless it should be that these 
 travelers speak of such trees as certain critics are said 
 to judge of works which they have never seen. A 
 third species is the Artooarpus hirsuta, the tallest of 
 the genus. Its wood is used in carpentry and in boat- 
 building. The Indians hollow out the trunk to make 
 \hQ\T piraguas^ some of which measure eighty feet in 
 length by nine in width, and thus enable them to 
 make long ocean voyages. 
 
 3. We return to the true bread-fruit-tree. The 
 discoveries in Oceania have rendered it celebrated, 
 and special expeditions have been undertaken for the 
 
THE BREAD-FRUIT-TREE. 55 
 
 purpose of obtaining roots for transplantation to dif- 
 ferent parts of the Old and New World. We shall 
 presently notice the most remarkable of these expedi- 
 tions. The following are the distinctive characteris- 
 tics of this tree : The trunk is straight, as thick as a 
 man's body, and rises in a gentle spiral to the height 
 of about forty feet. Its large round top covers with 
 its shadow a space thirty feet in diameter. The wood 
 is yellowish, soft, and light; the leaves, one and a 
 half feet long and one foot wide, large and permeated 
 with seven or eight lobes, a form which characterizes 
 this species. The same branch bears male and female 
 flowers. The bread obtained from the tree is its 
 globular fruit, larger than a child's head, weighing 
 three to four pounds, rough on the outside, and cov- 
 ered with hair. The thick green rind incloses a pnlp, 
 which, during the month that precedes maturity, is 
 white, farinaceous, and slightly fibrous ; but when ripe, 
 changes in color and consistency, and becomes yellow 
 and succulent or gelatinous. The island of Otaheite 
 abounds in the best kind of these trees, which bear 
 fruit without seed ; the other islands of Oceanica pro- 
 duce varieties of less valuable bread-fruit, containing 
 angular seeds almost as large as chestnuts. 
 
 4. The fruit of this tree ripens during eight con- 
 secutive months in the year. The islanders live upon 
 it, as we do upon our manufactured bread ; it is their 
 main food, and I^ature, as we see, furnishes it to them 
 without their being put to the trouble of cultivating 
 the ground, of sowing, reaping, thrashing, grinding, 
 or baking. To have their " fresh bread " they choose 
 
56 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 the time when the pulp is farinaceous, which they can 
 tell bj the green color of the rind. The necessary 
 preparation " for the table " is accomplished by cut- 
 ting them in thick slices and cooking them upon a 
 charcoal fire ; when ready, each " loaf " weighs about 
 a pound. They are sometimes also placed upon a 
 heated oven, as we do with pastry, and left there 
 until the rind begins to blacken. Then the burnt part 
 is scraped clean, as your toast, and the interior is 
 white, ready to be eaten, tender as the crumbs of 
 French rolls, but little differing in taste from wheaten 
 bread, except only a slight flavor suggestive of the 
 inside of an artichoke. As the natives want bread 
 throughout the whole year, they take advantage of 
 the time when the fruits are abundant, and prepare 
 from the pulp of the surplus fruit a paste which, after 
 being fermented, can be kept a long time without 
 turning sour. During the four months when the 
 trees do not yield, the natives hve upon this prepa- 
 ration. 
 
 5. The expedition to which we referred was that 
 made by Captain Bligh, sent in search of the bread- 
 tree of Otaheite for the purpose of introducing it into 
 the tropical colonies of Great Britain to furnish food 
 for the slaves. The narratives of Cook and other ex- 
 plorers had encouraged the highest expectations of 
 the benefits which would result from the culture of 
 the bread-fruit-tree. The English colonists having 
 entreated their government to obtain for them this 
 wonderful tree, a vessel specially fitted for the pur- 
 pose was got ready and placed under the command of 
 
THE BREAD-PRUIT-TREE. 57 
 
 Bligh, then only a lieutenant, but afterward an admi- 
 ral. The selection of the commander was judicious, 
 for Bligh had accompanied Cook in his voyages, and 
 given on many occasions proof of his talents and his 
 gallantry. Leaving England in 1787, the expedition 
 arrived in six months at Otaheite. The islanders re- 
 ceived them hospitably ; more than a thousand plants 
 were put in pots and boxes and taken on board, with 
 a sufficient quantity of fresh water to keep them alive, 
 and five months afterward the precious cargo was 
 floating toward its destination. But, in spite of all 
 the happy auspices under which the return voyage 
 was begun, it had an unfortunate ending. It fur- 
 nished one of those examples, happily rare, of the 
 revolt of a crew and the desperate position of a cap- 
 tain left to the mercy of the mutineers in the midst 
 of the silent ocean. ^ Twenty -two days after they had 
 left Otaheite the greater part of the crew, having joined 
 in a most cowardly plot, seized Bligh during the night 
 and placed him with the eighteen that remained faith- 
 ful to him in a long boat with some provisions and 
 instruments, and, leaving them alone in the middle 
 of the ocean, sailed off and were soon out of sight. 
 Bligh and his companions bore up with superhuman 
 courage in the midst of their fatigue and sufferings ; 
 only one succumbed. They arrived at the island 
 of Timor, after having sailed the distance of thirty- 
 six hundred nautical miles in the longboat. The 
 Dutch governor recei^^ed them kindly, and soon 
 twelve of them were able to take passage to Ireland. 
 Bligh obtained justice in England-; he was immedi- 
 
58 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 ately promoted to tlie rank of captain and placed in 
 charge of a new and larger expedition. This time he 
 succeeded completely, and two years after the two 
 vessels of the expedition landed in the British West 
 Indies, having on board twelve hundred plants of the 
 bread-fruit-tree, and without having lost a single man 
 of either of the crews. 
 
 6. The slaves of the West Indies did not show as 
 much alacrity in making use of the fruit as had been 
 expected, preferring their familiar food, the banana ; 
 on the other hand, the Europeans accepted it with 
 great pleasure. It ought to be stated, however, that 
 the slaves ate the fruit without having previously pre- 
 pared it, while the Europeans cooked it according to 
 the best receipts of English writers. 
 
 Y. The old people of Otaheite attribute the origin 
 of the bread-fruit -tree to an incident which is em- 
 bodied in a touching legend. At a time of great 
 scarcity, a father assembled his numerous children 
 upon the mountains and said to them : " You will in- 
 ter me in this place ; but you will find me again on 
 the morrow." The children obeyed, and, coming on 
 the following day as they had been commanded, they 
 were much surprised to see that the body of their 
 father had been transformed into a great tree. His 
 toes had stretched out to form the roots ; his power- 
 ful and robust body had furnished the trunk; his 
 outstretched arms were changed into branches, and 
 his hands into leaves. His bald head finally had 
 disappeared, and a delicious fruit was found in its 
 place. 
 
ox THE CSES OF PLANTS. 59 
 
 8. This legend recalls the seventh circle of the 
 Inferno of Dante, ^here the souls who had been vio- 
 lent upon earth are seen changed into hving trees, 
 while their hmbs writhe and twist like the branches 
 of dead trees. Bnt we prefer the simple legend of 
 the primitive isles to- the gloomy imagination of the 
 great Itahan. The poet speaks of the dead ; the island- 
 ers appeal to the living. 
 
 FuLGE>'CE Marion, " The Wonders of Vegetation." 
 
 Oi^ THE USES OF PLAXTS. 
 
 1. How manv important and varied services are 
 rendered to ns by plants ! Either directly or indi- 
 rectly, all animals are nourished by plants ; indeed, 
 there is an immense number of animated beings that 
 eat nothing bnt vegetable substances, and those that 
 feed upon meat would not find sufficient food, unless 
 they devoured each other, without destroying those 
 that are maintained on veo;etable food exclusivelv. 
 There is scarcely a plant that does not nourish some 
 animal ; almost all insects, for example, live either in 
 the perfect or in the larva state, at the expense of the 
 plant upon which they are habitually found ; and even 
 in the hio-hest classes of the animal king-rlom the num- 
 ber of phytivorous species is immense, for the quad- 
 rumana, the gnawers, the pachyderms, and the rumi- 
 nants all observe a vegetable diet ; and man himself 
 derives most of his food from the vegetable kingdom. 
 
60 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 2. Among the most important alimentary plants, 
 the first are the cereals. Under this name we desig- 
 nate plants of the family of grasses, which afford 
 nourishment to man and most domestic animals; 
 namely, wheat, rye, barley, oats, maize, and rice. 
 There is in the interior of their seed, between the 
 spermoderm and the embryo, a considerable deposit 
 of amylaceous matter, designed to nourish the young 
 plant, and designated by botanists under the name of 
 albumen or perisperm ; it is this matter we use for 
 food. The perisperm of the cereals, and consequently 
 the flour obtained by grinding them, is essentially 
 composed of fecula or starch, ordinarily mixed with a 
 certain quantity of a substance named gluten, which 
 considerably resembles animal matter. Wheat flour 
 contains more gluten than any other, and for this rea- 
 son it makes better bread and is more nutritious ; rye 
 also contains it, but there is none in rice, oats, etc. 
 
 3. Other plants also furnish abundance of fecula, 
 but not from the same part as in those mentioned ; 
 sometimes it is in the cotyledons of the seed, some- 
 times in tubercles, and at other times in the very sub- 
 stance of the stems or roots ; thus, peas and beans and 
 some other plants of the family of Leguminosm fur- 
 nish edible seeds, the cotyledons of which contain the 
 same as the albumen of the cereals — a great deal of 
 fecula and a certain quantity of gluten mixed with 
 sugar and some other matters. Whatever part this 
 fecula may occupy, it in general constitutes, as in the 
 pericarp of the cereals, depositories of nutritive mat- 
 ter for the nourishment of the young plant or of new 
 
ON THE USES OF PLANTS. 61 
 
 shoots. The tubers of the potato owe their nutritious 
 qualities to the quantity of f ecula they contain ; the 
 same is true of batatas (the Spanish or sweet potato), 
 a species of convolvulus, originally from India, which 
 is now cultivated in all warm regions in the world. 
 The species of f ecula, known under the name of cassava 
 or tapioca, of which great use is made in the West 
 Indies, is derived from the root of the manioc, a plant 
 of the family of Euphorhiaceoe^ which also contains a 
 very poisonous juice that is separated by means of 
 water. Sago is another species of f ecula obtained 
 from the stem of a palm, and salep is also a f ecula 
 obtained from the stems of a monocotyledonous plant 
 of the family of Orchidece. 
 
 4. The most esteemed of our fruits, the majority 
 of them at least, are furnished by the family of 
 Rosacem ; for example, apples, pears, plums, cherries, 
 peaches, apricots, strawberries, raspberries ; and to 
 complete the list of fruit trees we must not omit the 
 mention of some species of the family of Ampelidece 
 and the family of AurcmtiaceoB ; namely, the vine, the 
 orange, and the citron. 
 
 5. Plants furnish us not only with wholesome and 
 agreeable food, but also substances which are of the 
 greatest utility in the manufacture of clothing and in 
 the construction of our dwellings. Hemp, flax, and 
 cotton yield us long, flexible filaments, which consti- 
 tute excellent materials for spinning and weaving; 
 and our forest trees, almost all of which belong to the 
 family of Citpuliferce^ or that of the ConiferoB^ furnish 
 abundance of wood for building our houses and ships, 
 
62 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 as well as for the manufacture of furniture and instru- 
 ments of various kinds. 
 
 6. Ornamental plants which decorate our gardens 
 and conservatories are very numerous ; they are fur- 
 nished by very various families, in the front rank of 
 which we may place the RosacecB^ because it has for 
 its type one of our most beautiful flowers, the rose. 
 Many species and varieties of rose-trees are known, 
 and almost all of them may be cultivated in the open 
 air in our climate ; they flourish besst in a light soil 
 and partial exposure to the sun. In the wild state 
 they have but ^y^ petals, in the midst of which we 
 observe a great number of stamens ; but cultivation 
 has transformed most of these latter organs into petals, 
 and enhanced the beauty of the flowers. The dahlia, 
 which was for some years so rare, but now everywhere 
 met in gardens, belongs to the family of Synmitherece ; 
 this beautiful herbaceous plant has a perennial root 
 composed of bundles of horizontal, oblong tubercles, 
 from which rises a cylindrical, branching stem, bear- 
 ing opposite leaves and large flowers, which appear 
 from the end of July till the approach of frost. The 
 dahlia may be multiplied by its seeds or by the divi- 
 sion of its roots. The genus Aster, which comprises 
 a great number of« beautiful autumnal flowers, includ- 
 ing the Queen Margaret, which was imported from 
 China into Europe about a hundred years ago, also 
 belongs to the family of Synam^therece. 
 
 7. While a great many plants afford to man whole- 
 some and abundant food, others are violent poisons to 
 him, though very many even of the latter are useful, 
 
SOME WONDERFUL GARDENS. 63 
 
 because when prudently administered they constitute 
 powerful medicines.. A great number of plants of 
 the family of Solanem are of this kind ; for example, 
 belladonna, henbane, stramonium, tobacco ; some spe- 
 cies of the family of PajpOA^eraceoe^ such as the poppies ; 
 and hemlock, which belongs to the UmbellifGrw^ etc. 
 In our citation of poisonous plants we must not omit 
 the mushrooms. 
 
 W. S. W. RuscHENBERGER, " Elements of Botany." 
 
 SOME WOl^DEEFUL GAEDEl^S. 
 
 1. The first thing man did when he was placed on 
 this earth was to keep a garden. And although he 
 proved an unfaithful gardener in this instance, it 
 would seem that his taste for horticulture has al- 
 ways remained a prominent passion. Whether the 
 products were objects of utility or beauty, he sought 
 for the most perfect method of tilling the earth, and 
 from the earliest times of civilization or national re- 
 finement gardening was a practiced art. The story of 
 that first Eden seems to have haunted the imagina- 
 tions of men, and legends of various forms have come 
 down of that primeval home of the race. The Greek 
 poets celebrated the gardens of the Hesperides, which 
 they located near the Atlas Mountains in the Barbary 
 States. In it were orchards of trees, that bore golden 
 apples, which were guarded by a sleepless dragon with 
 a hundred heads. The garden was walled in with 
 
64 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 brazen gates, and was under the special protection of 
 Juno, the queen of heaven. It was one of the twelve 
 labors of Hercules to secure these golden apples, an 
 exploit that he performed by putting the hundred- 
 headed dragon to sleep. 
 
 2. Almost as celebrated in Greek story were the 
 gardens of the Phseacian Prince Alcinous at Scheria, 
 whose charms are related by Homer in Book Seventh 
 of the " Odyssey " in some of his most exquisite hex- 
 ameters. These gardens occupied about four acres of 
 ground, and were fenced with a hedge or green in- 
 closure. Every fruit and flower known to the Greeks 
 bloomed and ripened in that favored retreat. To 
 Ulysses, on his arrival at the palace of the Phgeacian 
 king, the gardens seemed like paradise. Two plen- 
 teous fountains irrigated the grounds, and the poet 
 glows rapturously over its tossing fruit-laden boughs 
 and its summery, shady bowers. 
 
 3. Among other famous Greek gardens were thos^ 
 of the Phrygian Prince Midas in Macedonia, cele- 
 brated for their roses with a hundred leaves, which 
 Xerxes visited upon his invasion of Greece ; and those 
 of the Ilissus, at Athens, founded by Pisistratus 540 
 B. c, which were the first public gardens that we read 
 of among the ancients. 
 
 4. Perhaps the most wonderful of all the wonder- 
 ful gardens of the world were the hanging gardens 
 of Babylon, built by J^ebuchadnezzar. He reigned 
 six hundred years before our Christian era, and was 
 the greatest monarch and builder of his time. He 
 erected grand public works at his capital, which be- 
 
SOME WONDERFUL GARDENS. 65 
 
 came wonders of the world, and he indulged in some 
 no less costly private expenditures. His wife, Queen 
 Amjntis, was a Median princess, and sighed for her 
 native mountains amid the flatness of the Babylonian 
 plain, the greatest in the ancient world. To gratify 
 her, E"ebuchadnezzar constructed the famous gardens, 
 which were not " hanging gardens " at all, but rather 
 an elevated paradise. Arches were raised on arches 
 in continued series until they overtopped the walls of 
 Babylon, the height of two hundred cubits, and stair- 
 ways led from terrace to terrace. The whole struc- 
 ture of masonry was overlaid with soil sufficient to 
 nourish the largest trees, which, by means of hydraulic 
 engines, were supplied from the river with abundant 
 moisture. In the midst of these groves stood the 
 royal winter residence ; for a retreat which, in other 
 climates, would be most suitable for a summer habita- 
 tion, was here reserved for those cooler months in 
 which alone man can live in the open air. This 
 first great work of landscape gardening which his- 
 tory describes comprised a charming variety of hills 
 and forests, rivers, cascades, and fountains, and was 
 adorned with the loveliest flowers the East could pro- 
 duce. 
 
 5. The Persians laid out extensive tracts of lands, 
 called paradises, diversified with streams, groves, and 
 grottoes, and beautified with every object of art. They 
 reduced gardening to a science which was the envy 
 even of the Greeks. The gardens of the great satrap 
 Tisaphernes at Sardis excited the admiration of the 
 Spartan Lysander, laid out with the most magnifi- 
 
ee THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 cent taste and adorned with all the plants and flowers 
 of Orient lands. Mithridates, of Pontus, copying 
 from his Persian ancestors, exhibited a horticultural 
 passion, and was himself an adept at gardening. Ln- 
 cullns, the conqueror of Mithridates, carried some of 
 the Pontine king's ideas to Italy, ornamenting his own 
 grounds with the fanciful establishment of the Per- 
 sian to such a degree that his friends the Stoics called 
 him " Xerxes in a gown." It is well to remember, 
 perhaps, that it is to LucuUus that we owe the intro- 
 duction of the cherry-tree into the lands of the West. 
 6. The Chinese have from a remote antiquity 
 exhibited a marvelous skill in the laying out of gar- 
 dens and pleasure grounds. Chinese horticulture in 
 many respects can not be surpassed by that of the 
 most civilized nation of to-day. The imperial gar- 
 dens are said to be exquisite creations of the artist's 
 and the gardener's art. Those of the Emperor Kien- 
 Long, at Zhehol, present the most magnificent speci- 
 mens of the Chinese style to be found in the empire. 
 Zhehol is a small town in Tartary, and is the summer 
 residence of the court. The palace and gardens are 
 situated in a romantic valley, on the banks of a fine 
 river, overhung by rugged mountains. The grounds 
 are exquisitely laid out, and adorned with as many as 
 fifty handsome pavilions, magnificently furnished, each 
 contaiiung a state room with a throne in it, and some 
 of them having a large banqueting hall where enter- 
 tainments are given on special occasions to the great 
 mandarins of the court. Among the ornaments of 
 these beautiful pleasure grounds are small transparent 
 
SOME WONDERFUL GARDENS. 67 
 
 lakes filled with gold and silver fishes, and a broad 
 canal on which are several islands adorned with pa- 
 godas and summer-houses of various forms, sheltered 
 by groves of trees and fragrant shrubs. All Chinese 
 buildings of this description are highly decorated, and 
 generally bear some resemblance to a tent, which is 
 evidently the model from which the architecture of 
 China was originally designed. The gilded pagodas 
 and temples rising among the green trees, the flashing 
 of fountains, and the flapping of countless sails on the 
 canals combine to make this celestial paradise a gar- 
 den of delight. 
 
 7. A flavor of Oriental romance is connected with 
 the gardens of Shalimar, celebrated in Moore's " Lalla 
 Rookh." There was never a more splendid empire 
 than that of the Moguls at Delhi, and of all Mo- 
 guls no prince was more fond of luxurious pleasures 
 than the Emperor Shah Jehan. Every summer he 
 passed several months in the lovely vale of Cashmere, 
 where, with music, dancing, feasting, and excursions 
 by land and water, he beguiled the time in a constant 
 succession of varied enjoyments. In this favorite re- 
 treat he laid out the gardens so famous in song and 
 story. 'No expense was spared in the lavish embel- 
 lishment of these grounds. The gardens were inter- 
 sected by canals, all flowing from a fairy lake in the 
 center, and erected on arches ; over these were several 
 elegant saloons, to which the ladies of the court re- 
 sorted to take sherbet, coffee, and other refreshments. 
 Here the radiant, dark-eyed Moslems wandered mth 
 their turbaned lords among the bending trees, or rowed 
 
68 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 upon the fairj lake amid countless rose leaves, while 
 the fragrant bowers echoed to the music of harp and 
 dulcimer and the soft voices of graceful dancing girls. 
 The once beautiful gardens have gone to decay hke 
 most other monuments of the former wealth and 
 grandeur of Hindoostan, but the memories of the 
 charming Mogul princesses, Noor Mahal, Moomtasee, 
 and Lalla Eookh, still haunt the place, and Moore's 
 musical lines recall the vanished magnificence : 
 
 " Who has not heard of the vale of Cashmere, 
 With its roses the fairest that earth ever gave, 
 Its temples and grottoes and fountains as clear 
 As the love-lighted eyes that hang over their wave ! " 
 
 8. Famous in English history are the gardens of 
 Woodstock, where Henry II kept his Fair Eosamond, 
 and where the jealous and cruel Queen Eleanor found 
 her beautiful rival and forced her to take her choice 
 of death either from the poisoned chalice or the jew- 
 eled dagger. E'ear London were the gardens of the 
 Temple, where, according to tradition, the famous 
 dispute took place between Somerset and York in the 
 wars of the Roses, the latter crying in his hot rivalry : 
 
 " Let him who is a true-born gentleman 
 And stands upon the honor of his birth, 
 ^ If he supposes I have pleaded truth. 
 
 From off this brier pluck a white Eose with me.'* 
 
 To which Somerset answers : 
 
 " Let him who is no coward, nor no flatterer, 
 But dare maintain the party of the truth, 
 Pluck a red Rose from off this thorn with me." 
 
SOME WONDERFUL GARDENS. 69 
 
 9. About this time John Morton, Bishop of Ely, 
 had a garden at Holborn, where he grew excellent 
 strawberries. Shakespeare commemorates the good 
 bishoJD's garden in his tragedy of " Richard III," mak- 
 ing his dwarfed, misshapen hero speak after this wise : 
 
 " My Lord of Ely, when I was last at Holborn, 
 I saw good strawberries in your garden there, 
 I do beseech you, send for some of them." 
 
 10. Sir Thomas More had a fine garden at Chel- 
 sea, which was a place of resort to princes and learned 
 men, and elicited praise from Erasmus. Here Henry 
 YIII used to walk with the master of the beautiful 
 grounds, with an arm around More's neck ; but when, 
 a few years later, the Lord Chancellor would not 
 sanction his divorce and his marriage with Anne 
 Boleyn, this same king had Sir Thomas's head cut off 
 at the Tower. 
 
 11. There are many other gardens of note and in- 
 terest mentioned in history, a tithe of which we have 
 not time to name. Even as we write there comes to 
 us the scent of the fruit-trees that Henry lY planted 
 at Montpeliier, and of the aromatic herbs in the bo- 
 tanical gardens of Alphonse d'Este, Duke of Ferrara. 
 Who would not like to have wandered with Pope 
 through his attractive garden at Twickenham, or to 
 have seen Swift cutting asparagus in the garden of 
 Sir William Temple ? As we glance down through 
 the ages it almost seems as if the best part of history 
 had been enacted in a garden — at least its most social 
 and gossipy features. Solomon wooed his dusky, 
 
70 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 dark-tressed bride in a garden ; and on the monuments 
 of Assyria King Sennacherib is represented drinking 
 wine with his queen under a flower arbor in a spacious 
 pleasance. So love and hfe have moved on, while 
 their brightest splendor seems to hover around the 
 walks and terraces, the arbors and fountains, of these 
 earthly paradises. Let us obey the behest of the wise 
 caliph Abd-er-Rahman, and plant gardens. 
 
 F. M. Colby, "The Ladies' Floral Cabinet." 
 
 THE CHESTIS^UT-TEEE. 
 
 1. The chestnut {Gastanea vulgaris) is a tree of 
 rapid vegetation, and endowed with great longevity. 
 It attains a height of twenty to one hundred feet, 
 occasionally presenting an enormous circumference. 
 Its leaves are large, petiolate, oblong, acutely lanceo- 
 late, deeply dentate, coriaceous, smooth, and shining, 
 with prominent secondary parallel nerves, accom- 
 panied by two caducous stipules. 
 
 2. The flowers are unisexual, and appear after the 
 leaves. The male flowers are very small catkins, each 
 flower being composed of flve or six divisions, with as 
 many or more stamens, having bilocular anthers open- 
 ing from without. The female flowers are, to the 
 number of five or six, enveloped in a common four- 
 lobed involucrum consolidated externally with nu- 
 merous Unequal linear bracteoles. Each female flower 
 consists of a lower ovarium, surmounted by a calyc- 
 
THE CHESTNUT-TREE. 71 
 
 inal limb, having ^ve to eight lobes, and an equal 
 number of styles. It incloses a like number of cells 
 containing two anatropal ovules. When arrived at 
 maturity, which is in the month of September or Oc- 
 tober, the involucrum is thick and coriaceous, charged 
 on the outside with a soft prickly fasciculated en- 
 velope, and inclosing from one to five unilocular 
 fruits by abortion, known under the name of chestnuts. 
 The pericarp is coriaceous, fibrous, and hairy on its 
 external surface. The seed contains an embryo with- 
 out albumin, under a membranous covering; the 
 cotyledons are voluminous, and plicated with fissures 
 of greater or less depth, and, as is said, farinaceous. 
 The chestnut is the principal produce obtained from 
 this useful tree ; this fruit forms the principal food of 
 the poor populations of the central flats of France and 
 of the valleys of the Alps. Improved by culture, the 
 chestnut-tree has given place to the variety called 
 marronier, by the French cultivators, of which sev- 
 eral varieties are known. They yield the large chest- 
 nuts which sometimes come into our markets. 
 
 3. The native country of the chestnut is not very 
 clearly ascertained ; it is probably Asiatic, however — 
 at least, the common name is Turkish, and is derived 
 from their custom of grinding up the nuts and mixing 
 it with the food of broken-winded horses, and prob- 
 ably of others also when favorites. 
 
 4. The famous chestnut-tree of Mount Etna, said 
 in Sicily to be the " Chestnut of a Hundred Horses," 
 is reported to be one hundred and seventy feet in 
 circumference. Jean Houel gives the history and di- 
 
72 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 mensions of this gigantic tree/ " We departed," lie 
 says, " from Ace-Reale in order to visit tlie cliestnut 
 called of ' the hundred horses.' We passed through 
 Saint Alfro and Piraino, where these trees are com- 
 mon, and where we found some superb old chestnuts. 
 Thej grow very well in this part of Etna, and they 
 are cultivated with great care. Night not having yet 
 come, we went at once to see the famous chestnut 
 which was the object of our journey. Its size is so 
 much beyond all others that we find it impossible to 
 express the sensation we experienced on first seeing 
 it. Having examined it carefully, I proceeded to 
 sketch it from INTature. I continued my sketch the 
 next day, finishing it on the spot, according to my 
 custom, and I can now say that it is a faithful portrait, 
 having demonstrated to my own satisfaction that the 
 tree was one hundred and sixty feet in circumference, 
 and having heard its history related by the savcmts of 
 the hamlet. This trees is called the ' Chestnut of a 
 Hundred Horses ' in consequence of the vast extent 
 of ground it covers. They tell me that Jean of Ara- 
 gon, while journeying from Spain to ISTaples, stopped 
 in Sicily and visited Mount Etna, accompanied by all 
 the noblesse of Catania on horseback. A storm came 
 on, and the queen and her cortege took shelter under 
 this tree, whose vast foliage served to protect her and 
 all these cavahers from the rain. It is true that out 
 of the hamlet the tradition of the queen's visit is 
 looked upon as fabulous ; but, however that may be, 
 the tree itself seems very capable of doing the office 
 assigned to it. 
 
THE CHESTNUT-TREE. 73 
 
 5. " This tree with its vaunted diameter is entirely 
 hollow. It is supported chiefly by its bark, having 
 lost its interior entirely by age ; but is not the less 
 crowned with verdure. The people of the country 
 have erected a house here, with a sort of furnace for 
 drying the chestnuts and other fruits which they wish 
 to preserve. They are even so indifferent to the pres- 
 ervation of this wonderful natural curiosity that they do 
 not hesitate to cut off branches to bui-n in the furnace. 
 
 6. " Some persons think that this mass of vegeta- 
 tion is formed of many trees which have united their 
 trunks ; but a careful examination disposes of this 
 notion. They are deceived. All the parts which 
 have been destroyed by time or the hand of man 
 have evidently belonged to a single trunk. I have 
 measured them carefully, and found the one trunk, as 
 
 ^ I have said, one hundred and sixty feet in circumfer- 
 ence." 
 
 7. We should be inclined to adopt the opinion 
 here hinted, that this monster tree was the union of 
 several, but M. Houel's sketch and description seem 
 conclusive ; and his opinion is further confirmed by 
 the fact that many chestnuts in the neighborhood of 
 Mount Etna are twelve yards in diameter, while one 
 actuallv measures eio'htv-three feet. 
 
 8. ISTow, what age can be assigned to the Mount 
 Etna chestnut ? It is difficult to say. If we are to 
 suppose that each year its concentric layers have only 
 been a hne in thickness, this venerable tree would be 
 not less than thirty -six hundred and forty years old. 
 
 Louis Figuier, " The Vegetable World." 
 
74 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 THE BAIsTAKA. 
 
 1. The wonderful luxuriance of tropical vegeta- 
 tion is perhaps nowhere more conspicuous and sur- 
 prising than in the magnificent Mitsaceoe^ the banana 
 {Musa sapientum) and the plantain {Musa jparadisi- 
 aGa\ whose fruit most probably nourished mankind 
 long before the gifts of Ceres became known. A 
 succulent shaft or stem, rising to the height of fifteen 
 or twenty feet, and frequently two feet in diameter, 
 is formed of the sheath-like leaf-stalks rolled one over 
 the other, and terminating in enormous light-green 
 and glossy blades, ten feet long and two feet broad, of 
 so delicate a tissue that the slightest wind sufiices to 
 tear them transverse^ "^ '^« far as the middle rib. A stout 
 foot-stalk arising from the center of the leaves and 
 reclining over one side of the trunk supports nu- 
 merous clusters of flowers, and subsequently a great 
 weight of several hundred fruits about the size and 
 shape of full-grown cucumbers, j On seeing the stately 
 plant, one might suppose that many years had been 
 required for its growth; and yet only eight or ten 
 months were necessary for its full development. 
 
 2. Each shaft produces its fruit but once, when it 
 withers and dies ; but new shoots spring forth from 
 the root, and before the year has elapsed unfold 
 themselves with the same luxuriance. Thus, without 
 any other labor than now and then weeding the field, 
 fruit follows upon fruit, and harvest upon harvest. 
 A single bunch of bananas often weighs from sixty to 
 
THE BANANA. 75 
 
 seventy pouiids, and Humboldt has calculated that 
 thirty-three pounds of wheat and ninety -nine pounds 
 of potatoes require the same space of ground to grow 
 upon as will produce four thousand pounds of ba- 
 nanas. 
 
 3. This prodigality of I^ature, seemingly so favor- 
 able to the human race, is, however, attended with 
 great disadvantages ; for where the life of man is ren- 
 dered too easy his best powers remain dormant, and 
 he almost sinks to the level of the plant which affords 
 him subsistence without labor. Exertion awakens our 
 faculties as it increases Our enjoyments, and well may 
 we rejoice that wheat and not the banana ripens in 
 our fields. 
 
 4. As the seeds of the cultivated plantain and ba- 
 nana never, or very rarely, coz. ' p maturity, they can 
 only be propagated by suckers. "In both hemi- 
 spheres," says Humboldt, " as far as tradition or his- 
 tory reaches, we find plantains cultivated in the trop- 
 ical zone. It is as certain that African slaves have 
 introduced, in the course of centuries, varieties of the 
 banana into America as that before the discovery of 
 Columbus the plantain was cultivated by the aborig- 
 inal Indians. These plants are the ornaments of 
 humid countries. Like the farinaceous cereals of the 
 north, they accompany man from the first infancy of 
 his civilization. Semitical traditions place tlieir orig- 
 inal home on the banks of the Euphrates ; others, 
 with greater probability, at the foot of the Himalayas. 
 According to the Greek mythology, the plains of 
 Enna were the fortunate birthplace of the cereals; 
 
76 
 
 THE PLANT WOELD. 
 
 but while tlie monotonous fields of the latter add but 
 little to the beautj of the northern regions, the trop- 
 ical husbandman multiplies in the banana one of the 
 noblest forms of vegetable life." 
 
 5. The Musacece are not only useful to man by 
 their mealy, wholesome, and agreeable fruits, but also 
 by the fibers of their long leaf -stalks. Some species 
 furnish filaments for the finest muslin, and the coarse 
 fibers of the Musa textilis^ known in trade under the 
 name of manilla hemp, serve for the preparation of 
 very durable cordage. 
 
 G. Hartwig, " The Tropical World." 
 
 THE WATEE-LILY. 
 
 1. Oh, beautiful thou art, 
 
 Thou sculpture-like and stately river-queen ! 
 Crowning the depths, as with the light serene, 
 Of a pure heart. 
 
 2. Bright lily of the wave ! 
 Hising in fearless grace with every swell. 
 Thou seem'st as if a spirit meekly brave 
 
 Dwelt in thy cell. 
 
 3. Lifting alike thy head 
 
 Of placid beauty, feminine, yet free, 
 
 "Whether with foam or pictured azure spread 
 
 The waters be. 
 
 Hemans. 
 
Clmhing for Palm Wine. 
 
PLANT-LORE. 77 
 
 PLA:tTT-LOEE. 
 
 1. Apart altogether from the more or less vague 
 and valueless symbohsm, direct or indirect, under- 
 stood as the Language of Flowers, Hh ere is an abun- 
 dant store of traditionary lore associated with all kinds 
 of trees, plants, and flowers. The study of this throws 
 much light on many puzzling survivals in popular 
 folklore, and Mannhardt (1831-'80) and Mr. J. G. 
 Frazer have shown its importance for part of the 
 problem of primitive religion. It is not infrequent 
 among Australians and red Indians to find the totem 
 (the name or symbol of a tribe) taking the form of a 
 plant or tree, and for these the individual shows his 
 reverence by refusing to gather or destroy them. We 
 find the worship of trees widely prevalent among 
 savages everywhere, and we have ample evidence that 
 it was an important element in the religion of all the 
 families of the Aryan stock. Grimm thinks the old- 
 est sanctuaries of the Germans were natural woods, 
 and hints at a historical connection between the an- 
 cient sacred inviolate wood and the later royal forest 
 — a ludicrous descent from the god to the game-pre- 
 server. The oak- worship of the ancient Druids, the 
 sacred fig-tree of Romulus in the center of Rome, the 
 Ficus religiosa of India, and the sacred groves of the 
 Semitic and pre- Semitic races still surviving at Car- 
 thage a century after Augustine are ready examples of 
 tree-worship from sufficiently wide centers of civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
78 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 2. The primitive mind of tlie savage readily con- 
 ceives of a tree as animated by a conscious soul cog- 
 nate with his own, and he may regard the tree either 
 as its permanent outward organism or merely its 
 characteristic dwelling-place. Hence trees have their 
 place in the doctrine of fetichism, of idolatry, and the 
 upward development of religion. Buddhists do not 
 include trees among sentient beings possessing mind, 
 but recognize the existence of the genius of the tree, 
 and Buddha himself was such as often as forty-three 
 times during his transmigrations. The reverence paid 
 to the famous Bo-tree, shows how fundamental a fact 
 is tree-worship, which undoubtedly formed a part of 
 the old indigenous religion amalgamated by the new 
 philosophical faith. But none the less are the sacred 
 tree and grove to be found within the range of Se- 
 mitic and Aryan influences, and the obstinate revival, 
 even under the shadow of purer rites, of the Canaan- 
 itish Ashera worship proves how deeply they were 
 rooted in the old religion of the land. From all sides 
 we find evidence at once of the great antiquity and 
 uniformity of the worship of trees, whether for the 
 services they render to man, for their venerable an- 
 tiquity, their form, for particular qualities ascribed to 
 them as containing the seeds of fire, for their situa- 
 tion, as on somber and lonely mountain- tops, or for 
 their association with certain phenomena, as plagues 
 and pestilences, or certain events in the history of the 
 homestead. 
 
 3. In the growth, life, decay, and death of the 
 plant, the primitive man easily sees an analogue to 
 
PLANT-LORE. 79 
 
 his own life-Mstory, and herein we may find the 
 philosophy of the widespread rustic rites associated 
 with marriage and with the birth of children. The 
 custom of scattering flowers and the fruits of the field 
 over the footsteps of a newly married pair conveys an 
 obvious reference to the belief in the reproductive 
 powers of vegetation and to the fundamental postulate 
 of all sympathetic magic that any effect may be pro- 
 duced by imitating it. Primitive ideas of the f ertihz- 
 ing and fruit-bearing powers of ^Nature led easily, 
 according to Mannhardt, to the belief that each tree 
 or plant possesses spiritual as well as physical life, 
 being tenanted, either by semi-divine spirits or by the 
 ghosts of the dead ; and a natural generahzation of 
 this notion made plants and trees collectively the 
 abode of particular inhabitants — an example of ani- 
 mism developing into polytheism. A forest-god has 
 been deduced from a mere tree-soul, both alike re- 
 garded as powerful to produce rain or sunshine, to 
 cause fruits to spring and cattle to easily bring forth 
 their young. 
 
 4. A still higher generalization gave a belief in a 
 genius of plant-life or forest-life, or, higher still, a 
 genius of growth or fertility in general. This uni- 
 versal genius of growth was symbolized by a bush or 
 tree, brought in triumph from the forest, gayly decked, 
 and solemnly planted near the homestead or in the 
 village. We have thus seen both the spirit incor- 
 porate in the tree, suffering and dying with^t, and 
 the tree considered as the mere dwelling-placu of the 
 god ; but still further in many cases we find the tree- 
 
80 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 spirit regarded as detached from tlie tree, and, through 
 a confusion of his vegetable and anthropomorphic 
 representations, clothed in human form as a man or a 
 girl decked with flowers — the May King, Queen of 
 the May, the Old Woman or Corn-mother of German 
 harvest-fields, the Jack in the Green of young Lon- 
 don sweeps, and the like, j The existence of those 
 corn-spirits which especially haunted and protected 
 the waving corn, we see dimly recognized in charac- 
 teristic ceremonies of an English harvest-home, and 
 in the German custom of leaving the last sheaf of rye 
 in the field as a tribute to the EoggenwuK. The 
 French and German custom of the Harvest May, in 
 which a branch or tree decked with ears of com is 
 carried home in the last wagon from the harvest-field 
 and hung on the roof of the farmhouse till next year, 
 is closely cognate with the eiresione of ancient Greece, 
 and suggests a parallel with some of our own old har- 
 vest customs. 
 
 5. Sympathetic affinities between plant and animal 
 life strongly impress the primitive imagination ; we 
 find them playing an important part in many cosmo- 
 gonies, as in the Iranian account of how the first hu- 
 man pair grew up as a single tree, the fingers or twigs 
 ^ of each one folded over the other's ears, till the time 
 came when they were separated and infused by 
 Ahuramazda with distinct human souls. Other 
 mythical cosmogonic trees that need only be named 
 are the heavenly fig-tree of the Yedas, and the ash- 
 tree Yggdrasil of Norse mythology. In some places 
 trees are informed when their owner dies, and an 
 
PLANT-LORE. 81 
 
 apology formally made to tliem by the woodcutter be- 
 fore he fells them ; and every one is familiar with the 
 custom of planting a tree at the birth of a child, 
 and the notion of a sympathetic relation subsisting 
 throughout life betwixt the two. 
 
 6. The trees planted by Queen Yictoria on her 
 visit to an Enghsh town and the Trees of Liberty 
 planted to mark a new political regime^ convey un- 
 consciously a survival of the same sympathetic sym- 
 bolism. The belief that a child's rickets can be 
 cured by passing him through a cleft ash-tree, still 
 lingers obstinately in corners of England, and stories 
 of trees giving forth human groans and exuding hu- 
 man blood are common in folk-tales everywhere. 
 Even so late as 1870, in Oxfordshire, a gypsy woman 
 told how Fair Kosamond was changed into a " Holy 
 Brier," which bleeds if one plucks a twig. Families, 
 as well as individuals, have tutelary or guardian trees, 
 and Hyten-Cavallius, for example, tells us that the 
 three families of Linnaeus, Lindelius, and Tiliander 
 were all called after the same tree, an ancient linden 
 or lime which grew at Jonsboda Lindergord. "When 
 the Lindelius family died one of the old lime's chief 
 boughs withered ; after the death of the daughter of 
 the great Linnseus the second main bough fittingly 
 bore leaves no more ; and when the last of the Tili- 
 ander family expired the tree's active life came to an 
 end, though the dead trunk still exists and is highly 
 honored. 
 
 7. We see, then, how natural is the notion of sym- 
 bolizing the genius of vegetation under the form of a 
 
 7 
 
82 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 tree, and thus, as lias been shown, we find some hint 
 at the real philosophy underlying the joyous Old- 
 World May-day usages, the Maypole decked with 
 streamers, round which young men and maidens 
 danced in chorus, and not less the high ceremonies at- 
 tending the harvest-home. Even oar Christmas-tree, 
 -^.which originally made its way into England and 
 France principally through the influence of Prince 
 Albert and the Duchess Helen of Orleans, is really 
 nothing but a survival of an ancient German custom of 
 heathen origin, and we may safely disregard the fool- 
 ish theory of its being Christian because the 24:th of 
 December chances to be consecrated to Adam and 
 Eve. One legend relates how Adam brought from 
 paradise a fruit or slip from the tree of Knowledge, 
 from which sprang the tree from which the Cross 
 was made — an example of a process of myth-making 
 after the fact to which we owe not a few beliefs and 
 customs not understood. But many plants have re- 
 ceived a kind of religious consecration from the name 
 of some saint whose festival fell on the day on which 
 they were gathered. And Christianity, like Bud- 
 dhism, early showed a marvelous adaptabihty in the 
 way in which it adopted popular rites of an earlier 
 religion and subtly rebaptized them as its own. 
 
 8. Many remnants of primitive superstitions sur- 
 vive in the local English names of plants and flowers, 
 chiefly in connection with the fairies, the devil, the 
 Virgin, and the Cross, and we have a great wealth of 
 association from one cause or other between saints 
 and flowers, as St. Agnes with the Christmas rose, 
 
PLANT-LORE. 83 
 
 St. Joseph of Arimatliea with the Glastonbury thorn, 
 St. Patrick with the shamrock, the Yirgin with the 
 white HI J, just as Thor had his oak-tree, Yenus her 
 myrtle, the Indians the lotus, and the Druids the 
 mistletoe. Again, historical personages and families 
 are frequently associated with particular flowers---it is 
 enough merely to name the orange-lily, the red ani 
 white roses, the fleur-de-hs, the Planta genista^ and 
 the violet. Family and clan crests frequently take 
 this form, as the hi*, holly, juniper ; also national 
 badges, as the rose, thistle, shamrock. More curious 
 and interesting, although obscure, are the notions of 
 magical properties connected as persistently with 
 some plants as medicinal properties are with others. 
 Most prominent in European folklore are the elder, 
 the thorn, and the rowan or mountain-ash ; but 
 strange properties are still ascribed to the rosemary, 
 veryain, St. John's-wort, mandrake, asphodel, and to 
 fern-seed ; and many flowers lend themselves through 
 some obscure inherent fitness to special methods of 
 divination. 
 
 9. The doctrine of signatures, of such importance 
 in the history of medicine, opens up a special chapter 
 of sympathetic magic, involving the belief that plants 
 bore by nature marks indicating plainly for what 
 diseases they were medicinally useful. The trees of 
 Paradise, of Chaldsean and other cosmogonies, the 
 oracular oaks of Dodona, those trees of healing spirit- 
 ually allegorized in the Apocalypse, the Trees of Lib- 
 erty of the French Revolution, and the trees round 
 which an Indian bride and bridegroom walk hand in 
 
84 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 hand, point as unmistakably to a real sympathetic 
 affinity between the human and the vegetable world 
 as did the dryads, fauns, and satyrs of the ancient 
 Hellenic mythology, with their analogues our own 
 elves and fairies of the woods, the transformation- 
 myths, the Orpheus whose lyre laid its charm on 
 beasts and trees alike, or the Pan at the report of 
 whose death all Nature mourned aloud. 
 
 Anonymous, " Chambers's Encyclopaedia." 
 
 THE LOKGEYITY OF TEEES. 
 
 1. In the vegetable world limits of growth and 
 life are strangely diversified. Multitudes of forms 
 mature and perish in a few days or hours, while 
 others, whose beginning was in a remote antiquity, 
 have survived the habitual period of their kind, and 
 still enjoy the luxuriance of their prime. Some spe- 
 cies of unicellular plants are so minute that millions 
 occur in the bulk of a cubic inch, and a flowering 
 plant is described by Humboldt, which, when fully 
 developed, is not more than three tenths of an inch 
 in height. On the other hand, we have the great Se- 
 quoia, whose mass is expressed by hundreds of tons, 
 and specimens of the Eucalyptus growing in the 
 gulches of Australia surpass in height the dome of 
 St. Peter's. 
 
 2. Some of the Fungi mature between the setting 
 and rising of the sun, while the oak at our door, which 
 
THE LONGEVITY OF TREES. 85 
 
 awakens the memories of our cliildliood, has not per- 
 ceptibly changed in bulk in haK a century. Trees 
 grow more slowly as they increase in age. J^ever- 
 theless it is certain that growth continues while they 
 continue to live. The development of foliage implies 
 interstitial activity and organization of new material. 
 In its vital processes there is httle expenditure of 
 force or waste of substance. Its functions are essen- 
 tially constructive, and its growth and age are appar- 
 ently without limits, excepting such as arise from 
 surrounding conditions. Thus many trees represent 
 centuries, and have a permanence that is astonishing 
 and subhme. Travelers stand awestruck before the 
 monuments which for forty centuries have kept watch 
 by the Mle, but the oldest of these may not antedate 
 the famous dragon-tree of Teneriffe. It is not sur- 
 prising that the ancients considered trees " immortal," 
 or as " old as Time." 
 
 3. But if the life of the tree is continuous, its 
 leaves — the organs of its growth — ^have their periods 
 of decay, and are types of mortahty. The life of 
 man is likened to the "leaf that perishes." In an 
 animal, the vital processes are carried on by a single 
 set of organs, the impairment of which limits the pe- 
 riod of its life. With the tree, decay of the organs 
 is followed by constant renovation, and the foliage 
 which covers it the present summer is as new and as 
 young as that which adorned it a hundred or a thou- 
 sand years ago. Trees which shed their leaves annu- 
 ally, or at longer intervals as do the evergreens, grow 
 by formation of new wood in layers upon their outer 
 
86 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 surface, and just beneatli tlie bark. These constitute 
 the class Exogens^ or outside growers. A lajer rep- 
 resents the growth of a year. "Where these are acces- 
 sible, there is no difficulty in ascertaining the age of a 
 tree, or the rate of its growth; and the rate thus 
 ascertained may be apphed to other trees of its kind 
 whose diameter is kno^vn, although its woody layers 
 be inaccessible. In this way the age of many trees 
 has been estimated. The relation between the age of 
 a tree and its annual rings was first noticed and ap- 
 phed by Montaigne, in 1581. 
 
 4. But this method of ascertaining a tree's age 
 does not apply to the class Endogens^ in which the 
 growth is internal. In these a hard inflexible shell 
 forms around the inner portions, the tree increases 
 little in diameter, and no woody layers are found. To 
 this class belong the Pahns. The age of this class 
 of trees is estimated by comparing specimens with 
 others whose age is known, or from an ascertained 
 rate of growth. The oldest palms may not exceed 
 ^^Q centuries, and their average period is probably 
 less than two hundred years. The height of the tall- 
 est of the species is said to be one hundred and nine- 
 ty-two feet. Trees growing in dense forests are com- 
 paratively short-lived, and attain less bulk than those 
 in open places, where side-branches develop in the 
 unobstructed -rays of the sun. In similar conditions 
 the age and dimensions attained by trees of each spe- 
 cies are tolerably constant. Thus the average period 
 of oaks and pines may be three or four hundred 
 years ; but the exceptions are so numerous and won- 
 
THE LONGEVITY OF TREES. 87 
 
 derful that we shall present here a few of the most 
 interesting and best-authenticated instances. 
 
 5. Of the white-pines, once the glory of the JSTew 
 England forests, we are not aware that any have 
 been found more than four hundred and thirty years 
 old. 'Nor have we any oaks of extraordinary age. 
 The Charter oak at Hartford may have been a small 
 tree at the first settlement of J^ew England. The 
 Wadsworth oak, at Geneseo, ^New York, is said to be 
 -G.Ye centuries old, and twenty-seven feet in circumfer- 
 ence at the base. The massive, slow-growing live-oaks 
 of Florida are worthy of notice, on account of the 
 enormous length of their branches. Bartram says : 
 " I have stepped fifty paces in a straight line from 
 the trunk of one of these trees to the extremity of 
 the limbs." 
 
 6. The oaks of Europe are among the grandest 
 of trees. The Cowthorpe oak is seventy-eight feet 
 in circuit at the ground, and is at least eighteen 
 hundred years old. Another, in Dorsetshire, is of 
 equal age. In Westphalia is a hollow oak which 
 was used as a place of refuge in the troubled times 
 of mediaeval history. The great oak at Saintes, in 
 southern France, is ninety feet in girth, and has been 
 ascertained to be two thousand years old. This monu- 
 ment, still or recently flourishing, commemorates a 
 period which antedates the first campaign of Julius 
 Caesar ! 
 
 7. The Oriental plane-tree is noted m Eastern 
 countries for its size and longevity. There is one 
 near Constantinople which is one hundred feet high 
 
88 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 and one hundred and fifty feet in circuit. It has been 
 suggested that this is really a group of trees originally 
 planted near together for their shade. A photograph, 
 however, hardly confirms that opinion, and many trees 
 of this species are mentioned by travelers not great- 
 ly inferior to this one in dimensions. Most of the 
 old plane-trees are hollow, their tops being sustained 
 by wood of recent growth. In this respect an ex- 
 ogenous tree resembles a coral reef, where the vitality 
 and growth are at the surface only. 
 
 8. Of chestnuts, we have the famous one at Tort- 
 worth, in Gloucestershire, England, which was a large 
 tree in the reign of Eing Stephen, and is over one 
 thousand years old. The " Great Chestnut of Mount 
 Etna " consists, at present, of what appears to be sev- 
 eral trees, fragments of the original one. These are 
 by some supposed to be shoots from,, rather than 
 portions of, the old tree. Jean Houel, who examined 
 the trees, says " they are portions of one tree." By 
 removing the soil, the outer rim of the tree has been 
 found, and the circumference ascertained to be one 
 hundred and seventy-five feet. Other chestnuts near 
 this are in girth sixty-four, seventy, and seventy-two 
 feet respectively. 
 
 9. The lime or linden in Europe is an important 
 tree. Those in the town of Morat are celebrated in 
 the history of Switzerland. One was planted in 1746 
 to commemorate the defeat of the Burgundians un- 
 der Charles the Bold ; the other was a noted tree at 
 the time of the battle, and is now near nine cen- 
 turies old. But, equally famous is the one at Wiir- 
 
THE LONGEVITY OF TREES. 89 
 
 temberg, called the " Great Linden " six centuries ago. 
 It is probably one thousand years old, and measures 
 thirty-five feet in girth. Four and a half centuries 
 ago its branches were supported by sixty-seven col- 
 umns of stone, now increased to one hundred and six, 
 many of which are " covered with inscriptions." 
 
 10. The well-known olive-tree is associated with 
 our most cherished recollections. There is an old 
 one near Mce, twenty-four feet in girth, regarded 
 by the inhabitants with great interest. Those on 
 the Mount of OHves may be contemporary with 
 the Christian era. They are known to have been 
 in existence in 1217, when the Turks captured Jeru- 
 salem. 
 
 11. The evergreen cypress, long celebrated for its 
 longevity, is abimdant in the burial-grounds of East- 
 em nations, and, from its dark, dense foliage, forms 
 an impressive picture of Oriental landscapes. In the 
 Palace G-ardens of Granada are cypresses said to be 
 eight hundred years old ; and there is one at Somma, 
 in Lombardy, proved by authentic documents "to 
 have been a considerable tree forty years before the 
 Christian era." Of this family of trees is our well- 
 known white cedar, specimens of which exhumed 
 from the meadows on the coast of 'New Jersey had 
 from seven hundred to one thousand rinses of wood 
 solid and fragrant as if of recent growth. 
 
 12. The cedars of Lebanon are often referred to 
 in the Sacred Writings. The present trees are, we 
 believe, seven large ones, with many of smaller growth, 
 situated in an elevated valley of the Lebanon Moun- 
 
90 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 tains, six thousand one hundred and seventy-two 
 feet above the Mediterranean. The valley is sur- 
 rounded by peaks of the mountains, which rise three 
 thousand feet higher, and are covered with snow. 
 De CandoUe supposes the oldest are twelve hundred 
 years old, but no sections of their wood have been ex- 
 amined to determine their age. The cedar is known 
 to grow slowly, as does the l^orth American or bald 
 cypress. This latter tree is common in our South- 
 ern States, and its rate of growth has been deter- 
 mined. On the Mexican table-lands its growth and 
 antiquity are immense. The " Cypress of Montezu- 
 ma," near the city of Mexico, is forty-four feet in 
 girth, and its age is estimated at upward of twenty 
 centuries. In the churchyard of Santa Maria del 
 Tule, in the Mexican State of Oaxaca, is a cypress 
 which " measures one hundred and twelve feet in 
 circuit, and is without sign of decay." At Palenque 
 are cypresses growing among the ruins of the old 
 city, whose streets they may have shaded in the days 
 of its pride. By the usual methods the age of the 
 cypress at Santa Maria del Tule is calculated at five 
 thousand one hundred and twenty-four years, or, 
 if it grew as rapidly during its whole life as similar 
 trees grow when young, it would still be four thou- 
 sand and twenty-four years old. 
 
 13. The yew has long been used in Great Britain 
 as an adornment of places of sepulture, and is often 
 referred to in English literature : 
 
 " Beneath these rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, 
 Where heaves the turf in many a moldering heap." 
 
THE LONGEVITY OF TREES. 91 
 
 This tree, of almost imperishable wood, is indigenous 
 to Great Britain. De Candolle ascertained its rate 
 of gro^vth, and concluded that individual specimens 
 are of great antiquity. There is a jew at Ankerwyke 
 House older than Magna Charta. It was an old and 
 celebrated tree when King John met the barons at 
 Eunnymede, in 1215, and its age is upward of eleven 
 centuries ; but the yews of Fountain's Abbey and the 
 Darley yew are from three to five centuries older 
 than this. In Fortingal Churchyard, Perthshire, is a 
 yew eighteen feet in diameter, through decayed por- 
 tions of which funeral processions pass on their way 
 to the grave. The age of this tree is estimated at 
 eighteen hundred years. But of greater antiquity is 
 the one described by Evelyn, which stood in Bra- 
 borne Churchyard, in Kent. It measured fifty- 
 nine feet in girth, and was believed to be twenty- 
 five hundred years old. This tree, which has long 
 disappeared, was probably contemporary with the 
 founding of E-ome. The growth and decline of a great 
 empire was spanned by the duration of a single life. 
 
 14. More immense in bulk, but perhaps not older 
 than these hving monuments, are the pines of Oregon 
 and the Sequoias of California. Mr. Douglas counted 
 eleven hundred annual layers in a Lambert pine, 
 and three hundred feet is not an unusual height 
 for the Douglas spruce. Hutchings states that a Se- 
 quoia which was blown down and measured by him 
 was four hundred and thirtv-five feet in len2:th. It 
 was eighteen feet in diameter three hundred feet from 
 the ground. Scientific observation has connected 
 
92 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 with these trees an interest equal to that awakened bj 
 their size and age. Our most distinguished botanist, 
 Prof. Gray, has shown that the Sequoias, now grow- 
 ing on a limited area, had formerly a wide distribu- 
 tion, and are lineal descendants from ancestral types 
 which flourished at least as far back in geologic time 
 as the Cretaceous age. The descent has been wh ^ 
 modifications furnishing an important link in the 
 chain of evidence which establishes the derivative 
 origin of specific forms. Prof. Gray thinks the age 
 of the oldest living Sequoia may be about two thou- 
 sand years, and remarks : " It is probable that close 
 to the heart of some of the living trees may be 
 found the circle which records the year of our Sa- 
 viour's nativity." 
 
 15. The sacred banian is familiar to every reader. 
 Its main trunk attains a diameter of from twenty 
 to thirty feet, and its enormous roof of foliage may 
 shelter the inhabitants of a considerable village. The 
 pendent branches are really roots, which, on reach- 
 ing the ground, penetrate it and form trunks. These 
 correspond with the outer layers of wood in an oak or 
 a pine, and sustain the top, although the original 
 trunks decay and disappear. 
 
 16. The dragon-tree of Orotava, on the island of 
 Teneriife, is a well-known and historic tree. Twice 
 during the present century it has been dismantled by 
 storms. It is but sixty-nine feet high, but is seven- 
 ty-nine feet in circumference. So slow is its growth 
 that its diameter had scarcely changed in four hun- 
 dred years. Kecently it bore flowers and luxuriant 
 
THE LONGEVITY OF TREES. 93 
 
 foliage, as it may have done before tlie " isles of the 
 Western Ocean," on one of which it was growing, 
 were a dream in the Grecian mythology. 
 
 IT. The baobab, or monkey bread-fruit, is the last 
 we can notice of the ancient trees. It was first de- 
 scribed by a Venetian traveler in 1454. These trees 
 are found, however, in nearly all portions of Africa 
 south of the Desert, everywhere an imposing feature 
 of the landscape, and objects of regard if not of rev- 
 erence by the natives. In the rainy season they are 
 in full luxuriance, and are covered with cup-shaped 
 flowers six inches in diameter. The trunks grow 
 from twenty to sixty feet high, but are sometimes one 
 hundred feet in circuit at the ground. The baobabs, 
 like most other trees, grow rapidly when young, but 
 slowly when old. Eecent estimates attribute to some 
 of the oldest a period of three thousand years. This 
 is scarcely more than one half the age assigned to 
 them by early writers. In 1832 a baobab was trans- 
 planted into a garden at Caracas, which grew as 
 much in forty years as would have required one hun- 
 dred years by early estimate. By the native town of 
 Shupanga, near the Zambesi, in eastern Africa, is a 
 venerable baobab, beneath which is the grave of Mrs. 
 Livingstone. 
 
 18. Such, briefly, are some of the great living 
 monuments of the vegetable kingdom. In longevity 
 they are in striking contrast with higher types of life. 
 Fixed to a single spot, the tree is what it is because 
 of the forces which act upon it. It is a monument of 
 accumulated and concentrated force. Transmuted 
 
94: THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 sunlight is in all its fibers, and who shall estimate the 
 dynamic work which has been expended in its struc- 
 ture ? 
 
 19. Dr. Draper observes that " the beat of a pen- 
 dulum occupies a second of time ; divide that period 
 into a million of equal parts, then divide each of 
 these brief periods into a million of other equal parts 
 — a wave of yellow light during one of the last small 
 intervals has vibrated five hundred and thirty-five 
 times. Yet that yellow light has been the chief in- 
 strument in building the tree." In the delicate tex- 
 ture of its leaves it has overcome molecular force ; it 
 has beaten asunder the elements of an invisible gas 
 and inaugurated a new arrangement of atoms. The 
 old dragon-tree represents forty centuries of this dy- 
 namic work — a sublime monument reared without toil 
 by the silent forces of Nature ! 
 
 20. In the outer air it has awakened every note 
 of sound, from the softest monotone to the rhythmic 
 roar of the tempest ; but in its inner chambers has 
 been a murmur and music of life in the ceaseless move- 
 ment of fluids and marshaling of atoms, as one by one 
 they take their place in the molecular dance, which 
 eludes the dull sense of hearing and becomes obvious 
 only in results. The veil which hides these ultimate 
 processes of life has not yet been lifted, and science 
 pauses in waiting before it, but only waits. 
 
 Elias Lewis, " The Popular Science Monthly." 
 
GRASSES. 95 
 
 GEASSES. 
 
 1. Of all tlie plants covering our hills and valleys, 
 grasses are tlie most general and tlie most important. 
 "We attach great and deserved importance to utility, 
 and seldom stint our meed of praise to beauty ; yet 
 as we pluck up the grassy weeds in our flower-beds 
 or sentence the garden- walk to a covering of salt to 
 destroy the young grass-blades, how little we recog- 
 nize how beneficent and lordly a family we are mak- 
 ing war with! yet, as the term loeed has been well 
 defined as " a plant growing where it is not wanted," 
 the young grasses, so valuable in the meadows or pas- 
 ture, are deserving of extermination when they in- 
 trude themselves into \hQ parterre. 
 
 2. Linnseus has computed grasses to constitute a 
 sixth part of all the vegetables of the globe. They 
 prevail especially in open situations, and spread them- 
 selves by their creeping habits to a great extent. 
 The family is numerous, and very widely distributed. 
 Persoon's " Synopsis " contains eight hundred and 
 twelve species, and Homer and Schultes enumerate 
 eighteen hundred. Their diffusion is coextensive 
 with the existence of vegetation. Travelers pene- 
 trating to the South Shetland Isles find Aira antarc- 
 tica flourishing alone and spreading its light panicles 
 in a region of " thick-ribbed ice " ; Agrostis aUjida 
 was found by Phipps on Spitzbergen ; and in Green- 
 land and Iceland, where there is scarcely light enough 
 for the humblest vegetables to flourish, Trisetum siib- 
 
96 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 spicatum not only endures the sleet and bitter cold, 
 and spreads its blossoms nnder such inhospitable cir- 
 cumstances, but actually ripens abundance of seed. 
 On the mountain ranges of the south of Europe 
 grasses ascend almost to the snow-line, especially Poa 
 disticha^ P. malulensis, and P. dactyloides^ and Fes- 
 tuca dasyantha. 
 
 3. Under the equator characteristic grades are 
 found; indeed, it is impossible to find a climate to 
 which they will not suit themselves. They occur in 
 every soil, in company and alone, often covering 
 large areas with a single species, or combining half a 
 dozen in a square inch. Every kind of soil has its 
 special patrons in the family, but fewer species favor 
 sandy ground than other kinds. Some grow in water, 
 many in marsh and bog, but there are no marine spe- 
 cies. 'Eo matter how barren the spot, grasses of some 
 kind will establish themselves there; the rocky fis- 
 sures have their fringe of feathery grasses, the tops 
 of walls or " dikes " are green with them, and the 
 decaying ruin is as surely decked with grass plumes 
 as with the soft drapery of moss and lichen. Dr. 
 Deakin enumerates fifty-six species found by him on 
 the ruins of the Colosseum, and we can none of us 
 call to mind a gray ruin of abbey or fortress without 
 its complement of commemorative grasses. There is 
 no place where the presence of grass is more wel- 
 come or more touching in its associations than in 
 the churchyard. The early withering of many sum- 
 mer grasses brings to memory the scriptural analogy 
 " All fiesh is as grass " ; but the associations with the 
 
GRASSES. 97 
 
 green turf of E"ature's lost home are entirely restful. 
 The American poet expresses genial feeling on this 
 subject in some simple lines on " The Yoice of the 
 Grass " : 
 
 "Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere; 
 By the rusty roadside, 
 On the sunny hillside. 
 Close by the noisy brook, 
 In every shady nook, 
 I come creeping, creeping everywhere. 
 
 *'Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere; 
 In the noisy street 
 My pleasant face you'll meet, 
 Cheering the sick at heart. 
 Toiling his busy part, 
 Silently creeping, creeping everywhere. 
 
 " Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere ; 
 When you're numbered with the dead, 
 In your still and narrow bed. 
 In the happy spring I'll come 
 And deck your silent home, 
 Creeping silently, creeping everywhere." 
 
 4. Mr. Shirley Hibberd describes the welcome 
 presence of grass in truly poetic style. He says : 
 " Grass climbs up the steep mountain passes and 
 forms green ledges among the rivings of the crags ; 
 it leaps down between steep shelving precipices, and 
 there fastens its slender roots in dry crevices which 
 the earthquakes have rent long ago, and into which 
 the water trickles when 'the sunbeams thaw the hoary 
 snows above. There it flings its sweet greenness to 
 8 
 
98 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 the sun, creeps about in the mazes of the solitude, 
 and waves its fairy tassels in the wind. It even 
 beautifies the grave, and spreads over the sightless 
 visage of death and darkness the serene luster of a 
 summer smile." 
 
 5. In our climate the idea of grass is always con- 
 nected with the velvety sward of hill and park, or 
 the quivering plumes of the fragrant meadow; but 
 in tropical countries the character of the grasses is 
 quite different. There you may search in vain for 
 the compact elastic turf over which our childhood's 
 feet have loved to bound ; grasses you find indeed, 
 but seldom crowded together and interwoven into a 
 natural carpet. There they grow dispersed or in 
 clusters, attaining a lordly size, and exhibiting gigan- 
 tic plumes of flowers of surpassing beauty. Nearly 
 all tropical grasses attain a height that may be called 
 gigantic in comparison with our temperate species, 
 and some of the bamboos grow to a stature of fifty or 
 sixty feet. Their leaves are broader in proportion, 
 and in most species there are flowers of different 
 sexes on each plant. The flowers are more generally 
 furnished with hairy appendages, or the parts are 
 fringed with silky hairs, often of silvery whiteness, 
 which gives them a very elegant appearance. Thus 
 the tropical grasses make up by their size and beauty 
 for the absence of the ever- welcome turf. In sub- 
 tropical districts the grasses are of an intermediate 
 size and number, or representatives of the two forms 
 are both present. Arundo donax^ in the south of 
 Europe, emulates the bamboo in its size and ele- 
 
GRASSES. 99 
 
 gance, and several species present the characteristic 
 of the combination of different sexes ; the turf, 
 though not absent altogether, is much less compact 
 than in the cooler climates, and meadows are less 
 frequent. 
 
 6. Of the many gifts bestowed by our beneficent 
 Creator in the kingdom of I^ature, that of the grasses 
 is perhaps the most valuable to the life of man, wheth- 
 er we regard it as "the grass grown for cattle" or 
 " the green herb for the use of man." In the first- 
 named gift we reckon all the agricultural grasses, 
 both natural and artificial, the value of which we 
 only realize when during a drought they are with- 
 drawn. At such a time we are not surprised to hear 
 even of so great and imperious a king as Ahab going 
 forth to see if perchance he can find a little grass 
 anywhere to save some of his cattle ahve. And, as 
 in the " green herb for the service of man," we rec- 
 ognize the rank lines of corn growing up — " first the 
 blade, then the ear, and then the full corn in the 
 ear" — yielding at last in the rich harvest time the 
 precious " staff of life," " bread to strengthen man's 
 heart." 
 
 Y. As food for man and beast, it is impossible to 
 overvalue this great gift of God ; nor should we for- 
 get how valuable is the turfy carpet overspreading 
 our hills and valleys, both as regards its comfort to 
 the foot of the weary traveler and its charm to the 
 eye. Who that has any taste for the beautiful can 
 fail to admire the glory of the meadow, whether the 
 trembling panicles of its grasses are laden witli the 
 
100 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 diamonds of tlie dew or giving out their odor under 
 the influence of the midday sun ? And when the 
 summer is over and gone and the rich growth of the 
 meadows stands stoutly in a burly stack, the after- 
 math is not less profuse in its adornments than was 
 the earher crop ; for, as 
 
 " Ilka blade o' grass keps its ain drap o' dew," 
 
 so every blade has its own wreath of jewels bestowed 
 by the breath of the hoar-frost. 
 
 8. Yery early in the year the grass-flowers come 
 forth to court our regard. The sweet vernal grass 
 leads the first group, and half a dozen have shaken 
 forth their tasseled stamens before the April showers 
 have ceased. May, the month of flowers, boasts but 
 three flowering grasses, one of which is the Holy 
 G-rass — so called because dedicated to the Holy Yir- 
 gin, and used in Prussia and elsewhere in the decora- 
 tion of the churches, fitting therefore to flower in the 
 month which, like itseK, is dedicated to the mother 
 of our Lord. June is rich in grasses; Mr. Lowe 
 enumerates forty-four which flower in that month, 
 but the numbers only reach their maximum in July, 
 when sixty-six perfect their blossoms, according to 
 the computation of the same author. August has 
 but few grasses, and after that the flowers of the 
 family are seen no more, or only in belated indi- 
 viduals. 
 
 9. ISTearly every grass is wholesome, all the seeds 
 partaking of the nature of the cereals. Lolium terriu- 
 lentum is an exception ; its seeds have the character 
 
GRASSES. 101 
 
 of being narcotic and deleterious and producing in- 
 toxication and even convulsions. There are terrible 
 legends of poisoning by darnel-bread, but authors of 
 the present daj doubt the truth of the said legends, 
 and return a verdict of " not proven." The seeds of 
 Bromus mollis are accounted doubtfully wholesome, 
 and those of the foreign species Festuca quadri- 
 dentata lie under the same suspicion. There is a 
 curious species in ]!*^ew Zealand, called Spear-grass, 
 which is very injurious to the feet of horses and 
 men because of its sharp spines, which are a foot 
 long ; the spike measures a yard in length, and the 
 strong sharp awns are truly vegetable spears ; Dr. 
 Lauder Lindsay says it is accounted the pest of the 
 province. But these are trifling exceptions where 
 the great numbers of the family are so distinctly 
 wholesome and useful. 
 
 10. Cereals of course take the first place in the 
 grass family, being absolutely necessary to the life of 
 the human race. He who created man in his own 
 image had already created for him the " green herb " 
 that should form the most important part of his sus- 
 tenance, and willed that, by using the talents that he 
 had endowed him with, he should improve and ex- 
 tend, by cultivation, those nutritious seeds, so as to 
 provide food co-extensively with the increased need 
 of it. Thus we have in the large variety of cereals a 
 mere handful of species, placed by the hand of Provi- 
 dence so as to attract the special riotice of man from 
 time immemorial, and now become the daily bread of 
 the great human family. Only second in importance 
 
102 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 to the cereals stand the agricultural grasses, without 
 which we could not keep our flocks and herds, and 
 so must forfeit all the support and service we receive 
 from them. In temperate climates the earth is cov- 
 ered by the greensward, which furnishes such abun- 
 dance of pasturage and meadow for our troops of 
 cattle. In the tropical climates the sward is absent, 
 but the grasses are there in another form, and though 
 of gigantic size, many of them are so tender and deli- 
 cate that they are as valuable as our own as fodder 
 for cattle. In Australia, Kangaroo-grass {Anthistiria 
 australis) affords excellent food for sheep, and the 
 Dharba or Doob of India {Cynodon dactylon) is so 
 valuable as to be the theme of many poems. Mexico 
 rejoices its flocks with the Gama grass, and the Tussac 
 grass of the Falklands is noted for its nutritious qual- 
 ities. 
 
 11. The group of grasses used for economic and 
 industrial purposes is comparatively insignificant, but 
 by no means unimportant when our attention ceases 
 to be dazzled by the greatness of the value of the 
 cereal and fodder grasses. In many rural districts 
 their utility for thatch, fences, building purposes, and 
 domestic articles is well attested, and neither poor 
 nor rich will despise their employment in the straw- 
 hat manufacture. Ornamental grasses form a very 
 attractive group, as exhibited in our public gardens in 
 the present day, and, though not able to lay claim 
 to edible or industrial properties, they well deserve 
 notice as the fine ladies and gentlemen of the tribe. 
 Margaret Plues, " British G-rasses." 
 

 ■••vr ' 
 
 
 i r s 
 
 # »a ■■ ■ -^ 
 
 
 
 ' at-. '' l^^HHiBV' 
 
 
 • ' ■•)/<- ^.:« - I'M' 
 
 ^li 
 
 
.-A 
 
GIANTS OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 103 
 
 GIAIS'TS OF THE VEGETABLE KmGDOM. 
 
 1. Like animals, plants may be infinitely little or 
 infinitely huge ; the latter astonish us by theii- colossal 
 proportions, while the former escape our ken, and are 
 only revealed by the microscope. The study of the 
 development of plants in respect to their mere size 
 presents us with some curious contrasts. 
 
 2. Some rudimentary plants, such as the Asco- 
 jphor% Mold Fungi which so frequently invade our 
 bread, and the Aspergilli which we often see forming 
 in the fluids we drink glairy repulsive-looking films, 
 possess an almost invisible stalk. Woody plants, on 
 the contrary, often astonish us by the enormous di- 
 mensions of this part. The old authors who describe 
 Germany tell us that there were trees there from 
 the trunk of one of which boats were made which 
 carried as many as thirty men. / From the times of 
 antiquity the luxuriant growth of the plane-trees on 
 the banks of the Bosporus and the Black Sea has 
 been the subject of remark, and the botanists of our 
 day have proved that what our forefathers said was 
 in no way exaggerated. 
 
 3. Men were almost inclined to disbelieve the ac- 
 count of Pliny, who states that in his time there was 
 in Lycia a stout thriving plane-tree in the trunk of 
 which was seen a vast grotto eighty -one feet in cir- 
 cumference, the whole extent of which had been 
 tapestried by I^ature with a green and velvety hang- 
 ing of moss. Licinius Mutianus, governor of the 
 
104 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 province, charmed with the delicious coolness of this 
 rural hall, gave a supper in it to eighteen guests from 
 his suite. After the orgy they transformed the scene 
 of their festivity into a dormitory, and comfortably 
 passed the night there. 
 
 4. This fact has been fully confirmed by modern 
 travelers. De Candolle relates that, according to one 
 of them, there still exists in the neighborhood of Con- 
 stantinople an enormous lime-tree, the trunk of which 
 is quite as ample as that of which we have been 
 speaking. It is one hundred and fifty feet in circum- 
 ference, and also presents a cavity eighty feet in cir- 
 cuit. 
 
 5. Ray, .the celebrated English botanist and ge- 
 ologist, speaks of an oak existing in his time in Ger- 
 many which was of such dimensions that it had been 
 transformed into a citadel. To confine ourselves 
 more strictly to the truth, let us just say that its inte- 
 rior served as a guard-house. We may here mention 
 another tree of the same kind, still growing in I^or- 
 mandy, and which, in contrast to the other, has been 
 consecrated to piety. This is the chapel oak of Al- 
 louville, in which there is an altar dedicated to the 
 Virgin, where on certain days mass is said. The am- 
 ple hollow of this tree not only furnishes an oratory, 
 but above this a sleeping-room has been scooped 
 out ; there is a bed in this room, to which access 
 is gained by steps outside ; it is the abode of an 
 anchorite. This tree, which perhaps sheltered in 
 its shade the companions of the Seigneur de Bethen- 
 court when on their way to embark for the conquest 
 
GIANTS OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 105 
 
 of the Canaries, is held in great veneration in the 
 country. 
 
 6. One of our most illustrious and philosophic 
 botanists, Marquis, renowned ahke for his eminent po- 
 sition and knowledge, measured the trunk of this tree, 
 and found that it was thirty feet in circumference 
 near the ground. 
 
 7. I have also seen on the banks of the Bosporus 
 plane-trees the trunks of which were pierced with 
 enormous cavities. In the neighborhood of Smyrna 
 there is one of these trees celebrated for its size and 
 antiquity. The stem, which is hollowed right through, 
 is spread widely out at the base, and represents three 
 columns, which converge toward each other, forming 
 a sort of porch beneath which a man on horseback 
 can pass easily. 
 
 8. Yet the baobab on the banks of the Mger, in 
 its splendid luxuriance of growth, surpasses even all 
 the giants of the Bosporus. It is especially remark- 
 able for its thickness, contrasted with its want of 
 height. It is a colossus of ungraceful look. Almost 
 always without leaves, bearing them only in the rainy 
 season, its whitish conical trunk, scarcely fLfteen to 
 twenty feet in height, is more than a hundred feet in 
 circumference at the level of the ground. This short 
 and robust support is necessary to sustain its incred- 
 ibly large dome of leaves, the bulk of which is some- 
 times so great that, seen from a distance, the baobab 
 looks rather like a small forest than a sin2:le tree. Its 
 large branches are fifty to sixty feet long. When 
 time has hollowed out the stem of one of these noble 
 
106 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 trees the negroes make use of the cavity. Sometimes 
 they turn it into a place of amusement, a rustic re- 
 treat where thej can smoke their chibouques and 
 take refreshment ; at other times they convert it 
 into a prison. One of these is known of which 
 the Senegambians have converted the interior into 
 a council -hall ; the entrance is covered with sculp- 
 tures which point out the high destination reserved 
 for it. 
 
 9. But the marvel of the vegetable kingdom in re- 
 spect to its colossal dimensions is assuredly the fa- 
 mous chestnut-tree growing on the lower slopes of 
 Etna. Count Borch, who measured the trunk very 
 exactly, accords it a circumference of one hundred 
 and ninety feet. A house which shelters a shepherd 
 and his flock has been built in the immense hollow of 
 its trunk. During the winter the wood of the tree 
 serves the inhabitant of this solitary retreat for fuel, 
 and its abundance of fruit supplies him with food 
 during the summer. 
 
 10. This colossus of our forests, which is called 
 the " Chestnut of a Hundred Horses," owes its name to 
 the vast extent of its foliage. The inhabitants of the 
 country told the painter J. Houel " that Jeanne of 
 Aragon, when traveling from Spain to Naples, stopped 
 at Sicily, and accompanied by all the nobility of Ca- 
 tania, paid a visit to Mount Etna. She was on horse- 
 back, as were also her suite, and a storm having come 
 on, she took shelter under this tree, the vast foliage 
 of which sufliced to protect the queen and all her cav- 
 aliers from the rain. It is from this memorable ad- 
 
GIANTS OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 107 
 
 venture, they add, that the old tree took the name of 
 Chestnut-tree of the Hundred Horses." 
 
 11. Yet whatever astonishment we may feel at 
 the extraordinary dimensions attained by the trunks 
 of certain trees, the height to which others reach 
 strikes us still more than their growth in diameter. 
 The king of our forests, the oak, which poetic fiction 
 looks upon as the emblem of passive force, rears its 
 crown of leaves one hundred feet above the soil. 
 
 12. In the East the imposing remains of the an- 
 cient forest employed in building the temple of Jeru- 
 salem, the cedars of Lebanon, the object of so much 
 veneration, and which the pilgrim only approaches 
 with the sounds of a hymn on his Hps, spread forth 
 their dark sheets of verdure to a height of one hun- 
 dred and fifty feet above the mountain. 
 
 13. Supported only by its flexible column, which 
 yields and bends beneath the force of the tempest, the 
 wax-palm on the Andes balances its waving crown in 
 the bosom of the clouds two hundred feet above the 
 heights whereon it grows. 
 
 14. But no tree rears its head toward the sky so 
 boldly as the gigantic cedar of California, the Well- 
 ingtonia gigantea. One colossus of this species, now 
 hurled down and stretched upon the rock, presented 
 when it stood erect and threatening a height of more 
 than four hundred and ninety feet — that is to say, 
 about eight times the elevation of a house of ^yq 
 stories. It was above one hundred and thirty feet in 
 circumference. 
 
 15. The bark of the trunk of one of these giants 
 
108 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 of the American forests was transported in part to 
 the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, where it formed one 
 of the most splendid cnriosities, until accidentally de- 
 stroyed by fire in 1866. It was a monstrous column, 
 above one hundred and thirty feet in height, and 
 which at the level of the ground had a diameter of 
 nearly thirty-four feet. I stood inside this tree along 
 with fifteen people. At San Francisco a piano was 
 placed, and a ball given to more than twenty per- 
 sons on the stump of a WelliTigtonia which had been 
 brought thither. The age of this colossus corresponds 
 to its dimensions. By counting the number of annual 
 rings in a transverse section, it was ascertained that 
 these monstrous trees must be three or four thou- 
 sand years old, so that they seem to have been almost 
 contemporary with the biblical creation, and have 
 stood erect and unshaken amid all the commotions of 
 the globe. 
 
 16. Alongside of these giants stretched prostrate 
 on the ground man only looks like a pygmy and feels 
 his littleness. He calls them the mammoths of the 
 forest, to show that, like those frightful animals which 
 surpassed all others in their size, they tower above all 
 the vegetable kingdom. One of these cedars, hol- 
 lowed out into a deep cavern, owes its name of 
 " the Riding School " to the fact that a man on horse- 
 back can penetrate sixty-five feet into the dark exca- 
 vation. 
 
 17. However, these prodigies of vegetation do not 
 seem to be the supreme manifestation of creative 
 power. In penetrating into regions of Australia pre- 
 
GIANTS OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 109 
 
 viously quite unknown, some gold-seekers have just 
 discovered Eucalypti that surpass in size even the 
 WelUngtonia gigantea. Ferdinand Miiller, the bot- 
 anist, sajs that trees of the species Eucalyptus amyg- 
 dalina four hundred and eighty feet in length, were 
 met with lying on the ground ; and this seems per- 
 fectly confirmed by the statement of Mr. George 
 Eobins, who saw in the mountains of Berwick one of 
 these trees standing which had, near the ground, a 
 circumference of eighty-one feet, and the height of 
 which he estimated at ^yq hundred feet. This Eu- 
 calyptus, therefore, could overshadow the Great Pyra- 
 mid of Egypt and the spire of the Cathedral of Stras- 
 burg, for the former is only four hundred and eighty 
 feet in height and the latter four hundred and sixty- 
 six. Thus these vegetable giants dethrone all others 
 that have hitherto been regarded as the forest mon- 
 archs of our globe, and must be added to the marvels 
 that Australia may yet have in store for us. 
 
 18. When from these noble trees, proudly cleav- 
 ing the clouds with their tops, we pass to those whose 
 humble stem creeps upon the ground, we find that 
 even the latter at times acquire a length which has 
 something of the prodigious in it. Struck with the 
 aspect of the vines in Italy, the manifold garlands of 
 which entwine from branch to branch, and disap- 
 pear amid the foliage of the trees without our being 
 able to see either the beginning or the end, Pliny 
 maintained that they grow forever : Vites sine fine 
 cresGunt^ said the Poman naturalist. But we have 
 more precise data as to the size of sundry other plants. 
 
110 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 Thus^ln the virgin forests of India, the Calamus to- 
 tang, which climbs upon the trunks of aged trees and 
 stretches from one to another, sinking to the ground to 
 rise again, attains, according to the traveler Loureiro, 
 a length of four hundred to five hundred feet. The 
 gigantic Fucus {Fucus giganteus, Linn.) reaches much 
 more extraordinary proportions; the waves of the 
 ocean, according to Humboldt, yield strips which are 
 sometimes fifteen hundred to sixteen hundred feet 
 long. 
 
 19. In an interesting 'article in the " Revue Germa- 
 nique," M. A. Boscowitz says that in the Botanical 
 Garden of Caracas there was a Convolvulus which in 
 six months attained the incredible length of six thou- 
 sand feet. It must therefore have grown at the rate 
 of more than a foot per hour, and its growth must 
 have been visible to the naked eye. 
 
 F. A. PoucHET, " The Universe." 
 
 SIX GEE AT GEOUPS OF PLAJSTTS. 
 
 1. Of the many thousand kinds of plants that 
 have been discovered growing in different parts of 
 the world, only about two hundred and forty kinds 
 have been found by men to be really valuable and 
 useful. Of course, all the plants the Creator has 
 placed in the world serve some useful purpose ; but 
 for our own particular use, for food for ourselves or 
 our cattle, or as medicines, or materials for building, 
 
SIX GREAT GROUPS OF PLANTS. m 
 
 for making clotliing, or otlier things, men have found, 
 after many centuries of trial, only these two hundred 
 and forty kinds that are of real value. Flowering 
 plants are not included among these kinds, though a 
 fine rose or carnation is useful in making our homes 
 beautiful. "We shall therefore add flowering plants 
 to the useful plants, and thus greatly increase the 
 number of varieties. Forest trees are also useful, 
 and in many places are now being cultivated in arti- 
 ficial groves ; and these, too, we will include among 
 our useful friends. 
 
 2. When we are presented to a large party of 
 friends we naturally group them into sets, putting all 
 the men together in one group, all the women in an- 
 other, and the young folks in another. So now we 
 will arrange our friends, the useful plants, into groups 
 according to their uses. The first of these are the 
 food plants. These include all the plants we can eat, 
 either cooked or raw. These are the most important 
 of all, and give us more wealth from the ground every 
 year than any other group of plants. We could not 
 exist in health without the food plants, and whole na- 
 tions of people depend wholly upon them. 'Next in 
 value to these are the fodder plants — the grasses, oats, 
 clover, and others suitable for food for animals. This 
 is also a very large and important class, and without 
 it we could have very few horses, sheep, or cows. 
 These fodder plants bring us great wealth every year 
 by enabling us to keep our animals alive, and thus 
 get food, milk, hides, and other valuable things. IS'ext 
 to the fodder plants come the forest plants, the trees 
 
112 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 that give us wood. Though nearly all wood-giving 
 trees grow wild, we must call them useful plants ; for 
 wood is the next great supply of wealth we take from 
 our lands. Trees are now being cultivated on farms 
 for their wood, so that many of the trees we once 
 found only in the forests are now cultivated in groves 
 like so many apple- or cherry-trees. The next great 
 group are the fabric plants, or the plants like the cot- 
 ton-plant, from which we may gather materials that 
 may be woven into fabrics. There is also one more 
 group from which materials are gathered, useful in 
 various ways, and these we call the medicine plants. 
 These include the hop-vine, the poppy, the indigo- 
 plant, and others from which drugs or dye-stuffs are 
 obtained. Lastly, are the flowering plants, which in- 
 clude all plants that are cultivated for their beauty of 
 form, foliage, or blooms. These are quite as much 
 useful plants as any, for they are sold in the market 
 for money, just like oats or potatoes, and thus are a 
 means of winning wealth from the ground. 
 
 3. These six groups of plants include all the use- 
 ful plants that can be grown in any part of the United 
 States. ]^ot all in each group are equally valuable, 
 and in this talk about our useful plants we will select 
 only the most important and valuable and those in 
 most common use. Some plants, we shall find, may 
 be found in two groups — as the turnip and carrot are 
 both food plants and fodder plants. Each group can 
 also be divided into several minor groups, according 
 to the different parts of each plant that are used for 
 food or for other purposes. We can also arrange the 
 
SIX GREAT GROUPS OF PLANTS. 113 
 
 groups in another way, according to the age of the 
 plants — as those that live only one year, and those 
 that live two or more. We can also arrange them in 
 still another way, according to their shape — as those 
 that grow quite low on the ground, those that stand 
 erect like trees, and those that climb, like vines. This 
 arranging of things into groups or classes is called 
 classification ; and we shall find it a wonderful help 
 in our studies to carry out this work of grouping 
 plants, as it enables us to easily remember their habits 
 or the manner in which they live and grow, and the 
 different uses to which they may be put. In doing 
 this we will use only the common names that are 
 known in this country. 
 
 4. Names were given to plants long centuries be- 
 fore any one thought of the science of botany. But 
 these names became greatly changed in time, and 
 grew to be quite different in different countries — just 
 as we find the onion is zwiebel in G-erman, cebolla in 
 Spanish, and oignon in French. The botanists very 
 wisely gave new names to all the plants, and by using 
 Latin and Greek names made it easy to know the 
 botanical names of all plants, because Latin and 
 Greek are read by many people in all countries. 
 Besides this, the fact that a plant had a botanical 
 name known all over the world prevented mistakes 
 in naming varieties of plants, and gave them uni- 
 versal names well understood in every language. All 
 plants having a common name in English have also a 
 botanical name ; but we shall find many useful plants 
 have no common names, and then we must use the 
 
 9 
 
114 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 botanical names. We shall find many fiowering 
 plants with botanical names that perhaps never had 
 common names, or, if they had them, they have been 
 forgotten, or are fast slipping away, and will in a 
 few years be quite unknown. When a plant has 
 a common as well as a botanical name, it is often 
 the custom to give both, as when we speak of the 
 blue larkspur or the Delphinium formosum. We 
 will here use only the common names, except where 
 the common names are not generally known ; and 
 should you wish to know the botanical name of 
 any plant, you can easily find it in any good dic- 
 tionary. 
 
 5. We will now arrange our friends in these six 
 groups : The Food Plants — Almond, asparagus, ar- 
 rowroot, apricot, apple, artichoke ; banana, beet, bean, 
 barley, buckwheat, broccoli, bread-fruit ; carrot, chives, 
 cabbage, celery, corn, corn salad, cauliflower, citron, 
 cherry, cucumber, chestnut, coca, cress, currant, cel- 
 ery, chicory, coffee, clove ; dandelion, date ; egg-plant, 
 endive; '^g\ garlic, gooseberry, ginseng, groundnuts, 
 grape, guava ; horseradish ; kale, kohlrabi ; leek, let- 
 tuce, lemon, lentil; melon, mulberry, martynia, mustard, 
 millet, mushroom ; nutmeg ; oats, olive, onion, okra, 
 orange ; papaw, parsnip, parsley, pear, peas, pepper, 
 pumpkin, persimmon, potato, pineapple, plum, peach, 
 pomegranate ; quince ; radish, rice, rye, rhubarb, ruta- 
 baga, raspberry ; salsify, skirret, squash, spinach, sor- 
 ghum, sea-kale, sugar-maple, sugar-cane, strawberry, 
 sweet potato, sago ; tarnip, tomato, tea ; walnut, wheat ; 
 yam. The Fodder Plants — Alfalfa ; buckwheat, 
 
THE LOTUS. 115 
 
 beans; clover, carrots, corn; grasses; lucerne; man- 
 gel-wurzel ; oats ; peas ; rye ; sainfoin ; turnip ; wheat ; 
 vetch. The Forest Plants — Ash, aspen ; beech, 
 birch ; chestnut, cherry, cedar ; ebony ; hemlock ; 
 linden ; maple, mahogany ; oak ; pine ; redwood ; 
 spruce ; walnut, willow. The Fabeic Plants — Cot- 
 ton ; flax ; hemp ; jute. The Medicine Plants — 
 Annotto ; cinnamon, clove, cocoa, castor-oil plant ; 
 gourd; hop; indigo; madder; nutmeg; pepper; qui- 
 nine; sumach; tobacco. The Flowering Plants — 
 This is the largest group of all, for it includes many 
 plants that are cultivated for other purposes than 
 their flowers or fohage. 
 
 6. These are the names of some of our friends, 
 the useful plants. There are many more, and no 
 doubt you can easily think of others, particularly 
 among the forest plants and flowering plants. Make 
 a list of all you know in your State or neighborhood, 
 and endeavor to understand to which of these six 
 classes they belong. 
 
 Charles Barnard, " Talks about our Useful Plants.'* 
 
 THE LOTUS. 
 
 1. There has been considerable dispute concern- 
 ing the lotus, as the name is now applied to several 
 distinct species, none of which bear the rich fruit so 
 well known to the ancients, and concerning which so 
 
116 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 many charming legends have been told. It was be- 
 lieved that this fruit ^vas so delightful that those who 
 ate of it would never leave the spot where it grew, 
 but for it would abandon home and friends to spend 
 their lives in a dream of serene delight. Homer, in 
 the " Odyssey," mentions the lotus-eaters, who lived 
 on the northern coast of Africa, and records their 
 attempts to detain the followers of Ulysses by giving 
 them the fruit of the lotus to eat, so that they should 
 never wish to leave the spot where it grew. The 
 same poetical idea is known to the Arabs, who call it" 
 the " fruit of destiny," which is to be eaten in Para- 
 dise, and it is on this foundation that Tennyson built 
 his charming poem of the " Lotus-Eaters " : 
 
 " The charmed sunset lingered low adown 
 
 In the red west ; through mountain clefts the dale 
 
 Was seen far inland, and the yellow down 
 Bordered with palm and many a winding vale 
 
 And meadow set with slender galingale. 
 A land where all things always seemed the same ! 
 
 And round about the keel with faces pale, 
 Dark faces pale against that rosy flame, 
 The mild-eyed, melancholy lotus-eaters came ! 
 
 " Branches they bore of the enchanted stem 
 
 Laden with flower and fruit whereof they gave 
 
 To each, but who so did receive of them 
 And taste, to him the gushing of the wave 
 
 Far, far away did seem to moan and rave 
 On alien shores; and if his fellow spake, 
 
 His voice was thin as voices from the grave ; 
 And deep asleep he seemed, yet all awake. 
 And music in his ears his beating heart did make. 
 
THE LOTUS. 117 
 
 '' They sat them down upon the yellow sand, 
 Between the sun and moon upon the shore, 
 
 And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland, 
 Of child, and wife, and slave ; but evermore 
 
 Most weary seemed the sea, weary the oar, 
 Weary the wandering fields of barren foam ; 
 
 Then some one said, ' We will return no more ' ; 
 And all at once they sang, ' Our island home 
 Is far beyond the wave ; we will no longer roam. ' " 
 
 2. Among the many varieties of the lotus now 
 known are a few which bear edible fruits, in some 
 cases tasting like a date, and in others somewhat like 
 gingerbread. The mythical lotus has been identified 
 by several botanists with the former or tliat indige- 
 nous to Tunis, which best agrees with the description 
 of Polybius, who describes it as a thorny shrub with 
 berries of the size of an olive. Mungo Park found a 
 species of lotus in Central Africa bearing berries of a 
 delicious taste, which, on being dried and pounded, 
 made very wholesome and pleasant bread. The lotus 
 fruit found in Tunis has a stimulating, almost intoxi- 
 cating effect, and it is therefore probable that this 
 plant furnished the foundation of the ancient legends. 
 The sacred lotus of the Egyptians was a fine aquatic 
 plant, dedicated to Osiris and Isis, and regarded in 
 Egyptian delineations as signifying the creation of 
 the world. Distinct from this lotus was that known 
 as the blue lotus of the Nile, also a sacred plant. 
 Both these species of the lotus occur frequently .as 
 religious symbols and decorations in the temples, 
 and they also appear as favorite subjects for Chi- 
 
118 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 nese and Hindoo art in connection with religious 
 
 worship. 
 
 Anonymous, " A World of Wonders." 
 
 THE HABITATIOJST OF PLAISTTS. 
 
 1. Plants are by no means indifferent to chmate. 
 They have their appropriate soils and temperature. 
 Some are found only in wild places, while others 
 flourish in cultured grounds. Many are natives of 
 sandy regions — while a few have their home among 
 the rocks. Some can live only on marshy grounds, 
 where they are seen covering the surface of the water. 
 Finally, the sea has its vegetation — a vegetation which, 
 in its luxuriance, is unsurpassed by that of the most 
 favored land on the globe. 
 
 2. There is scarcely a spot of earth where some 
 vegetation can not be found ; but the difference be- 
 tween the torrid, the temperate, and the frigid zones, 
 in this respect, is really immense. If we would see 
 vegetation in all its power and majesty, we must go 
 to the region between the tropics. There is that 
 colossus of the vegetable world, the baobab, with a 
 trunk thirty metres in circumference. There the 
 palms live and flourish — that remarkable family — 
 compared with which our finest trees show at a dis- 
 advantage. In those climates the grasses become 
 shrubs and the ferns rise to the height of eight or 
 nine metres. It is the region, also, of the most ex- 
 
THE HABITATION OF PLANTS. 119 
 
 quisite fruits and the most delicious perfumes. ISTo- 
 where is vegetation so vigorous and prolific as in those 
 countries where it is nursed by the fervors of a trop- 
 ical sun, and by the moisture of great and overflowing 
 streams. 
 
 3. But this exuberance of life, while it increases 
 the ability of the strong, would be fatal to the weak. 
 Transport to these fiery climes a frail, delicate 
 parisieniie, and how soon will she fade — ^how quickly 
 and inevitably she will perish! Thus are we ever 
 making comparisons between the two kingdoms — 
 comparisons resulting from the fact that out of one 
 great creation, unique and single, as it came from the 
 hand of God, we, in our pride, have chosen to make 
 three. Who is able precisely to tell where one of 
 these three kingdoms ends and the other begins ? 
 
 4. ]^atural history is a vast chain in which not a 
 single link is missing, and vainly have the magnates 
 of science sought to find a broken place. On the 
 borders of the mineral kingdom there are individuals 
 that vegetate, while upon those of the vegetable king- 
 dom are some that live. 
 
 5. Great heat, unaccompanied by humidity, is not 
 favorable to vegetation. Thus the difference is vast 
 between the countries just referred to and the sandy 
 deserts of Africa, parched by a burning sun — those 
 deserts to explore which seems to be like devoting 
 one's self to destruction — those deserts which, on 
 every side, offer no images but those of desolation 
 and death ! High degrees of heat are not fatal to all 
 vegetation. Some plants have been known to resist 
 
120 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 a temperature of eighty, and even of a hundred de- 
 grees — the latter being the point (centigrade) at which 
 water boils. In the hot springs at Dax, a tremella 
 has been seen to grow and to mature in the water of 
 a fountain which indicates constantly a temperature 
 of seventy to seventy-two degrees. 
 
 6. If the vegetation of temperate climes has not 
 the splendor and the magnificence of tropical plants, 
 it is not inferior to them in graceful foiTus or in 
 abundance of products. Even the north can make its 
 boast in this respect; for there are seen, towering 
 toward the clouds, the lofty pine and hardy fir-tree. 
 On mountains, however, these trees are not found at 
 the elevation of two thousand metres and upward. 
 In their place we find the lote-tree and the birch — 
 trees that can brave a temperature of forty degrees 
 below zero — a degree of cold sufficient to split the 
 stoutest fir. This phenomenon — the cracking of trees 
 in cold weather — was frequently noticed by the French 
 soldiers during the disastrous Russian campaign. On 
 one occasion a company of those poor fellows had 
 seated themselves on the snow in the hope of getting 
 some rest, when they heard near them a succession of 
 violent explosions. " The enemy again ! " said they ; 
 " always at our heels ! with this iron sky above us, 
 and these boundless deserts of snow before us!" 
 With a desperate energy tliey seize their arms and 
 advance toward the spot from which the sound came. 
 But they find nothing there except trees, which the 
 intensity of the frost had burst with reports resem- 
 bling those of cannon. 
 
THE HABITATION OF PLANTS. 121 
 
 7. The more nearly we approach the poles, the 
 fewer plants we find. In Spitzbergen, in Greenland, 
 and in Kamtschatka the number of species does not 
 exceed thirty. 
 
 8. Vegetation not only reaches to the tops of lofty 
 mountains, but penetrates to the greatest depths. It 
 is found in the very entrails of the earth — its darkest 
 caverns and deepest mines. Yet at these two ex- 
 tremities of height and depth it is limited to mush- 
 rooms and mosses. In the ascent of a lofty mountain, 
 one will find nearly the same changes in the vegeta- 
 tion which are noticed in traveling from the equator 
 toward the north pole. At the foot of the mountain 
 may be seen the plants which abound on level regions 
 in the south of Europe. The lower zone is occupied 
 by oaks. Five or six hundred feet above, beeches 
 grow. Still higher are yews, pines, and firs. Then 
 comes the lote-tree, the birch, and the rhododendron. 
 Higher still are daphnes, globularia, and the ligneous 
 cistacese. In the snowy regions will be seen the saxi- 
 frages and the primroses. Last of all come the 
 lichens. 
 
 9. The vegetation which is now feeble may in 
 time become abundant and vigorous. Great changes 
 are constantly going on. Marshes are becoming dry, 
 and rocks, which are now bleak and bare, will here- 
 after, perhaps, sustain majestic trees. In swamps, the 
 surface of the water is at first covered with a greenish 
 scum. This consists of the frail plants called con- 
 fervas, to which succeed the sedge, the reed, and the 
 reed-mace. Then follow the mosses, which multiply 
 
122 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 with prodigious rapidity. As this vegetation goes on, 
 
 the decaying matter gradually reduces the water, 
 
 which at length disappears. And the case is similar 
 
 with the rocks. Crustaceous lichens "first cover their 
 
 surfaces with marble hues. From the decomposition 
 
 of these spring lichens of a different sort. Upon 
 
 their remains, at a later period, the grasses take root ; 
 
 and at length from this ever-increasing vegetable mold 
 
 rise the ligneous plants. 
 
 10. We have already remarked that among plants 
 
 particular families inhabit particular regions. But 
 
 there is one family — that of the cereal grains — which 
 
 adapts itself to every clime. Admirable provision of 
 
 that Providence which, when it gave the earth to 
 
 man, determined that he should meet at every step 
 
 with the evidences of its paternal and superintending 
 
 care ! 
 
 Count Fcelix, " Flowers Personified." 
 
 THE YICTOEIA EEGIA. 
 
 1. We re-entered the canoe, which, under the or- 
 der of the major-domo, hugged the left bank until we 
 came to a narrow inlet, up which we turned. Julio, 
 to whom all the canals and lakes of the TJcayali were 
 familiar, immediately recognized the entrance to the 
 I^una Lake, and asked our guide what we were going 
 to do. " See the atun sisac,'^^ he said. Although I 
 understood the Quichua words atun sisac to signify 
 
! 
 
THE VICTORIA REGIA. 123 
 
 great flowers, they did not conyej an idea of their 
 family, of their shape, or color, and I was anxious to 
 learn whether the flowers in question were worth the 
 chance we underwent on their account of being de- 
 voured by mosquitoes, which, as we pushed farther 
 into the canal, came around us in clouds which seemed 
 to increase in density as we proceeded farther. 
 
 2. I had already been bitten by some thousands 
 of these insects, and had crushed fifty or so, which was 
 quite an insufficient vengeance, when Eustace called 
 out in his broken voice, " Here we are ! " I immedi- 
 ately stretched my head out of the canopy. The 
 canal lay behind us. Directly in front stretched a 
 sheet of water of so strange and marvelous an aspect 
 that I was inclined to embrace the major-domo in 
 gratitude for having spontaneously brought me to 
 witness it. But, recalling the fetid odor of the man's 
 breath, I repressed this inclination, and contented 
 myself by expressing with a look and a smile the 
 -pleasure he had given me. 
 
 3. The waters of this lake were black as ink, and 
 reflected neither the light of the sky nor the rays of the 
 sun ; it was about six miles in circumference, and was 
 fringed by a thick curtain of vegetation. Its surface 
 at certain parts was covered with Nijmjphma^ whose 
 gigantic leaves were of a brownish-green tint {^eH- 
 pralin)^ which contrasted with the ruddy wine-color 
 of their turned-up borders. Mingled with these 
 leaves, magnificent flowers were in full blossom, 
 whose petals, of a milky whiteness outside, were 
 brightened inside with a dull-red tint, with center 
 
124 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 markings of a darkish violet. These flowers — ^in con- 
 sequence of their enormous development and the size 
 of their buds, which resembled ostriches' eggs — might 
 have been taken as representatives of an antediluvian 
 flora. Quite a multitude of stilt-plovers, ibises, ja- 
 canas, anhunas, savacus, Brazilian ostriches, and 
 spoonbills disported themselves on this splendid 
 carpet, and added to the striking character of the 
 scene, while serving as objects of comparison by 
 which the observer could judge of the size of the 
 leaves and flowers, which these birds shook bj their 
 movements without possessing sufficient weight to 
 submerge them. 
 
 4. After having enjoyed the view of this brilhant 
 example of intertropical vegetation, I became desir- 
 ous of possessing a specimen. My men pushed the 
 canoe into this network of leaves and flowers, and, 
 with the help of a woodman's axe, I was able to de- 
 tach a flower and a bud from their stout stems, which 
 were covered with hairs three or four inches in 
 length. The leaves of the plant, anchored to the 
 bottom of the water by spiny stems the size of a 
 ship's cable, resisted the combined efforts of my men, 
 and I was compelled to cut one a few inches only be- 
 low the surface. This leaf, perfectly smooth above, 
 was divided below into a multitude of compartments, 
 with subdivisions of very regular form, the lateral 
 partitions of which, bristling with prickles, were 
 one inch in depth. Laid out flat on the canopy of 
 our canoe, this marvelous hydrophyte covered it 
 entirely. 
 
THE VICTORIA REGIA. 125 
 
 5. I passed nearly an hour standing up in the 
 canoe, in order to examine, as a whole and in detail, 
 this lake of black water and these white flowers, from 
 which I could not take my ejes ; then, having made 
 a sketch of the place, I gave the order for onr return 
 to Schetica-Playa, where I arrived with the leaf, the 
 flower, and the bud which I had just secured, and of 
 which I was prouder than old Demetrius Poliorcetes 
 of a new city added to the list of his conquests. 
 
 6. On landing, 1 had two sticks arranged as a 
 cross, on which I placed the leaf of the Wymphoea, 
 and by means of which two men carried it to the 
 camp. Julio preceded and made a way through the 
 rushes with the blows of a saber. My vegetable 
 trophy arrived without hindrance at its destination, 
 and I hastened before the heat should have affected 
 it to examine and describe its various parts. The 
 weight of the still moist leaf, as ascertained by means 
 of a steelyard which Eustace employed to weigh out 
 the salt to his flshermen, was thirteen pounds and a 
 half; its circumference was twenty-four feet nine 
 inches three lines. The flower, which measured four 
 feet two inches round, and of which the exterior 
 petals were nine inches in length, weighed three 
 pounds and a half. The bud weighed two pounds 
 and a quarter. I deposited the flower and bud in a 
 basket ; I then cut the immense leaf into eight pieces, 
 which I wrapped in paper in order to preserve them 
 in the interests of science. 
 
 7. This work completed, I drew Eustace aside in 
 order that my men might not overhear what I had to 
 
126 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 say to him, and, having thanked him for the agree- 
 able surprise he had given me, I announced to him 
 the early departure of the reverend Plaza from Sara- 
 yacu, suggesting that he should not prolong his stay 
 at Schetica-Playa if he wished to receive the blessing 
 of the future bishop. But this news, which I ex- 
 pected would have stupefied, upset, or even sobered 
 him, only provoked his ridicule. He pretended that 
 I wanted to make fun of him ; and to show that it 
 was he, Eustace — who, on the contrary, was amused 
 with me — ^he looked at me askance, winked, and ap- 
 phed the bottle to his hps. To cut the matter short — 
 as it signified little to me whether the man believed my 
 statement or not — I left him to drink and wink at his 
 ease, and, waving my hand by way of adieu, entered 
 the boat, which soon stood off from Schetica-Playa. 
 
 8. The giant Wymjphwa we carried with us formed 
 the subject of conversation for some minutes. Ac- 
 cording to Julio and his companions, certain lakes in 
 the interior are so thickly covered with this plant that 
 a boat can not make its way through the inextricable 
 network of stalks and stems, crossed, interlaced, and 
 bound together like the liana of a virgin submarine 
 forest. As before stated, the riverside tribes of the 
 Ucayali call this WymphcBa in Quichua atun sisao 
 (the large flower). Among the Indians of the upper 
 Amazon it goes by the name of iapunauaopS ; among 
 those of the lower Amazon by that of jurupary- 
 teanha ; and in the south, near the sources of the 
 affluents of the right bank of this river, Guaranis, on 
 whose territory it also flourishes, call it irupe. 
 
THE VICTORIA REGIA. 127 
 
 9. This l^ymjphcea^ of wMch the penetrating odor 
 recalls at once that of the reinette-apple and the ba- 
 nana, appeared to me, from the resemblance in size 
 and color, to be of the same gemis as the J^ymphcea 
 
 Yicto7'ia or regia, found bj Haehne on the Rio 
 Grande; bj d'Orbignj, on the San Jose, an affluent 
 of the Parana; by Poeppig, in a pool {igarape) of 
 the Amazon ; by Schomberg, in English Guiana ; and 
 lastly, by Bridges, on the Jacouma, a tributary of the 
 Eio Grande. 
 
 10. In his monograph on European hothouse 
 plants, Yan Houte, who has painted and described 
 this splendid JS'ymphcBacece — of which the Jardin des 
 Plantes, in Paris, possesses a specimen in its aquarium 
 — ^has painted the exterior petals of the flower a pure 
 white; those which immediately succeed are of a deli- 
 cate pink tint ; while, as the center is reached, they 
 display a uniform China-rose color, of an intensity 
 and brilliancy very different from the dull pink and 
 violet tints of the flower found by us on the Lake 
 ^una. We may point out, in passing, that the geo- 
 graphical habitat of this plant, which extends from 
 the Ucayali to the Tefle and from English Guiana to 
 the plain of Moxos, adds still more to the surprise 
 and admiration which are awakened by its extraordi- 
 nary dimensions. 
 
 Paul Marcoy, " Travels in South America." 
 
128 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 THE AEAB TO THE PALM. 
 
 1. ]^EXT to thee, O fair gazelle, 
 
 O Beddowee girl, beloved so well ; 
 
 2. l^ext to the fearless J^edjidee, 
 
 Whose fleetness shall bear me again to thee ; 
 
 3. 'Next to ye both, I love the palm, 
 
 With his leaves of beauty, his fruit of balm ; 
 
 4. Next to ye both, I love the tree 
 Whose fluttering shadow wraps us three 
 With love and silence and mystery ! 
 
 6. Our tribe is many, our poets vie 
 With any under the Arab sky ; 
 Yet none can sing of the palm but I. 
 
 6. The marble minarets that begun 
 Cairo's citadel-diadem 
 
 Are not so light as his slender stem. 
 
 7. He lifts his leaves in the sunbeam's glance. 
 As the Almehs lift their arms in dance — 
 
 8. A slumberous motion, a passionate sign. 
 That works in the cells of the blood like wine. 
 
 9. Full of passion and sorrow is he. 
 Dreaming where the beloved may be ; 
 
THE ARAB TO THE PALM. 129 
 
 10. And when the warm south winds arise, 
 He l)reathes his longing in fervid sighs, 
 
 11. Quickening odors, kisses of balm. 
 
 That drop in the lap of his chosen palm. 
 
 12. The sun may flame, and the sands may stir, 
 But the breath of his passion reaches her. 
 
 13. O tree of love, by that love of thine, 
 Teach me how I shall soften mine ! 
 
 14. Give me the secret of the sun, 
 Whereby the wooed is ever won! 
 
 15. If I were a king, O stately tree, 
 A likeness, glorious as might be. 
 
 In the court of my palace I'd build for thee ; 
 
 16. With a shaft of silver, burnished bright, 
 And leaves of beryl and malachite ; 
 
 IT. With spikes of golden bloom ablaze, 
 And fruits of topaz and chrysoprase ; 
 
 18. And there the poets, in thy praise, 
 Should night and morning frame new lays — 
 
 19. 'New measures, sung to tunes divine ; 
 But none, O palm, should equal mine ! 
 
 Bayard Taylor. 
 
 10 
 
130 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 THE LIFE OF PLAIS'TS. 
 
 1. In tlie harmony of the spheres, everything is 
 in a state of mobihty and perpetual transmutation. 
 The heavens are tenanted with new nebulae, and old 
 stars disappear in the abyss of immensity. On the 
 earth new generations of animals and plants arise, 
 while the scythe of Time mows down those which but 
 lately flourished there. On the one hand, the mass 
 of animated matter visibly reveals its vitality ; while, 
 on the other side, its occult forces hide themselves 
 and act only in the most hidden recesses of the organ- 
 ism. But all is carried away by the supreme power 
 of life — ^that inexphcable and unfathomable mystery ! 
 
 2. We behold animals which at a certain season, 
 and at a given moment, display themselves in irresist- 
 ible power, or disappear, providentially guided by an 
 unknown force. Sometimes it seems as if a ray of 
 light attracted them, while darkness drives them away ; 
 at other times it is the reverse. 
 
 3. When night begins to spread its somber shades 
 over the earth, legions of twilight-loving moths flit 
 heavily near their haunts, while the bat, issuing from 
 its ruins, shakes its membranous wings and launches 
 itself in pursuit of these insects. Some delicate mol- 
 lusks rise toward d«,wn to the surface of the sea, and 
 sink beneath its waves so soon as ever the sun gilds 
 its undulating ripples. 
 
 4. Again, we behold plants or their corollas dis- 
 playing themselves and opening according to the sea- 
 
THE LIFE OF PLANTS. 131 
 
 sons and hours of the day. So exact are they in their 
 movements that a sagacious observer, attentively fol- 
 lowing up these phenomena, soon sees that by means 
 of them he can arrange calendars and clocks, all the 
 divisions of which the charming goddess of flowers 
 indicates accurately with her finger. 
 
 5. It is known that Pliny, having noted with care 
 the times at which plants flower, conceived the idea 
 that we might make use of them to mark the different 
 seasons of the year. Cuvier even asserts that the 
 Eoman naturalist proposed to arrange a complete 
 floral calendar ; but the project was first thoroughly 
 carried out by Linnseus, and it is one of the most ele- 
 gant conceptions of his genius. 
 
 6. This floral calendar is accurate enough, and we 
 can see that each month of the year is exactly indi- 
 cated by the blooming of certain flowers. The first 
 month, despite its snow and ice, sees the black helle- 
 bore flower. During the second the alder shakes its 
 catkins and the mezereon seems to smile on the spring, 
 scattering its flowerets over its boughs. In March 
 the wall-flower decorates the old walls with its golden 
 corollas, and in our gardens the crown-imperial opens 
 its treacherous bells. The following month the peri- 
 winkle expands its leafy network in the shadow of 
 our forests. In May, flowers abound ; the iris, the 
 lily of the valley, and the lilac perfume the air on 
 every side. During the months of June and July 
 Flora parades all the pomp of her empire ; the fox- 
 glove, the sage, the wild poppy, the mint, and the 
 pink bloom in our fields and woods. In August, the 
 
132 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 asters, dahlias, and heliantlius seem to brave the heat 
 of the sun. Finally, in September, the colchicum 
 scatters its purplish flowers all over our meadows, and 
 announces the return of winter. It is the plant which, 
 according to Linneeus, gives the signal of repose to 
 the botanist. 
 
 7. The hour at which each flower opens is itself 
 so uniform that by watching them floral clocks of 
 sufficient accuracy can be arranged. Father Kircher 
 had dreamed of it, but vaguely and without pointing 
 out anything ; it is to Linnaeus that we must ascribe 
 the ingenious idea of indicating all the hours by the 
 time at which plants open or shut their corollas. The 
 Swedish botanist had created a flower clock for the 
 climate which he inhabited, but, as in our latitudes a 
 more brilliant and radiant dawn rnakes the flower 
 earlier, Lamarck was obliged to construct for France 
 another clock, which is a little in advance of that at 
 Upsala. 
 
 8. This regularity in the opening of flowers strikes 
 every person ; some savage races make use of it to 
 divide their days and their toils. These begin at the 
 hour when the marigold opens, and the JS'atchez, 
 Chateaubriand says, make their love appointments for 
 the time when the last rays of day are about to close 
 the flowers of the Hibiscus. 
 
 9. Other flowers, less regular in their habits, only 
 open under the influence of certain atmospheric con- 
 ditions, from which they have acquired the surname 
 of meteoric. Some of them have gained considera- 
 ble celebrity. Among these is the rain-marigold, 
 
THE LIFE OF PLANTS. 133 
 
 which, so soon as the dark clouds begin to 
 closes its corolla with the greatest care to preserve it 
 from the storm. The Siberian sow-thistle, of totally 
 different habits, accustomed to hoar-frost, seems to 
 dread our sun ; it only expands when the sky is 
 cloudy, and closes its flowerets tightly up as soon as 
 the atmosphere gets warm. 
 
 10. The connection between man and the vege- 
 table kingdom is not limited to these curious investi- 
 gations ; plants, living emblems of the rapid passage 
 of hours and time itself, eternal lessons of wisdom, 
 are associated with all our wants, our pleasures, and 
 our pains. The hardiest trees serve to build our 
 dwellings with ; other plants form our most natural 
 food. 
 
 11. Sometimes the existence of certain tribes de- 
 pends on a single vegetable species. A palm which 
 grows in the forests at the mouth of the Orinoco suf- 
 fices for all the wants of some savage races, who, in 
 company with the monkeys, live almost constantly 
 perched, as it were, in the midst of its fohage. It 
 yields them food, wine, and even cordage to swing 
 the hammocks on, in which they suspend themselves 
 during the inundations. 
 
 12. In all ages men have prized the beauty and 
 perfume of flowers, and they have become an indis- 
 pensable ornament of even the least important festi- 
 val. The ancients had their '' coronary plants " ; 
 these were consecrated to Yenus, and at feasts each 
 guest wore a chaplet. But we must also do them the 
 justice to remark that they employed an ample series 
 
134 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 of " funereal plants " for the mournful ceremonies of 
 death ; each one had its mission or special significa- 
 tion. 
 
 F. A. PoucHET, " The Universe." 
 
 SEA-WEEDS. 
 
 1. On the rocky coasts of the Falkland Islands 
 are found astonishing masses of enormous sea- weeds, 
 chiefly belonging to the genera Macrocystis^ Lessonia, 
 and Durmllea. Rent from the rocks to which they 
 were attached and cast ashore, they are rolled by the 
 heavy surf into prodigious vegetable cables, much 
 thicker than a man's body and several hundred feet 
 long. Many of the rarest and most beautiful algae 
 may be here discovered, which have either been 
 wrenched from inaccessible rocks far out at sea, 
 along with the larger species, or have attached them- 
 selves parasitically to their stems and fronds. Many 
 of them remind the botanist, by some similarity of 
 form, of the sea-weeds of his distant home, while 
 others tell him at once that he is far away in an- 
 other hemisphere. The gigantic lessonias particularly 
 abound about these islands. Their growth resembles 
 that of a tree. The stem attains a height of from 
 eight to ten feet, the thickness of a man's thigh, and 
 terminates in a crown of leaves two or three feet long, 
 and drooping hke the branches of a weeping- willow. 
 They form large submerged forests, and, like the 
 
SEA-WEEDS. 135 
 
 thickets of the macrocjstis, afford a refuge and a 
 dwelling to countless sea-animals. 
 
 2. A similar abundance of colossal algse is found 
 in the northern Pacific, about the Kurile and Aleutian 
 Islands, and along the deeply indented and channel- 
 furrowed northwest coast of America. 
 
 3. Thus the Wereocystis lutheana forms dense 
 forests in ISTorfolk Bay and all about Sitka. Its 
 stem, resembling whipcord, and often above three 
 hundred feet long, terminates in a large air-vessel, six 
 or seven feet long, and crowned with a bunch of 
 dichotomous leaves, each thirty or forty feet in length. 
 Dr. Mertens assures us that the sea-otter, when fish- 
 ing, loves to rest upon the colossal air-vessels of this 
 giant among the sea-weeds, while the long, tenacious 
 stems furnish the rude fishermen of the coast with 
 excellent tackle. The growth of the nerebcystis must 
 be uncommonly rapid, as it is an annual plant, and 
 consequently develops its gigantic proportions during 
 the course of one brief summer. 
 
 4. Before proceeding to the third chief group of 
 marine plants, the red sea- weeds, or Bhodosjoerons^ I 
 must mention the enormous fucus banks, or floating 
 meadows of the Atlantic, which form undoubtedly 
 one of the greatest wonders of the ocean. 
 
 5. We know that the mighty Gulf Stream, which 
 rolls its indigo-blue floods from America to the oppo- 
 site coasts of the Old World, flows partly southward 
 in the neighborhood of the Azores, and is ultimately 
 driven back again to America. In the midst of these 
 circuitous streams, from 22° to 3G° ]^. lat,, and from 
 
136 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 35° to 65° W. long., extends a sea without any other 
 currents than those resulting from the temporary ac- 
 tion of the winds. This comparatively tranquil part 
 of the ocean, the surface of which surpasses at least 
 twenty times that of the British Isles, is found more 
 or less densely covered with floating masses of Bargas- 
 sum hacciferum. Often the sea-weed surrounds the 
 ship sailing through these savannas of the sea in such 
 quantities as to retard its progress, and then again hours 
 may pass when not a single fucus appears. While 
 Columbus was boldly steering through the hitherto 
 unknown fields of the Sargasso Sea, the fears of his 
 timorous associates were increased by this singular 
 phenomenon, as they believed they had now reached 
 the bounds of the navigable ocean, and must inevi- 
 tably strike against some hidden rock, if their com- 
 mander persevered in his audacious course. 
 
 6. It is an interesting fact that the Sargasso Sea af- 
 fords the most remarkable example of an aggregation 
 of plants belonging to one single species. Nowhere 
 else, according to Humboldt, neither in the savannas 
 of America, nor on the heaths or in the pine forests 
 of northern Europe, is such a uniformity of vegeta- 
 tion found as in those boundless maritime meadows. 
 
 7. " The masses of sea-weeds," says Meyen, " cov- 
 ering so vast an extent of ocean have ever since the 
 time of Columbus been the object of astonishment 
 and inquiry. Some navigators believe that they are 
 driven together by the Gulf Stream, and that the 
 same species of Sargassum plentifully occurs in the 
 Mexican Sea ; this is, however, perfectly erroneous. 
 
SEA-WEEDS. 137 
 
 8. " Humboldt was of opinion tliat this marine 
 plant originally grows on submarine banks, from 
 which it is torn by various forces ; I, for my part, 
 have examined many thousands of specimens, and 
 venture to affirm that they never have been attached 
 to any sohd body. Freely floating in the water, they 
 have developed their young germs, and sent forth on 
 all sides roots and leaves, both of the same nature." 
 
 9. Thus the Sargassum seems to be the indige- 
 nous production of the sea where it appears, and to 
 have floated there from time immemorial. Its swim- 
 ming islands aflord an abode and nourishment to a 
 prodigious amount of animal life. They are gener- 
 ally covered with elegant sertularias, colored vorticel- 
 las, and other strange forms of marine existence. Ya- 
 rious naked or nudibranchiate mollusks and annehdes 
 attach themselves to the fronds, and afford nourish- 
 ment to hosts of fishes and crustaceans, the beasts 
 of prey of this little world. 
 
 10. Similar aggregations of sea- weeds are also met 
 with in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, in the com- 
 paratively tranquil spaces encircled by rotatory cur- 
 rents. Their rare occurrence on the surface of the 
 sea may serve as a proof of the restless motion of its 
 waters. Were the ocean not everywhere intersected 
 by currents, it would most likely be covered with sea- 
 weeds, opposing serious if not invincible obstacles to 
 navigation. 
 
 11. The red sea-weeds {Ehodosj^erms or Flori- 
 decB) are by far the most numerous in species, and 
 undoubtedly the most beautiful and perfect of all tlie 
 
138 THE PLANT WOilLD. 
 
 algse. Thej love neither light nor motion, and gen- 
 erally seek the shade of larger plants on the perpen- 
 dicular sides of the deep tide-pools removed from the 
 influences of the tides and gales. They mostly grow 
 close to low- water mark, and are to be seen only for 
 an hour or two at the spring tides, during which, as is 
 well known, the deepest ebbs take place. To this 
 group belong the wonderfully delicate polysiphonias, 
 callithamnias, plocamias, and delesserias, whose elegant 
 rosy scarlet or purple leaves are the amateur's delight, 
 and when laid out on paper resemble the finest tra- 
 cery, defying the painter's art to do justice to their 
 beauty. It likewise numbers among its genera the 
 chalky corallines and nullipores, which on account of 
 the hardness of their substance were formerly consid- 
 ered to be polyps, but whose true nature becomes ap- 
 parent on examining their internal structure. 
 
 12. The Chondrus crisjpus^ or carrigeen, which 
 grows in such vast quantities on the coasts of the 
 British Isles, also belongs to the rhodosperms, though 
 when growing, as it frequently does in shallow tide- 
 pools, exposed to full sunhght, its dark -purple color 
 fades into green or even yellowish white. When 
 boiled it almost entirely dissolves in the water, and 
 forms on cooling a colorless and almost tasteless jelly 
 which of late years has been largely used in medi- 
 cine as a substitute for Iceland moss. Similar nutri- 
 tious gelatines, which also serve for the manufacture 
 of strong glues, are yielded by other species of rho- 
 dosperms, among others by the Gracillaria spvnosa of 
 the Indian Ocean, which the Salangana {Hirundo escu- 
 
AN AUTUMN GARLAND. I39 
 
 lenta\ a bird allied to the swallow, is said principally 
 to use for the construction of her edible nest. 
 
 G. Hartwig, " The Sea and its Living Wonders." 
 
 AN AUTUMN GAELAJSTD. 
 
 1. Sunny, golden autumn, after the glaring heats 
 of midsummer, how welcome ! Spring nor summer 
 can not match these charming September mornings 
 and October afternoons. The sun runs high no 
 longer, but comes in aslant under the trees and lights 
 up everything with a golden glow. We are glad the 
 tropic heat is past ; but we stretch out our hands and 
 try to grasp the delicious warmth of this autumn 
 weather, fearing it will not last. Yet we have to 
 thank that fervent summer sun for all which glad- 
 dens us now — these wide emerald fields, these leafy 
 bowers, this rich luxuriance of fruit. It was that sul- 
 try fervency that brought the green into the leaves, 
 and the gay colors to the flowers, and the soft ripe- 
 ness into the fruit. Kindly fall the slanting rays now, 
 greeting the nodding golden-rod, purpling the grapes 
 upon the wall, giving another warm touch to the red 
 sides of the apples, another yellow glow to the pump- 
 kins and squashes. 
 
 2. How beautiful are the rich landscapes spread 
 out before our eyes ! Joseph's coat of many colors is 
 outvied by the variegated hues of field and forest. 
 
140 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 Tliere is a splendor, an imperial royalty in our north- 
 ern autumn which makes the other seasons seem tame. 
 There is an appropriateness, a fitness, in the ancient 
 symbol which gives to winter the form of a stern 
 Titan, to spring the lithe robustness of an Apollo, to 
 summer the grace of a Hebe, while autumn has the 
 majesty and maturity of a Juno. Autumn is queen of 
 the seasons, a tiara-crowned empress, whose glowing 
 robes of red and purple and saifron rival all the 
 vaunted products of Babylonian or Tyrian looms. She 
 reigns supreme, and in her realm are perpetual rest 
 and beauty and tenderness. 
 
 3. There is no exhausting heat, no burning sun- 
 shine, as we wander, forth into the " happy autumn 
 fields." The grass is still soft and green, the vines 
 are still hanging in full, rich clusters along the 
 roadsides. From the orchards float a sweet-apple 
 odor. Tall cat-tails stick up their sceptered heads 
 from the brookside, and the drooping, fleecy Clematis 
 clamber the fences and hedges. Golden -rods, the 
 same that peered over the stone walls in the last days 
 of August, yet nod to us in these still, October days, 
 climbing up higher and higher in a thick tangle of 
 greenness, for these autumn flowers do not hurry 
 away as did the delicate anemones — the wind-flowers 
 — opening to the breeze, then floating off upon its 
 zephyrs. They are all stout, vigorous herbs that do 
 not care when the warm days of September give way 
 to chill and cold, and the bright afternoons suddenly 
 fall into damp evenings. And these fall afternoons 
 are short, though charming ; the sun sinks do^vn at 
 
AN AUTUMN GARLAND. 141 
 
 once, and it is night before we are aware the day is 
 gone. 
 
 4. But our wandering has not been in vain. Our 
 arms are full of drooping vines, bright colors, and 
 feathery waves — wild-flower spoils of the fields and 
 the woods — which we weave into a beautiful garland 
 that has all the mellowness of the autumn days to- 
 gether with their brilliant coloring. Here is a bunch 
 of fringed gentians with their corollas — 
 
 " Blue, blue, as if the sky let fall 
 A flower from its cerulean wall," 
 
 as Bryant sings, though, indeed, the color is of a pur- 
 pler tinge than the sky. This particular bunch we 
 gathered on the border of a hillside road, shut in by 
 a sandy slope, where the sun shone warmly. The 
 flower grows on a tall footstalk, with a long, bell- 
 shaped calyx, out of which press its fringed edges. 
 It is a coy, maidenly flower only coming to its finder 
 after diligent search ; but one feels repaid. There 
 are several varieties of the gentian in this region, and 
 all are pretty. 
 
 5. In this autumn bouquet we have arranged many 
 bright-colored berries which are now among the most 
 noticeable glories of the hedges and meadows. There 
 are the orange and scarlet berries of the bitter-sweet 
 (Celastrus), whose leaves have a fresh, yellowish, 
 springlike greenness till late into the fall. Sandmched 
 between these are the milk-white berries of the co- 
 hosh, or white baneberry, and the black-purple fruit 
 of the elder ; then come the deep-red seeds of the 
 
142 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 dwarf cornus, sometimes called bunch-berries, each 
 set, as the flower was, in a frame made by four 
 or RvG oval leaves; and, when we can find them, 
 baneberry plumes, which are among the finest of 
 all the autumn splendors, the red juice deepening 
 into coral berries that glow all along its leaves 
 and cause the branch to droop gracefully like a 
 plume. 
 
 6. Golden-rods in bewildering variety glow in 
 our lovely garland — all beautiful and stately as a 
 czarina. Some of these shoot up into tall plumes ; 
 others hang gracefully, the flowers rising from the 
 upper side of the stalk in clusters. The leaves, too, 
 of the different varieties differ in shape. There are 
 a dozen species in this bunch, the search for which 
 has led us along pleasant lanes and hedges in the 
 dreamy autumn afternoon. 
 
 T. Closely allied to the golden-rods are the As- 
 ters — a sort of cousins, in fact — both belonging to the 
 great family of Compositm. These are now in their 
 season of glory, more than one hundred species being 
 found in America, all gay and showy, with corymbed, 
 panicled, or racemose heads ; flowers radiate, the rays 
 white, purple, or blue and fertile, the disk yellow or 
 reddish. In the garden Asters the disk flowers give 
 place to repeated series of ray flowers^ and assume the 
 appearance of the well-known China Asters. They 
 bloom till very late ; long after the other flowers have 
 yielded to the touch of frost gay beds of Asters can 
 be seen looking as fresh and joyous as though it were 
 yet summer. 
 
AN AUTUMN GARLAND. 143 
 
 8. Among the glories of the garden in these late 
 days are the Dahlias. Stately, stiff, ceremonious 
 duennas, they are suggestive of the old days of ruffs 
 and starched petticoats, when court beauties in jeweled 
 stomachers and fardingales assembled round the 
 <■' Virgin Queen," starched and bestomached more than 
 any of them. In those days, however, the Dahlia did 
 not frequent royal courts, unless, indeed, it gazed 
 wonderfully on Aztec or Peruvian magnificence in the 
 nut-brown hands of some dusky maid of Montezuma's 
 court or the Inca's Palace of the Sun. For this plant 
 is of tropic origin, and was first introduced into Eu- 
 rope by Alexander von Humboldt in 1790. It has 
 since been successfully cultivated by many gardeners 
 on both sides of the sea. The flowers of all the spe- 
 cies are distinguished by the absence of a pappus and 
 by a double involucre, the outer being man;^-leaved, 
 and the inner consisting of one leaf divided into eight 
 segments. Their showy bloom lasts through all Oc- 
 tober, if protected from hard frosts. 
 
 9. Then there are the delicate yellow, late-appear- 
 ing blossoms of the Madeira vine, which with its 
 shining, graceful leaves are very attractive. The last 
 of the Clematis, a great bough, all fleecy white, con- 
 trasts finely with the rest, and is no little addition to 
 the floral wreath. How I wish I could keep it for- 
 ever, this garland of ours ; but no, it must fade and 
 perish just like the beautiful autumn itself. It is no 
 fairy princess to go to sleep and remain the same for 
 a hundred years. I pick my last aster with sorrow- 
 ful regret, knowing that against all this bed of varie- 
 
144 THE PLANT WORLJD. 
 
 gated color will soon only be a dull, blank whiteness. 
 All too soon mj autumn bouquet will be a thing of 
 the past. 
 
 F. M. Colby, " The Ladies' Floral Cabinet.'' 
 
 THE GIAJSTT TKEES OF CALIFOEOTA. 
 
 1. These trees are about thirty miles from the 
 Yosemite Yallej and two hundred and thirty from 
 San Francisco. 
 
 2. Six hundred of these mammoths are scattered 
 among the noble pines of twelve hundred and eighty 
 acres. Many of the pines are two hundred feet high. 
 Elsewhere they would be kings of the forest; but 
 among these hoary giants they become puny, insig- 
 nificant children. Pygmies on Alps may be pygmies 
 still, but pyramids are not always pyramids in vales. 
 
 3. The Big Trees have been considered redwoods 
 — a, species of cedar abounding on this coast— but the 
 botanists decide otherwise, and name them Sequoias. 
 They are the oldest and most stupendous vegetable 
 products existing upon the globe. Already twenty 
 groves have been discovered in California. The 
 Mariposa is the largest and finest, though the Calave- 
 ras, fifty miles to the northward, is better known. 
 
 4. Of the Mariposa Sequoias, two hundred are 
 more than twelve feet in diameter, fifty more than 
 sixteen feet, and six more than thirty feet. The 
 largest, called the Prostrate Monarch, now lying upon 
 
THE GIANT TREES OF CALIFORNIA. I45 
 
 the ground leafless and branchless, is believed to have 
 fallen full j one hundred and fifty years ago ! Fire 
 has consumed much of the trunk, but enough remains 
 to show that with the bark on, it must have been 
 forty feet in thickness. Figures give little idea of 
 such dimensions. Measure up forty feet on a house 
 wall, then four hundred feet along the ground, and 
 try to picture the height and diameter of the Pros- 
 trate Monarch as it stood a thousand years ago ! 
 
 6. The tops of the largest trees ^fO broken off, 
 leaving their average height about two hundred and 
 fifty feet, though some range between three and four 
 hundred feet. We saw one with a branch — not a 
 fork, but an honest, lateral branch — six feet in diame- 
 ter, growing from the stem eighty feet above the 
 ground. 
 
 6. Into a cavity burned in the side of another 
 standing tree fifteen of us rode together. Without 
 crowding, we all sat upon our horses in that black, 
 novel chamber, though it occupied less than half the 
 thickness of the immense trunk. 
 
 7. Through a stem lying upon the ground tire 
 has bored like an auger. Our entire cavalcade, in- 
 cluding all the tall men, all the fat men, and all the 
 ample skirts, rode through it from end to end, like a 
 railway train through a tunnel. One enormous living 
 trunk parts near the ground into two tall, systematic, 
 perfect stems. 
 
 8. The largest standing tree is the Grizzly Giant. 
 Its bark is nearly two feet thick. If it were cut off 
 smoothly, fifty horses could easily stand or sixteen 
 
 11 
 
146 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 couples dance upon the stump. If the trunk were 
 hollowed to a shell, it would hold more freight than a 
 man-of-war or a first-class steamer two hundred and 
 fifty feet long. 
 
 9. One of the Calaveras Sequoias was cut down by 
 boring with augers and sawing the spaces between. 
 The work employed "^ve men for twenty-five days. 
 When fully cut off the tree stubbornly continued to 
 stand, only yielding at last to a mammoth wedge 
 and a powerful battering-ram. . . . There seems to 
 be no convincing or even plausible theory of their 
 origin — I should rather say of their prjeservation, for 
 they are children of a long-ago climatic era. The 
 age of giants lingers on the entire Pacific coast. . . . 
 It was once thought incredible that the yew should 
 live a thousand years. But these monster Sequoias 
 are the world's patriarchs. 
 
 10. Some botanists date their birth far back of 
 earliest human history ; none estimate their age at less 
 tlian eighteen hundred years. Perchance their youth 
 saw the awkward thundering mastodon canter oyer 
 the hills, and the hundred-feet-long reptile of many 
 legs, and mouth hke a volcano, crawl sluggishly 
 through torrid swamps. They were living when the 
 father of poets, old, blind, and vagabond, sang his 
 immortal song ; when the sage of Athens, " that most 
 Christian heathen," calmly drank the hemlock ; when 
 the carpenter of Judea, from whom the whole world 
 now computes its time, was a man of sorrows and 
 acquainted with grief, despised and rejected of men. 
 
 11. An act of Congress has segregated Yosemite 
 
Hie " Grizzly Giant.'''' 
 
MOUNTAIN VEGETATION. 147 
 
 Yallej and the Mariposa groves of Big Trees from the 
 general pubHc domain, setting them apart as pleasure 
 grounds for the people of the United States and their 
 heirs and assigns forever. 
 
 A. D. Richardson, " The Sublime in Nature." 
 
 MOUNTAm YEGETATIOK 
 
 1. Yegetation changes with the latitude — that is 
 to say, according to the distance of the equator. As 
 we advance from the equator toward the poles we 
 meet in succession with the equatorial, tropical, tem- 
 perate, and polar zones — vegetation gradually losing 
 its power, a fact which is proved most satisfactorily 
 by the decreasing number of species and by their 
 dwarfed appearance until vegetation altogether ceases 
 in the region where snow reigns eternal. When heat 
 disappears, organic life is extinguished, and vegetable 
 organization is subject to the same laws and experi- 
 ences loss of power and vigor proportioned to the 
 decrease of heat. 
 
 2. But a natural reflection presents itself immedi- 
 ately as a corollary upon these remarks. 
 
 3. When we ascend a mountain, or, in fact, when 
 we ascend by any means whatever — in a balloon, for 
 instance, as M. Glaisher's experiments seem to show 
 — the temperature decreases by something like one 
 degree for every hundred yards above the surface. 
 It follows from these premises that every stage in the 
 
148 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 ascent of a mountain should exhibit different forms of 
 vegetation, eacli forming a zone or botanic region 
 similar to those we have passed in tracing their geo- 
 graphical latitudes. And this ^."^ so, in fact, as we 
 shall find in the following remarks, which we borrow 
 from the writings of Adrian de Jussieu on the vege- 
 tation of the Alps and Prof. C. Martins on Mont 
 Yentoux, in Provence : 
 
 4. " Let us imagine a spectator at the foot of the 
 Alps," says M. de Jussieu, " opposite to one o± those 
 grand rocky masses crowned with eternal snow. As 
 his eye ranges along the sides of the mountain he ob- 
 serves that the vegetation which immediately sur- 
 rounds him, and which is that which characterizes 
 centra] and northern France, disappears at a certain 
 height, giving place to another, which in turn disap- 
 pears at a higher range. Beyond a certain distance 
 the eye can only seize the masses indicated by large 
 trees, the humbler plants being concealed behind 
 them, so that they look like a series of bands super- 
 posed one over the other on the slopes of the moun- 
 tain. At first these belts are composed of deciduous- 
 leaved plants, which drop early and are readily 
 distinguithable by their more tender verdure; then 
 conifers of deeper green, which in the mass appear 
 nearly black. Another belt succeeds of an undecided 
 green, interrupted here and there by clumps of an- 
 other color, which goes stragghng up to the sinuous 
 line where the snow commences. This is owing to 
 the circumstance that the trees whose branches are 
 too closely intermingled have died out, making room 
 
MOUNTAIN VEGETATION. 149 
 
 for slirubs or herbaceous plants m5re dwarfed in 
 their gro^vth and more on a level with the soil. 
 
 5. " If the spectator approaches the mountain and 
 -scales it, he will find ^ther plants very different from 
 the masses he looivcd at in the distance, which we 
 call Alpine plants — such as the aconites, astrantia, 
 certain species of artemisias, of groundsel, prenanthes, 
 achilleas, saxifrages, and potentillas. After having 
 sldi-ted the walnut-trees and traversed the woods 
 formed of chestnut-trees these wiU be observed to 
 cease, and forests of oak, beeches, and birches take 
 their place. Of these, the oaks disappear first, at the 
 height of about twenty-five hundred feet above the 
 level of the sea, the beeches about three thousand 
 feet. Beyond this the trees consist entirely of ever- 
 greens, as firs, larches, and the common pines, which 
 stop also at certain successive stages, about forty-five 
 hundred feet. The birch ascends a httle higher, but 
 disappears also at about six thousand feet of elevation. 
 A conifer {Pinus cemhrci) continues for another hun- 
 dred yards. Beyond this limit the trees become 
 dwarfed in size ; for example, a species of alder 
 (Alniis mridis) becomes a low shrub. ISTear to this 
 the botanist will find himself surrounded by shrubs 
 very characteristic of the Alps, sometimes called the 
 Alpine rose, namely, the rhododendron, which ceases 
 in its turn only a httle higher, giving place to plants 
 much more lowly, which scarcely rise above the soil. 
 These are specially known as Alpine plants. They 
 belong to families which he observed at his point of 
 departure — a few crucifers, caryophyllum, Rosacece^ 
 
150 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 LeguminosGB, Gompositoe, Cypriaceoe, GraminecB^ but of 
 different species. These also are numerous, and with 
 them representatives of other families which rarely 
 show themselves in the plains, such as saxifrages and 
 gentians. Annuals cease almost entirely, as might be 
 foreseen, since an unfavorable season, in which the 
 ripening of their seeds was checked, would be suffi- 
 cient to destroy their race." 
 
 6. The roots of the perennial or woody plants 
 bury themselves under the soil, where a higher tem- 
 perature is preserved. They submit to the influence 
 of the atmosphere, and develop when it is milder and 
 sufficiently warm. But this can only be done during 
 a short season, and on some places only once in many 
 years. It follows that the stems are short and scarcely 
 rise out of the soil, while those that are frutescent 
 usually hug the ground, sometimes creeping, some- 
 times rising short, hardy, intertwining stems, forming 
 thick, stunted bushes, as would result in ordinary cases 
 from pruning shrubs very near the ground. The 
 general appearance proper to the plant is thus effaced 
 in some respects and replaced by the physiognomy 
 belonging to Alpine vegetation. These plants are 
 generally of the arborescent kind, like the willows, 
 whose roots creep along the ground. The more ele- 
 vated they are, the more scattered and impoverished 
 is the vegetation, until, at the foot of the rocks, it only 
 appears in the form of lichens, whose crust differs from 
 the monotonous tint of their own surface. Wlien the 
 limit of eternal snow is reached, organized life can no 
 longer exist. 
 
MOUNTAIN VEGETATION. 151 
 
 7. Mont Yentoux, in Provence, presents us with 
 an interesting application of the same facts. This 
 mountain rises abruptly from a plain, the temperature 
 of which may be compared with that of Sienna, 
 Brescia, or Yenice, while the summit of the mountain 
 approaches the climate of Sweden, on the borders of 
 Lapland. To ascend its sides and reach the summit 
 is as if we had actually traversed nineteen degrees of 
 latitude, or from 44° to 63°. Prof. Charles Martins 
 has published an interesting account of the vegetation 
 of this mountain. " Mont Yentoux," says the learned 
 professor of , Montpeliier, " presents a succession of 
 well-defined botanical regions, each characterized by 
 the presence of plants which are wanting on the 
 others. These regions are six in number upon the 
 southern slopes and five on its northern side. 
 
 8. " Ascending the southern slope, its base, in re- 
 spect to its vegetation, is like that of the valley of the 
 Rhone. All the plants of the plains are found in the 
 region at the foot of the mountain, and they are well 
 characterized by two trees — the Aleppo pine and the 
 olive. Both belong to the basin of the Mediterra- 
 nean, round which they form a girdle, only inter- 
 rupted by the Delta of the Mle. The Aleppo pine 
 is found upon all the hills which lie at the southern 
 foot of Mont Yentoux, but ceases at the height of 
 fourteen hundred feet above the level of the sea. 
 The olive ascends a little higher, but ceases at six- 
 teen hundred feet. Under these trees we meet with 
 all the species which characterize the vegetation of 
 Provence — the Kermes oak, the rosemary, the Span- 
 
152 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 ish broom, and Dorycinium suffraticasm. A narrow 
 zone, scarcely exceeding a hundred and eighty feet, 
 succeeds to this, which is characterized by the ever- 
 green oak. Among the undershrubs we find the 
 European leadwort, the juniper, the great JEujphor- 
 hia characias, and the Psoralea, of bituminous odor. 
 
 9. " A region altogether destitute of arborescent 
 vegetation follows. The soil is here naked, stony, and 
 generally uncultivated; nevertheless, here and there 
 fields of chick peas, oats, and barley appear, the last 
 of which disappears at thirty -five hundred feet above 
 the Mediterranean ; but a shrub — the box-tree — 
 two undershrubs — thyme and lavender — another 
 herbaceous Ldbiatm {Nejpeta graveolens\ and the swal- 
 low-wort ( Vincetoxicum officinale) predominate as to 
 size and number. It is at this point that the first in- 
 dications of an arborescent vegetation appear, but it 
 is necessary to ascend to thirty-eight hundred feet 
 before reaching the new vegetation. It is com- 
 posed of beeches ; at first sparse and undersized, they 
 get larger three hundred feet higher, especially in the 
 deep ravines and valleys, where they are sheltered 
 from the wind. This region extends as high as fifty- 
 five hundred feet. At this height the depressions 
 are slight, valleys and ravines almost cease, and the 
 trees are exposed to the depressing action of the 
 winds. The plants which clothe the soil are now 
 humble bushes, with short, hard, and crowded 
 branches. One of these bushes, like a large ball or 
 mattress extended on the earth, is often as old as the 
 great beeches which elevate their proud heads to the 
 
MOUNTAIN VEGETATION. 153 
 
 heavens in the valleys below. [N'umerons species oc- 
 cupy the region of beeches, many of them belonging 
 to the subalpine zone of the mountains of central 
 Europe, never descending into the plains, unless 
 transplanted. Such are the buckthorn, the goose- 
 berry, the wallflower, the mountain sorrel, and the 
 mountain anthyllis. 
 
 10. " At the height of ' fifty-six hundred feet 
 the cold is intense, the summer brief, and the 
 wind so violent that the beech can no longer exist. 
 As upon Mont Yentoux, so it is on the Alps and 
 Pyrenees — on all, a tree of the family of Conifers is 
 the last representative of arborescent vegetation. It 
 is a humble species of pine, called the mountain pine 
 {Pinus uncinata\ because the scales of its cone are 
 curved into a sort of claw. These pines are found 
 many feet in height in sheltered places, but be- 
 come mere bushy shrubs when exposed to the 
 sweep of the winds. They ascend as high as six 
 thousand feet, the extreme limit of arborescent vege- 
 tation. The herbaceous plants of this region are 
 the same as in the region of beeches, which nearly 
 all attain the limit of the pines. In addition to 
 the common juniper, resting on the soil, as it al- 
 ways does on high mountains, where the weight of 
 the snow crushes it all the winter, we find the 
 mountain germander ( Veronica montana) and the 
 tafted saxifrage {S. coespitosa\ which is found on the 
 loftiest ridges of the Alps. 
 
 11. "Its flora thus teaches us, in the absence of 
 the barometer, that we have reached the Alpine re- 
 
154 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 gion of Mont Yentonx, and that the region of arbo- 
 rescent vegetation has disappeared. But here the bot- 
 anist will be delighted to find the flora of Lapland or 
 Iceland and of Spitzbergen also. In the Alps this re- 
 gion extends to the line of perpetual snow, the home 
 of eternal winter. But as Mont Yentoux is only six 
 thousand three or four hundred feet high, the sum- 
 mit only extends to the lower zone of the Alpine re- 
 gions in the Alps and Pyrenees. At this point all 
 trees have disappeared, but a crowd of small plants 
 expand their corollas on the stony surface. Among 
 them the orange-flowering poppy, the violet of Mont 
 Cenis, the blue-flowered astragalus, and, quite at the 
 summit, the meadow grass of the Alps, Gerard's Eu- 
 jphorhia^ and the common nettle, which is generally 
 found wherever man fixes his dwelling. 
 
 12. "A chapel has been built on the summit of 
 the mountain since the ascent of Petrarch. But it is 
 not on the south terminal summit that the botanist 
 will seek for the Alpine plants characteristic of the 
 loftier regions. It is on the northern declivities, on 
 the rocks exposed to the glacial north winds, nearly 
 deprived of the sun during long months and covered 
 with snow from June. These I have surveyed as I 
 would survey an old friend. The purple saxifrage 
 (S. oj)positifolia) was the first plant I recognized ; 
 I had gathered it on the summit of the Peculet, 
 the loftiest ridge of the Jura, and upon all the 
 summits of the Alps which reached or passed the 
 limits of perpetual snow. When I put foot for 
 the first time on the icy shores of Spitzbergen the 
 
INDIAN SUMMER. 155 
 
 purple saxifrage was among the first plants which 
 attracted my attention ; for here are found, on 
 the shore of the sea, the cold summers and the 
 melting snow of the summits which crown the 
 Alps and the Pyrenees. Upon Mont Yentoux other 
 saxifrages, equally Alpine, surround it. The blue 
 bell-shaped flowers of Camjpanula Allioni raised their 
 heads from a heap of stones and dwarf plants which 
 covered all these heights ; the round-headed phy- 
 teuma, the hairy androsacea, the ononis of Mont 
 Cenis, and three species of arenaria clung to the 
 rocks or peeped through the stones." 
 
 Louis Figuier, " The Vegetable World." 
 
 Il^DIAJS" SUMMEK. 
 
 1. When leaves grow sear all thing take somber hue ; 
 The wild winds waltz no more the woodside 
 
 through, 
 And all the faded grass is wet with dew. 
 
 2. A gauzy nebula films the pensive sky, 
 The golden bee supinely buzzes by, 
 
 In silent flocks the bluebirds southward fly. 
 
 3. The forest's cheeks are crimsoned o'er with sli^me, 
 The cynic frost enlaces every lane, 
 
 The ground with scarlet blushes is aflame 1 
 
156 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 4. Tlie one we love grows lustrous-eyed and sad, 
 With sympathy too thoughtful to be glad, 
 "While all the colors round are running mad. 
 
 5. The sunbeams kiss askant the somber hill, 
 The naked woodbine climbs the window-sill, 
 The breaths that noon exhales are faint and chill. 
 
 6. The ripened nuts drop downw^ard day by day. 
 Sounding the hollow tocsin of decay, 
 
 And bandit squirrels smuggle them away. 
 
 7. Yague sighs and scents pervade the atmosphere. 
 Sounds of invisble stirrings hum the ear, 
 
 The morning's lash reveals a frozen tear. 
 
 8. The hermit mountains gird themselves with mail, 
 Mocking the thrashers with an echo flail, 
 
 The while the afternoons grow crisp and pale. 
 
 9. Inconstant Summer to the tropics flees. 
 
 And, as her rose-sails catch the amorous breeze, 
 Lo ! bare, brown Autumn trembles to her knees ! 
 
 10. The stealthy nights encroach upon the days. 
 The earth with sudden whiteness is ablaze. 
 And all her paths are lost in crystal maze ! 
 
 11. Tread lightly where the dainty violets blew. 
 Where the Spring winds their soft eyes open flew ; 
 Safely they sleep the churlish Winter through. 
 
THE SLEEP OF PLANTS. . 157 
 
 12. Though all life's portals are indiced with woe, 
 And frozen pearls are all the world can show, 
 Feel ! ]^ature's breath is warm beneath the snow. 
 
 13. Look up, dear mourners ! Still the blue expanse, 
 Serenely, tender, bends to catch thy glance ; 
 "Within thy tears sibyllic sunbeams dance ! 
 
 14. With blooms full-sapped again will smile the land : 
 The fall is but the folding of His hand, 
 
 Anon with fuller glories to expand. 
 
 15. The dumb heart hid beneath the pulseless tree 
 Will throb again ; and then the torpid bee 
 Upon the ear will drone his drowsy glee. 
 
 16. So shall the truant bluebirds backward fly. 
 And all loved things that vanish or that die 
 Return to us in some sweet by-and-by. 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 THE SLEEP OF PLANTS. 
 
 1. The deeper we search into the mysteries of 
 vegetable life the closer relation do we find with ani- 
 mal existence. Exhausted by the functional labor of 
 the day, many plants, when the evening arrives, as- 
 sume a particular attitude, which they preserve through 
 the night ; this is their sleep. 
 
158 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 2. This curious phenomenon, which a fortunate 
 accident revealed to Linnseus, was carried by him to 
 demonstration. He first observed it in a bird's-foot 
 lotus growing in one of the greenhouses of the garden 
 at Upsala. Having noticed it flowering in the morn- 
 ing, what was his astonishmentj as he passed by the 
 plant in the middle of the night, to find that he could 
 not see its flowers ! At first the botanist thought that 
 some unprincipled amateur had robbed him of them ; 
 but, on looking more attentively at the plant, he found 
 that it was against itself the charge of larceny would 
 have to be preferred. In fact, the naturahst observed 
 that each evening the leaves of this lotus assumed a 
 particular position which hid the corollas ; it was their 
 way of sleeping. 
 
 3. Thinking that such a phenomenon would not 
 be an isolated one, Linnaeus after this passed the 
 nights in wandering about in his garden, with a torch 
 in his hand to verify the results. In this way he 
 noticed that a great number of plants assume a par- 
 ticular attitude when they give themselves up to 
 sleep. This is due to their need of repose, which, as 
 in most animals, coincides with the want of light. 
 
 4. In certain families of the vegetable kingdom 
 the plants are even so transformed during their sleep 
 that they are not recognizable. The aspect of a forest 
 or a savanna is sometimes absolutely changed by it. 
 Many bring their boughs nearer to the stem, and ap- 
 ply their leaves one to the other, so as to be a mutual 
 protection against the cold. Whoever has seen a 
 sensitive-plant during the night, with its boughs 
 
THE SLEEP OF PLANTS. 159 
 
 drooping, and, as it were, overpowered by fatigue, 
 with its leaflets folded together like eyelids which 
 close, will admit that at such times it rests and sleeps. 
 
 5. The phenomenon we are speaking of is seen in 
 a much more striking form in hotter countries. Hum- 
 boldt, while traversing the banks of the Magdalena, 
 observed that there plants awake much later than in 
 less torrid countries, as if vegetation in these climates 
 shared in the indolence which is observable in all the 
 peoples scattered beneath the equator. 
 
 6. Many flowers close every evening in order to 
 give themselves up peacefully to repose. There are 
 some, such as certain bindweeds, which are very lazy, 
 falling asleep long before sunset, and only rousing up 
 very late each morning, when the sun darts his rays 
 upon them. 
 
 7. In the evening if we view a meadow in which 
 these impressible flowers abound, its mournful aspect 
 renders it unrecognizable. In full midday, when it 
 is enameled with all these open corollas, it seems a 
 mass of verdure flUed with great yellow and blue eyes 
 which gaze at us. But when twilight arrives all these 
 seem to have closed their eyelids in order to slumber ; 
 the living aspect of the meadow has vanished; all 
 appears inanimate — its flowers are sleeping. 
 
 8. Men have sought to attribute the phenomenon 
 we are speaking of to the difference between the tem- 
 perature of the day and the temperature of the night ; 
 but when it was seen to take place in greenhouses, 
 where the heat was equal night and day, they were 
 obliged to seek for some other cause. 
 
160 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 9. De Candolle showed hj some interesting experi- 
 ments that within the empire of Flora sleep is to be 
 attributed to the absence of light. By throwing a 
 very bright light upon sensitive -plants during the 
 night, and conversely, by placing them in profound 
 darkness during the day, the learned botanist suc- 
 ceeded in completely changing their habits. These 
 plants closed up their leaflets and slept the whole 
 day, deceived by the artificial gloom, and they re- 
 mained awake the whole night when six lamps pro- 
 jected upon them a brilliance equal to five sixths of 
 that of daylight. 
 
 10. It is principally among plants which inhabit 
 intertropical countries that the phenomenon in ques- 
 tion is seen. It is particularly noticeable in the fam- 
 ily of the Zeguminosw, and most of all in. the sen- 
 sitive-plants. Many of those in our fields show it 
 plainly. 
 
 11. If at the close of summer we examine a clover 
 field about six o'clock in the evening, w^e are struck 
 with the aspect which all the plants present at this 
 moment — the first of their sleep. The two side leaf- 
 lets of each leaf are laid close against one another, 
 and the middle one covers them like a protecting 
 roof ; the whole aspect of the crop has changed. 
 
 F. A. PoucHET, " The Universe." 
 
THE BAOBAB. 161 
 
 THE BAOBAB. 
 
 1. The African baobab, or monkej-bread-tree 
 {Adanso7iia digitata\ may justly be called the ele- 
 phant of tlie vegetable world. JN^ jar the village of 
 Gumer, in Fassokl, Russegger saw a baobab thirty 
 feet in diameter and ninety-five in circumference ; 
 the horizontally outstretched branches were so large 
 that the negroes could comfortably sleep upon them. 
 The Venetian traveler Cadamosto (1454) found, near 
 the mouths of the Senegal, baobabs measuring 
 more than a hundred feet in circumference. As 
 these vegetable giants are generally hollow, like our 
 ancient willows, they are frequently made use of as 
 dwellings or stables, and Dr. Livingstone mentions 
 one in which twenty or thirty men could lie down 
 and sleep as in a hut. In the village of Grand 
 Galarques, in Senegambia, the negroes have decorated 
 the entrance into the cavit}^ of a monstrous baobab 
 with rude sculptures cut into the living wood, and 
 make use of the interior as a kind of assembly-room, 
 where they meet to deliberate on the interests of 
 their small community, " reminding one," says Hum- 
 boldt, " of the celebrated plantain in Lycia, in whose 
 hollow trunk the Roman consul, Lucinius Mutianus, 
 once dined with a party of twenty-one." 
 
 2. As the baobab begins to decay in the part 
 where the trunk divides into the larger branches, and 
 the process of destruction thence continues down- 
 ward, the hollow space fills during the rainy season 
 
 12 
 
162 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 with water, wMcli keeps a long time, from its being 
 protected against the rays of the sun. The baobab 
 thus forms a vegetable cistern, whose water the 
 neighboring viliagers sell to travelers. In Kordofan 
 the Arabs climb upon the tree, fill the water in leath- 
 ern buckets, and let it down from above; but the 
 people in Congo more ingeniously bore a hole in the 
 trunk, which they stop, after having tapped as much 
 as they require. 
 
 3. The height of the baobab does not correspond 
 to its amazing bulk, as it seldom exceeds sixty feet. 
 As it is of very rapid growth, it acquires a diameter 
 of three or four feet and its full altitude in about 
 thirty years, and then continues to grow in circum- 
 ference. The larger beamlike branches, almost as 
 thick at their extremity as at their origin, are abruptly 
 rounded, and then send forth smaller branches, with 
 large, light green, palmated leaves. The bark is 
 smooth and grayish. The oval fruits, which are of 
 the size of large cucumbers, and brownish-yellow 
 when ripe, hang from long, twisted, spongy stalks, 
 and contain a white farinaceous substance, of an 
 agreeable acidulated taste, enveloping the dark-brown 
 seeds. They are a favorite food of the monkeys, 
 whence the tree has derived one of its names. 
 
 4. From the depth of the incrustations formed on 
 the marks which the Portuguese navigators of the 
 fifteenth century used to cut in the large baobabs 
 which they found growing on the African coast, and 
 by comparing the relative dimensions of several 
 trunks of a known age, Adanson concluded that a 
 
VALUABLE WOODS' OF BRAZIL. 163 
 
 baobab of thirty feet in diameter must have hved at 
 least 'B.YQ thousand years ; but a more careful investi- 
 gation of the rapid growth of the spongy wood has 
 reduced the age of the giant tree to more moderate 
 limits, and proved that even in comparative youth it 
 attains the hoary aspect of extreme senihty. 
 
 5. The baobab, which belongs to the same family 
 as the mallow or the hollyhock, and is, hke them, 
 emollient and mucilaginous in all its parts, ranges 
 over a wide extent of Africa, particularly in the parts 
 where the summer rains fall in abundance, as in 
 Senegambia, in Soudan, and in E^ubia. Dr. Living- 
 stone admired its colossal proportions on the banks of 
 the Zouga and the Zambesi. It forms a conspicuous 
 feature in the landscape at Manaar in Ceylon, where 
 it has most likely been introduced by early mariners, 
 perhaps even by the Phoenicians, as the prodigious 
 dimensions of the trees are altogether inconsistent 
 with the popular conjecture of a Portuguese origin. 
 G. Hartwig, " The Tropical World." 
 
 YALUABLE WOODS OF BEAZIL. 
 
 1. How to meet the growing demand for timber 
 is a question of considerable interest and importance. 
 It rises to the dignity of a national to23ic. While the 
 population of the United States increases in a decade 
 thirty -five per cent, the increase of the consumption 
 of wood is sixty -three per cent. England imports 
 
164: THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 wood to the value of sixty million dollars, or three 
 times as much as her home produce. The temperate 
 zones supply most of the woods of construction, while 
 nearly all the ornamental woods come from tropical 
 countries. No hard timber is found in the United 
 States west of the one hundredth meridian, and all the 
 great forests of South America are cisandean. 
 
 2. 'No spot on the globe contains so much vege- 
 table matter as the valley of the Amazons. In it we 
 may draw a circle a thousand miles in diameter, which 
 will include an evergreen forest, broken only by the 
 rivers and a few grassy campos. The densest portion 
 of this forest is along the base of the Andes, where 
 the moisture and temperature are combined in the 
 right proportion, such as existed, doubtless, in the 
 Carboniferous age. The flowers are on the top of this 
 mass of verdure. On many of the trees not a single 
 blossom is to be found at a less height than one hun- 
 dred feet. The glory of the forest can be seen only 
 by sailing in a balloon over the undulating, flowery 
 surface above. There, too, in that green cloud are 
 the insects and birds and monkeys. You are in " the 
 empty nave of the cathedral, and the service is being 
 celebrated aloft in the blazing roof." In place of 
 mosses and lichens, the trunks and boughs are bearded 
 with epiphytic orchids, ferns, tillandsias, cactuses, etc., 
 frequently forming hanging gardens of great beauty. 
 In ascending the river the traveler, even if an acute 
 botanist, is rarely able to distinguish individual trees, 
 save the palms and certain lofty, dome-shaped crowns, 
 for the branches are so thoroughly interwoven and so 
 
VALUABLE WOODS OF BRAZIL. 165 
 
 densely veiled mth twiners and epipiLjtes that one 
 sees little more than a green wall. He might roam a 
 hundred years in the Amazons' thicket, and at the 
 end find it impossible to classify the myriad, crowded, 
 competing shapes of vegetation. The roots even of 
 the giants are not deep. The temperature of the in- 
 terior of the forest is generally lower than that of the 
 river bank. 
 
 3. The Amazonian sylva is naturally divided into : 
 1. The great or virgin forests, which clothe the terra 
 Ji/rma beyond the reach of inundations and consti- 
 tute the great mass of the vegetation. Here grow 
 the fine timber-trees and the most lordly trunks, as 
 the Brazil nut-trees. The palms are peculiar and 
 few. 2. The low or white forests, rich and varied, 
 growing on the vargem^ or occasionally flooded tracts. 
 Palms, pas-mulatto, and wild cacao are characteristic 
 forms. 3. The riparial forests on lowlands border- 
 ing the rivers, and laid under water several months 
 in the year. The soil is the most recent alluvium. 
 Here thrive herbaceous plants, reeds, broad-leaved 
 heliconias, and soft-wooded trees. Besides these are 
 the second growth forests and the scrubby campos. 
 The virgin forests are distinct " by the somber foli- 
 age of the densely packed, lofty trees, out of which 
 stand — hke the cupolas, spires, and turrets of a large 
 city — dome-shaped or pyramidal or flat-topped crowns 
 of still loftier trees, overtopping even the tallest 
 palms." The riparial are marked by the varied tints 
 of the foliage, by the greater abundance of palms and 
 leaves, and by the humbler growth of the trees gen- 
 
166 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 erallj, wMcli, beginning at the water's edge as low 
 bushes, increase in height as they advance inland till 
 they mingle with the sturdier primeval woods. The 
 riparial forests, as we might suppose, have softer and 
 more perishable timber and also inferior fruits. 
 
 4. J^owhere in the world is there such an amount 
 or such a variety of useful and ornamental woods as 
 in the virgin forests which stand around the basin of 
 the great river. Over a hundred different kinds of 
 highly valuable woods have been cut from a piece 
 of land less than half a mile square. Of these, many 
 were dark-colored, veined woods, susceptible of a high 
 polish — as beautiful as rosewood or ebony. But the 
 development of this industry has not even begun. 
 There are only two sawmills on the river between 
 Para and the Andes — namely, at Manaos and Iqui- 
 tos. When the natives want a plank, they cut down 
 a tree and hew it with a hatchet. Several hundred 
 kinds of choice woods, hard and heavy, finely tinted 
 and close-grained, abound, with water-power on every 
 tributary, and a highway by river and ocean to Europe 
 and America, yet enough goes to rot every year to 
 enrich an empire. It is a singular fact that dead tim- 
 ber is rarely to be seen in the heart of the great 
 forest. It seems to go to dust almost immediately 
 after its fall, the process of destruction bemg acceler- 
 ated by insects. The like rapid decay of fallen tim- 
 ber was noticed by Tennent in Ceylon. 
 
 5. There are three drawbacks to lumbering on the 
 Amazons : first, the scarcity of labor ; second, the 
 high export duty ; and, third, the fact that the trees 
 
GIANTS IN THE VEGETABLE WORLD. 167 
 
 of any one kind, thongli abundant, are scattered. 
 While we have our forests of oak, pine, and hemlock, 
 in the tropics diversity is the law. Earely do we see 
 half a dozen trees of the same species together. 
 
 James Orton, " The Andes and the Amazons." 
 
 GIANTS IN THE VEGETABLE WOKLD. 
 
 1. The monarch of flowers, in respect to size, is 
 that first discovered by Sir . Stamford Raffles, and 
 named after him Rafflesia. It is a large, fleshy para- 
 site, growing on the roots of other plants, without 
 leaves, and consisting entirely of a single enormous 
 flower, " of a very thick substance, the petals and 
 nectary being but in a few places less than a quarter 
 of an inch thick, and in some places three quarters 
 of an inch. The substance of it was very succulent. 
 When I first saw it a swarm of flies were hovering 
 over the mouth of the nectary, and apparently laying 
 their eggs in the substance of it. It had precisely the 
 smell of tainted beef. It measured a full yard across ; 
 the petals, which were subrotund, being twelve inches 
 from the base to the apex, and it being about a foot 
 from the insertion of the one petal to the opposite 
 one. The nectary, in the opinion of all of us, would 
 hold twelve pints, and the weight of this prodigy we 
 calculated to be fifteen pounds." 
 
 2. The flower was flrst discovered in 1818, on the 
 Manna River, in Sumatra, where it is said to be 
 
168 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 known by the name of the " Devil's Siri box " ! Dr. 
 Arnold says that when he first saw it in the jungle it 
 made a powerful impression on him. " To tell the 
 truth, had I been alone, and had there been no wit- 
 nesses, I should, I think, have been fearful of men- 
 tioning the dimensions of this flower, so much does it 
 exceed every flower I have ever seen or heard of." 
 Another species has been found in Java, but not quite 
 of such an enormous size. 
 
 3. Second in size are the flowers of one of the birth- 
 worts, cHmbing aristolochias of tropical forests. Hum- 
 boldt gave the first intimation of the existence of 
 these giants in these words : " On the shady banks of 
 the Magdalena River, in South America, grows a 
 climbing aristolochia, whose blossoms, measuring four 
 feet in circumference, the Indian children sportively 
 draw on their heads as caps." This species {Aristo- 
 lochia grandiflora)^ or what is believed to be the 
 same species, is called " pelican flower " in the West 
 Indies, from the resemblance of its young and un- 
 opened flower to the head of a pelican at rest. 
 Miers states that he had often seen it in Brazil, 
 where he was led to compare the large flaccid blos- 
 soms on the bushes with colored pocket-handkerchiefs 
 laid out to dry. Lunan remarks that the odor is so 
 abominably fetid that it is detested and shunned 
 by most animals ; and when hogs venture, through 
 necessity, to eat of it, it destroys them. Tussac, not- 
 ing the same plant in the Antilles, says that a whole 
 herd of swine, having been driven into the woods 
 where this plant was common, had entirely perished 
 
m 
 
 
 
 A 
 
 B. .M:m^M 
 
 IS 
 
 
 
 **% 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 > '-^^ %^^^B 
 
 !Z7ie Giant Cactus. 
 
GIAXTS IN THE VEGETABLE WORLD. 169 
 
 from eating the roots and young stems. Another 
 species wliich has now flowered two or three times in 
 this country {Aristolochia goldieand)^ comes from Old 
 Calabar River and Sierra Leone. The flowers reach 
 to twenty-six inches in length and eleven inches in 
 diameter at the mouth when grown here. Like the 
 other, it has a strong and powerful odor as of putrid 
 meat. 
 
 4. The flowers of the night -blooming cereus {Ce- 
 reus grandiflorus) are very different in character and 
 inferior in size ; they have, however, the merit of pos- 
 sessing a very grateful fragrance. It is alluded to 
 here as one of the largest of blossoms, attaining, it is 
 said, when fully expanded, a diameter of a foot, but 
 as this measurement is taken from tip to tip of the 
 petals it does not seem so large as a cup-shaped flower 
 would be. 
 
 5. Among Hlies, there are two or three magnifi- 
 cent species which deserve remembrance. Such, for 
 example, is Lilium giganteumi^ of which a dried stem 
 is preserved in one of the museums at Kew. Let the 
 imagination strive to picture a gorgeous white lily, 
 with a flower stem eleven and a half inches in circum- 
 ference at the base and rising to a height of thirteen 
 feet, bearing blossoms as large as tumbler glasses. It 
 might be said literally that " Solomon in all liis glory 
 was not arrayed like one of these." 
 
 6. If one were asked to determine the largest 
 fruit ]iitherto known, it is probable that the answer 
 must be some species of gourd or "pumpkin," tlie 
 dried external portion of one such specimen being 
 
170 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 suspended in one of the museums of the Eoyal Gar- 
 dens, Kew, with a diameter of about two feet. This 
 far exceeds the largest " double cocoanut " {Lodoicea 
 sechellarum) of which we have any experience. As 
 far as we know, the full dimensions of the largest 
 gourds have not been recorded, since thej may attain, 
 in their native and warmer climes, a much greater 
 diameter than in cultivation. 
 
 Y. If individual seeds are tbe subject of inquiry, 
 then we are assured that the largest seeds of which 
 we have hitherto any experience are the beans of a 
 mora-tree (or, as it is now caj^ed, Dimorphandra 
 oleifera) from Panama. These seeds are as much as 
 six inches long, five inches broad, and four inches 
 thick. If edible, such beans would not be requisite 
 in any great numbers for an ordinary meal. 
 
 8. Justification might also be found for an allusion 
 to such large starchy roots as the elephant's foot, and 
 yams of various species, in which great bulk is com- 
 bined with farinaceous qualities, which render them 
 available, after the manner of gigantic potatoes, as 
 articles of animal food. 
 
 9. Those truly elegant plants, the ferns, as popu- 
 lar as any of the members of the vegetable kingdom, 
 have also their giants in the tree ferns of tropical 
 climates. The "silver king" {Cyathea dealbata) has 
 leaves, or fronds, from ^yq to seven feet in length ; 
 and Diefienbach found it growing in ]^ew Zealand 
 with trunks upward of forty -two feet in height. An- 
 other, which might be called the " monarch " {Dick- 
 sonia antarcUca), has fronds from six to twelve feet 
 
GIANTS IN THE VEGETABLE WORLD. 171 
 
 in length or more. One plant, cultivated in this 
 country, and hence probably inferior in size to those 
 growing in its native home, is said to have produced 
 fronds eleven feet in length and three feet two inches 
 in width. This plant had altogether fifty fronds, 
 which covered an area of eighteen and a half feet. 
 In Tasmania this fern forms the great feature in the 
 Fern Yalley. Humboldt considers it singular that no 
 mention is made of arborescent ferns in the classic 
 authors of antiquity, the first distinct reference being 
 by Ovie^o, in the early part of the sixteenth century. 
 However graceful an(^ elegant some of the palms may 
 be in their foliage and the grandeur of their crested 
 forms, these can not be compared for beauty with the 
 deeply cut and infinitely diversified and subdivided 
 fronds of the larger ferns. All that the palms may 
 claim for excess in height or bulk of trunk over the 
 tree ferns is amply compensated in the latter by the 
 beauty and grace of their crown of feathery fronds. 
 
 10. Sea-weeds are the most gigantic of cryptogamic 
 plants, and of these the most noteworthy is the large 
 Macrocystis of the antarctic seas {Macrocystes pyrife- 
 ra). D'Wville says that it grows in eight, ten, and 
 even fifteen fathoms of water, from which depth it 
 ascends obliquely and floats along the surface nearly 
 as far ; this gives a length of two hundred feet. Dr. 
 Hooker (now Sir Joseph) says: "In the Falkland 
 Islands, Cape Horn, and Kerguelen's Land, where all 
 the harbors are so belted with its masses that a boat 
 can hardly be forced through, it generally rises from 
 eight to twelve fathom water, and the fronds extend 
 
172 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 upward of one hundred feet upon the surface. We 
 seldom, however, had opportunities of measurmg the 
 largest specimens, though washed up enth'e on the 
 shore, for on the outer coasts of the Falkland Islands, 
 where the beach is lined for miles with entangled 
 cables of Macrocystis much thicker than the human 
 body, and t^vined of innumerable strands of stems 
 coiled together by the rolling action of the surf, no 
 one succeeded in unraveling from the mass any one 
 piece upward of seventy or eighty feet long ; as well 
 might we attempt to ascertain the length of hemp 
 fiber by unlaying a cable. In Kerguelen's Land the 
 length of some pieces which grew in the middle of 
 Christmas Harbor was estimated at more than three 
 hundred feet." He afterward alludes to what he con- 
 sidered the largest specimen seen in what is behoved 
 to be forty -fathom water and streaming along the 
 surface to a probable total length of about seven hun- 
 dred feet. The report that this sea- weed sometimes 
 attains a length of fifteen hundred feet is probably 
 exaggerated, although it may be true that " it grows 
 up from a depth of forty-five fathoms to the sur- 
 face at a very oblique angle, and even when of no 
 great breadth makes excellent natural floating break- 
 waters." 
 
 11. ISTone of the remaining Cryptogamia attain to 
 any extraordinary size. JS^either floating mosses nor 
 dendiitic forms exceed two or three feet ; and lichens 
 only extend to about the same dimensions in the most 
 exaggerated examples. Fungi have not yet produced 
 a Titanic species, for the largest agaric yet known is 
 
THE FEAST OF ROSES. 173 
 
 inferior in expanse to a lady's parasol, and a great 
 pnff-ball (Lycojperdon giganteicm) has not yet attained 
 the dimensions of a somnolent sheep. Among the 
 lower Cryjptogamia we have many examples of the 
 infinitely little but not of the infinitely great. 
 
 M. C. Cooke, " Freaks and Marvels of Plant Life." 
 
 THE FEAST OF EOSES. 
 
 1. Who has not heard of the Yale of Cashmere, 
 
 With its roses, the brightest that earth ever 
 gave, 
 Its temples and grottoes, and fountains as clear 
 As the love-lighted eyes that hang over their 
 wave ? 
 
 2. But never yet, by night or day. 
 In dew of spring or summer's ray. 
 Did the sweet valley shine so gay 
 As now it shines — all love and light, 
 Yisions by day and feasts by night ! 
 A happier smile illumes each brow. 
 
 With quicker spread each heart uncloses 
 And all is ecstasy — for now 
 
 The valley holds its Feast of Roses. 
 That joyous time, when pleasures pour 
 Profusely round, and in their shower 
 
171 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 Hearts open, like the season's rose — 
 The fLow'ret of a hundred leaves, 
 
 Expanding while the dew-fall flows. 
 And every leaf its balm receives ! 
 
 3. A thousand restless torches played 
 Through every grove and island shade ; 
 A thousand sparkling lamps were set 
 On every dome and minaret ; 
 
 And fields and pathways, far and near, 
 "Were lighted by a blaze so clear," 
 That you could see, in wandering round, 
 The smallest rose-leaf on the ground. 
 
 4. And all exclaimed, to all they met, 
 -That never did the summer bring 
 
 So gay a Feast of Roses yet — 
 The moon had never shed a light 
 
 So clear as that which blessed them there 
 The roses ne'er shone half so bright, 
 . 'Nor they themselves looked half so fair. 
 And what a wilderness of flowers ! 
 It seemed as though from all the bowers 
 And fairest fields of all the year. 
 The mingled spoil were scattered here. 
 The lake, too, like a garden breathes, 
 
 With the rich buds that o'er it lie — 
 As if a shower of fairy wreaths 
 
 Had fallen upon it from the sky ! 
 And then the sounds of joy — ^the beat 
 Of tabors and of dancing feet ; 
 
THE CHOCOLATE-PLANT. 175 
 
 The merry laugliter echoing 
 From gardens, where the silken swing 
 Wafts some dehghted girl above 
 The top leaves of the orange grove ; 
 Or, from those infant groups at play 
 Among the tents that line the way, 
 Flinging, unawed by slave or mother, 
 Handf uls of roses at each other ! 
 
 Moore. 
 
 THE CHOCOLATE-PLAINT. 
 
 1. At the discovery of America the natives of the 
 narrower portion of the continent bordering on the 
 Caribbean Sea were found in possession of two luxu- 
 ries which have been everywhere recognized as worthy 
 of extensive cultivation — namely, tobacco and choco- 
 late. The former of these has made its way into 
 climates totally unlike that of its early home; the 
 other of these plants, since it can not bear the low 
 temperature occasionally experienced in our subtrop- 
 ics, is more restricted in its range. The chocolate- 
 plant is confined to the warmer regions of the globe, 
 where it finds the congenial climatic conditions which 
 it enjoyed and still enjoys in its earliest home in 
 America. 
 
 2. The first references to the chocolate-plant and 
 its products are found in the accounts of the explorers 
 
176 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 and conquerors wlio followed Columbus. These first 
 descriptions of this singular tree, of its fruits and 
 seeds, of its uses and the methods of cultivation, are 
 remarkably accurate in all essential particulars. Bj 
 the natives of tropical America the seeds of the choco- 
 late-plant were first roasted and then rudely ground. 
 For this purpose they employed the fliat or curved 
 surface of the sort of stone used by them to* grind 
 their maize or Indian corn. The roller was merely a 
 short, thick stone of a cylindrical shape, which could 
 be used with one or both hands, somewhat after the 
 manner of the common rolling-pin everywhere used 
 in kitchens. By this simple appliance the crushed 
 seeds were mixed with various ingredients, among 
 which may be mentioned spices of different kinds. 
 A modification of this was later used in Spain. The 
 drinks made from this coarse chocolate were frequent- 
 ly very complex, but the chocolate itself was the chief 
 constituent. It was the custom to beat the mixture 
 into a froth or foam by means of stirrers of mallet- 
 like forms ; in fact, it is said by some writers that the 
 very name chocolate is derived from a native word 
 indicating the noise made by the stirring of the 
 beverage. 
 
 3. After its introduction into Europe from Amer- 
 ica, chocolate was used at first only as a luxury, but 
 it has steadily advanced in popular esteem until it is 
 now recognized as one of the necessaries of life. 
 
 4. It would be interesting to speculate as to the 
 accidents which led to the original use of such bever- 
 ages as coffee, tea, and chocolate. The earliest em- 
 
THE CHOCOLATE-PLANT. 177 
 
 ployment of tlie two former is veiled in as deep a 
 mystery as that which surrounds the chocolate-plant. 
 All were used at the outset by what we have been 
 accustomed to call the uncultivated races of mankind, 
 but we can not surmise what first attracted their at- 
 tention to these plants. One can only say that by the 
 natives of lands where the plants grow naturally they 
 have all been used from time immemorial, and that 
 all three are welcome gifts from a rude state of civili- 
 zation to the highest which exists to-day. By the 
 savages and the Aztecs of America, by the roving 
 tribes of Arabia, and by the dwellers in the farther 
 East, the virtues of those three plants were recog- 
 nized long before any one of them was introduced 
 into Europe. 
 
 5. There is reason to beheve that long before the 
 discovery of America tea and coffee had been vague- 
 ly known to travelers in the Orient as curiosities, 
 much as we do to-day regard the kola-nut and mate, 
 but neither tea nor coffee was then employed as a 
 beverage anywhere in western Europe. In fact, all 
 trustworthy evidence in the case leads us to a surpris- 
 ing conclusion — namely, that chocolate was the first 
 of these beverages to attract the attention of Euro- 
 peans. This beverage rapidly made its way through- 
 out Europe, beginning from Spain and Portugal, 
 whither its discoverers had brought it. The other 
 beverages, tea and coffee, soon followed, and after a 
 short time became associated together in popular re- 
 gard. 
 
 6. The chocolate-plant is known to botanists as 
 
 13 
 
178 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 Theobroma cacao. The first or generic word in this 
 name means "food of the gods."_ The genus con- 
 tains six species, only one of which is generally cul- 
 tivated. It is probable, however, that some of the 
 seeds which find their way into commerce are yielded 
 by other and wild species. It is, moreover, more 
 than likely that among the numerous varieties of 
 Theobroma cacao now cultivated there may be some 
 hybrids between the different forms. The plant be- 
 longs to the SterculiacecB^ a natural order containing 
 forty-one genera and ^yq hundred and twenty species. 
 
 Y. The pod is irregular and angular, much like 
 some forms of cucumbers, but more pointed at the 
 lower extremity and more distinctly grooved. It 
 measures in length nine inches to a foot or even 
 more, and about half as much in diameter. The 
 color, when young, is green, becoming later dark yel- 
 low or yellowish brown. The rind is thick and tough. 
 The pod is filled with closely packed "beans," or 
 seeds, imbedded in a mass of cellular tissue, some- 
 times of pleasant subacid taste. The seeds are about 
 as large as ordinary almonds, whitish when fresh, and 
 of a disagreeable, bitter taste. When dried they be- 
 come brown. The fruits are about four months in 
 ripening, but they appear and mature the whole year 
 through. In point of fact, however, there are chief 
 harvests, usually in early spring, but this is different 
 for different countries. 
 
 8. The seeds of the chocolate-plant are brought 
 into the market in their crude state, as almond-shaped 
 " bp' ns," which differ in color and somewhat in tex- 
 
THE CHOCOLATE-PLANT. I79 
 
 ture. Upon the color of shell and kernel, the relative 
 brittleness, the flavor, and the odor, depend the mar- 
 ket value of seeds. The dried seeds have a papery, 
 brittle shell, which is very smooth on the inside, but 
 on the outside exhibits, under the microscope, a few 
 short hairs and round excrescences. But these are 
 mostly lost by the rough handling and by the attri- 
 tion of the seeds with one another during transporta- 
 tion. The kernel consists of two large cotyledons or 
 seed-leaves, reddish gray or reddish brown, with a 
 shining, oily surface, the whole crushing rather easily 
 into a loose mass of fragments. The kernel, when 
 dry, has a minute, tough, almost stony radicle which 
 separates easily from the cotyledons. Microscopic 
 examination shows that the cells of the seed-leaves 
 contain albumin, oily matters — sometimes in a crys- 
 talline condition — crystals of an entirely different 
 shape, starch, coloring substances in special recepta- 
 cles known as pigment cells, and ducts with spiral 
 markings. The starch grains do not have any very 
 characteristic form or markings ; they are generally 
 spherical and simple. The only peculiarity worth 
 mentioning is the relative slowness with which they 
 are acted on by hot water and by iodine. The color- 
 ing substances are mainly of a carmine or violet color, 
 and are distinguished by the change of shade when an 
 alkali is added, becoming thereby darker. These are 
 the only structural elements which a pure powder or 
 paste of chocolate should show under the microscope. 
 Any other substances must be recognized as accidental 
 or intentional additions. ^i^c 
 
180 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 9. All seeds of whatever kind contain, as a part 
 of their substance, the matter of which cell-walls are 
 made — namely, cellulose. The percentage differs in 
 different seeds, in those of the chocolate-plant being 
 about three in the hundred. Cellulose has the same 
 chemical composition as starch, but its physical prop- 
 erties are not the same as those of starch, among 
 which" may be mentioned its entire insolubihty in 
 boiling water. Starch forms, on an average, eight 
 to ten per cent of chocolate-seeds. It consists of 
 miunte spherical grains, not distinguishable from 
 that found in many other kinds of seeds. Traces 
 of gum and other allied bodies are also present in 
 the seeds. 
 
 10. Albuminoids, or substances resembling in a 
 general way the albumin of egg, occur in chocolate- 
 seeds as they do in other seeds, and in a somewhat 
 higher amount than in certain other cases in which 
 the seeds are used as food. The percentage ranges 
 from about fifteen to twenty, depending on the variety. 
 These albuminoids are compounds of nitrogen and 
 are extremely nutritious. In the seeds they occur in 
 a readily assimilable form, fit for digestion. 
 
 Anonymous, " The School Journal." 
 
THE CINNAMON GARDENS OF CEYLON. 181 
 
 THE CINE^AMOE" GAEDEI^S OF CEYLOJ^. 
 
 1, Although the beautiful laurel whose bark fur- 
 nishes the most exquisite of all the spices of the East 
 is indigenous to the forests of Cejlon, yet, as no author 
 previous to the fourteenth century mentions its aro- 
 matic rind among the productions of the island, there 
 is every reason to believe that the cinnamon, which 
 in the earlier ages was imported into Europe through 
 Arabia, was obtained first from Africa and afterward 
 from India. That the Portuguese, who had been 
 mainly attracted to the East by the fame of its spices, 
 were nearly twenty years in India before they took steps 
 to obtain a footing at Colombo, proves that there can 
 have been nothing very remarkable in the quality of 
 the spice at the beginning of the sixteenth century, 
 and that the high reputation of the Ceylon cinnamon 
 is comparatively modern and attributable to the atten- 
 tion bestowed upon its preparation for market by the 
 Portuguese and afterward on its cultivation by the 
 Dutch. 
 
 2. Long after the appearance of Europeans in 
 Ceylon, cinnamon was only found in the forests of 
 the interior, where it was cut and brought away by 
 the Chalias, an emigrant tribe which, in consideration 
 of its location in villages, was bound to go into the 
 woods to cut and deliver, at certain prices, a given 
 quantity of cinnamon properly peeled and ready for 
 exportation. This system remained unchanged so 
 long as Portugal was master of the country, but the 
 
182 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 forests in wMcli the spice was found being exposed to 
 constant incursions from the Kandjans, the Dutch 
 were compelled to form inclosed plantations of their 
 own within range of their fortresses. The native 
 chieftains, fearful of losing the profits derived from 
 the labors of the Chalias, who were attached as serfs 
 ' ^ their domains and whose work thej let out to the 
 jjcttch, were at first extremely opposed to this innova- 
 tion, and endeavored to persuade the Hollanders that 
 the cinnamon would degenerate as soon as it was 
 artificially planted. The withering of many of the 
 young trees seemed to justify the assertion, but on a 
 closer examination it was found that boiling water 
 had been poured upon the roots. A law was now 
 passed declaring the willful injury of a cinnamon 
 plant punishable with death, and by this severity the 
 product was saved. 
 
 3. The extent of the trade during the time of the 
 Dutch may be inferred from the fact that the five 
 principal cinnamon gardens around l^ejombo, Co- 
 lombo, Barberyn, Galle, and Maduro were each from 
 fifteen to twenty miles in circumference. Although 
 they were only first planted in the year 1770, yet be- 
 fore 1796, when Colombo was taken by the English, 
 their annual produce amounted to more than four 
 hundred thousand pounds of cinnamon, as much as 
 the demands of the market required. 
 
 4. The profits must have been enormous, for cin- 
 namon was then at least ten times dearer than at 
 present, the trade being exclusively in the hands of 
 the Dutch East Indian Company, which, in order to 
 
THE CINNAMON GARDENS OF CEYLON. 183 
 
 keep up tlie price, restricted the production to a cei-tain 
 quantity, and watched over its monopoly mth the 
 most jealous tyranny. 'No one was allowed to plant 
 cinnamon or to peel it, and the selling or importing 
 of a single stick was punished as a capital offence. 
 Since that time the cultivation of the cinnamon laurel 
 having been introduced into many other tropica'' 
 lands, competition has reduced prices, and the sjiv:^ 
 which was formerly the main product of Ceylon is 
 now of very inferior importance. The cinnamon 
 gardens, whose beauty and luxuriance have been so 
 often vaunted by travelers, have partly been sold, 
 partly leased to private individuals, and, though less 
 than a century has elapsed since they were formed 
 by the Dutch, they are already becoming a wilderness. 
 Those which surround Colombo on the land side ex- 
 hibit the effects of a quarter of a century of neglect, 
 and produce a feehng of disappointment and melan- 
 choly. The beautiful shrubs which furnish this spice 
 have been left to the wild growth of I^ature, and in 
 some places are entirely supplanted by an under- 
 growth of jungle, while in others a thick cover of 
 climbing plants and other parasites conceals them 
 under masses of verdure and blossom. 
 
 5. It would, however, be erroneous to suppose 
 that the cinnamon gardens have been universally 
 doomed to the same neglect. Thus Prof. Schmarda, 
 who visited Mr. Stewart's plantation two miles to the 
 south of Colombo, admired the beautiful order in 
 which it was kept. A reddish sandy clay and fine 
 white quartz sand form the soil of the plantation. 
 
184 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 White sand is considered as the best ground for the 
 cinnamon-tree to grow on, but it requires an abun- 
 dance of rain (which is never wanting in the south- 
 western part of the island), much sun, and many ter- 
 mites. For these otherwise so destructive creatures do 
 not injure the cinnamon-trees, but render themselves 
 useful bj destroying many other insects. They con- 
 sequently remain unmolested, and everywhere raise 
 their high conical mounds in the midst of the planta- 
 tion. The aspect of a well-conditioned cinnamon 
 garden is rather monotonous, for, though the trees 
 when left to their full growth attain a height of forty 
 or fifty feet, yet, as the best spice is furnished by the 
 shoots that spring from the roots after the chief stem 
 has been removed, they are kept as a kind of coppice 
 and not allowed to rise higher than ten feet. 
 
 G. Hartwig, "The Tropical World." 
 
 CUEIOSITIES m THE VEGETABLE 
 KINGDOM. 
 
 1. The difference between animals and vegetables 
 is so great that at first we do not perceive any resem- 
 blance between them. Some animals only live in 
 water, others on the earth or in the air, and some are 
 amphibious, or live equally well in water as upon 
 land. And this is literally the case with vegetables : 
 some of them only grow upon land, others in the wa- 
 
CURIOSITIES IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 185 
 
 ter ; some can scarcely bear any moisture, others live 
 either in earth or water, and some even are found that 
 exist in the air. 
 
 2. There is a tree in an island of Japan which, 
 contrary to the nature of all others to which moisture 
 is necessary, can not bear the least portion. As soon 
 as it is watered it perishes ; the only way to preserve 
 it in such a case is to cut it off by the root, which is 
 to be dried in the sun and afterward planted in a dry 
 and sandy soil. A peculiar species of mushroom, 
 some mosses, and other small plants, float in the air ; 
 but what is more extraordinary, a branch of rosemary 
 which, as is the custom of some countries, was put in 
 the hand of a corpse, sprouted out to the right and 
 left so vigorously that, after a lapse of some years, 
 the grave being opened, the face of the defunct was 
 overshadowed with rosemary -leaves. The vegetation 
 of the truffle is still more singular. This extraordi- 
 nary tubercle has neither roots, stem, leaves, flowers, 
 nor seeds ; it derives its nourishment through the pores 
 of its bark. But, it may be asked. How is it pro- 
 duced ? why is there commonly no kind of herb in 
 the places where this species of fungus grows ? and 
 why is the land there dry and full of crevices ? These 
 things have never been explained. 
 
 3. 'No plant so much resembles animals as that 
 species of membranous moss called nostoc; it is an 
 irregular substance of a pale-green color and some- 
 what transparent ; it trembles upon the slightest touch 
 and easily breaks. It can only be seen after rain, and 
 is then found in many places, particularly in unculti- 
 
186 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 vated soils and sandy roads. It exists in all seasons, 
 even in winter ; but is never so abundant as after rain 
 in summer. The most remarkable circumstance about 
 it is its speedy growth, being formed almost instanta- 
 neously. Sometimes walking in the garden in sum- 
 mer not a trace of it is seen, when, a sudden shower of 
 rain falling, if the same place is visited in an hour the 
 walks are entirely covered with it. The nostoc was 
 long supposed to have descended from the sky, but it 
 is now known to be a leaf which attracts and imbibes 
 water with great avidity. This leaf, to which no root 
 appears to belong, is in its natural state when impreg- 
 nated with water ; but, a strong wind or great heat 
 soon dissipating the water, the leaf contracts and loses 
 its color and transparency ; hence it appears to grow 
 so suddenly and to be so miraculously produced by a 
 shower of rain, for when the rain falls upon it in its 
 dried and imperceptible state it becomes reanimated 
 and appears a fresh production. 
 
 4. "We might readily enumerate a variety of plants 
 that bear a resemblance to animals, but there are 
 other peculiarities in vegetables which solicit our at- 
 tention. The whole atmosphere is pregnant with 
 plants and invisible seeds, and even the largest grains 
 are dispersed h^ the wind over the earth, and as soon 
 as they are transported to the places where they may 
 germinate they become plants, and often so little soil 
 is necessary for this purpose that we can scarcely con- 
 ceive whence they derive the necessary degree of 
 nourishment. There are plants, and even trees, which 
 take root and grow in the clefts of rocks without any 
 
CURIOSITIES IN THE VEGETABLE KIXGDOM. 187 
 
 soil. Yegetation is sometimes very rapid, of which 
 we have instances in mushrooms and the common 
 cresses, the seed of which, if put into a wet cloth, will 
 be fit for a salad in twenty-four hours. 
 
 5. There are plants that exist with scarcely any 
 perceptible vitality. We often see willows which are 
 not only hollowed and decayed within, but their ex- 
 ternal bark is so much injured that very little of it 
 remains, yet from these seemingly sapless trunks buds 
 sprout in the spring and they are crowned with leaves 
 and branches. How admirable that plants should not 
 only imbibe nutriment by their roots, but that their 
 leaves also should assist in this important function by 
 inspiring air ! And an inverted tree will flourish as 
 well as when in its proper position, for the branches 
 will grow in the earth and become roots ! The ad- 
 vanced age that some trees attain is also very wonder- 
 ful. Some apple-trees are above a thousand years 
 old, and if we calculate the amount of the annual pro- 
 duce of such a tree for the above space of time, we 
 shall find that a single pippin might supply all Eu- 
 rope with trees and fruit. 
 
 I. Platt, " The World's Encyclopaedia of Wonders 
 and Curiosities." 
 
188 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 THE PUMPKIK 
 
 1. Oh, greenly and fair in the lands of the sun, 
 The yines of the gourd and the rich melon run, 
 And the rock and the tree and the cottage infold. 
 With broad leaves all greenness and blossoms all 
 
 gold, 
 Like that which o'er Nineveh's prophet once grew, 
 "While he waited to know that his warning was true. 
 And longed for the storm-cloud, and listened in vain 
 For the rush of the whirlwind and red fire rain. 
 
 2. On the banks of the Xenil, the dark Spanish maiden 
 Comes up with the fruit of the tangled vine laden ; 
 And the Creole of Cuba laughs out to behold 
 Through orange-leaves shining the broad spheres of 
 
 gold; 
 Yet with dearer delight from his home in the !N"orth, 
 On the fields of his harvest the Yankee looks forth. 
 Where crooknecks are coiling and yellow fruit shines. 
 And the sun of September melts down on his vines. 
 
 3. Ah ! on Thanksgiving Day, when from East and 
 
 from West, 
 From IS^orth and from South, come the pilgrim and 
 
 guest, 
 When the gray-haired ]^ew-Englander sees round his 
 
 board 
 The old broken links of affection restored. 
 
THE PUMPKIN. 189 
 
 When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once 
 
 more, 
 And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled 
 
 before, 
 What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye ? 
 What calls back the past, like the rich pumpkin-pie ? 
 
 4. O fruit loved of boyhood ! the old days recalling ; 
 When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts 
 
 were falling ! 
 When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin, 
 Glaring out through the dark with a candle within ! 
 When we laughed round the corn-heap, with hearts 
 
 all in tune, 
 Our chair a broad pumpkin, our lantern the moon, 
 Telling tales of the fairy who traveled like steam 
 In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team ! 
 
 5. Then thanks for thy present ! none sweeter or better 
 E'er smoked from an oven or circled a platter ! 
 Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more iSne, 
 Brighter eyes never watched o'er its baking, than 
 
 thine ! 
 And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to ex- 
 press, 
 Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less ; 
 That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below, 
 And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow ; 
 And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky 
 Golden-tinted and fair as thy own pumpkin-pie ! 
 
 Whittier. 
 
190 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 CAEll^IYOEOUS PLAINTS. 
 
 1. In tlie whole range' of vegetable creation it 
 will be difficult to find anything more curious than 
 the carnivorous or flesh- eating plants. We think 
 without any emotion of curiosity of animals eating 
 plants, for this is the common law of ]^ature. But 
 here we have the reverse marvel of plants devouring 
 animals. It is not many years ago that the attention 
 of naturalists was first specially called to the habits 
 and character of these strange forms of vegetable life, 
 though they have been known for about a century. 
 It is Mr. Darwin, the celebrated philosopher, who has 
 made so many wonderful discoveries in natural science 
 — discoveries which have excited more discussion than 
 those of any scientific man of his age, perhaps of all 
 ages — who has done more than any other observer to 
 explain the life and operations of the flesh-eating 
 plants. 
 
 2. For several centuries there had been strange 
 rumors of huge plants in the more remote and un- 
 visited parts of the Oriental countries which would 
 imprison and destroy even large animals and men who 
 ventured within reach of their great, quivering leaves, 
 armed with hooked thorns, and would absorb the 
 flesh of the dead victims into their structure. Asia 
 has always been the land of mystery and marvel, but, 
 like many another story of that far-off land, the giant 
 flesh-eating tree or plant has so far proved to be a 
 mere myth. Science has discovered, however, that 
 
CARNIVOROUS PLANTS. 191 
 
 there is a foundation for this exciting fiction, and it 
 has not needed to go to the distant lands of the East 
 to find it, for fiesh-eating plants are by no means un- 
 common in this country and Europe. These plants, 
 however, confine their destructive properties to the 
 flying and crawling insects which are beguiled to rest 
 on their leaves. Such a strange provision of l^ature 
 is no less interesting than if the carnivorous plants 
 had the power to destroy the larger animals, for it is 
 the fact itself which startles the attention, from its 
 seeming reversal of ordinary laws. 
 
 3. To use the words of Mr. Darwin, there can be 
 no doubt that a plant of this description " digests ex- 
 actly the same substances in exactly the same way that 
 the human stomach does." Let us take as our first 
 example the plant known as the Dionma musGipula^ 
 or, to use the common name, Yenus's-fiytrap. About 
 the year 1768 Mr. Ellis, an English naturalist, sent 
 to the great Swedish botanist, Linnaeus, the follow- 
 ing description of this plant : " The plant shows that 
 Mature may have some views toward its nourish- 
 ment in forming the upper joint of its leaf like a 
 machine to catch food. Upon the middle of this lies 
 the bait for the unhappy insect that becomes its prey. 
 Many minute red glands, which cover its surface and 
 which perhaps discharge sweet liquor, tempt the ani- 
 mal to taste them, and the instant those tender parts 
 are irritated by its feet the two lobes rise up, grasp 
 it fast, lock the rows of spines together, and squeeze 
 it to death. And further, lest the strong e£[ort for 
 life in the creature just taken should serve to disen- 
 
192 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 gage it, these small erect spines are fixed near the 
 middle of eacli lobe among the glands that effectually 
 put an end to its struggles. ISTor do the lobes ever 
 open again while the dead animal continues there. 
 But it is, nevertheless, certain that the plant can not 
 distinguish an animal from a vegetable or mineral 
 substance, for if we introduce a straw or pin between 
 the lobes it will grasp it fully as fast as if it were an 
 insect." 
 
 4. This description, though written long before 
 any very careful study of this class of plants has been 
 made, is in the main correct, in spite of the failure to 
 understand clearly that there was a well-defined pro- 
 vision of ]^ature for supplying the plant with food. 
 Each half of the leaf of a Yenus's-flytrap is a little 
 concave on the inner side, where are placed these deli- 
 cate hairlike organs, in such an order that an insect 
 can hardly traverse it without interfering with one of 
 them, when the two sides suddenly collapse and in- 
 close the prey with a force defying all attempts at 
 escape. The insect, however, does not appear to be 
 crushed by the pressure, but is retained in the leafy 
 cell until it becomes enveloped in a sort of sticky 
 fiuid, which appears to be a solvent, like gastric juice, 
 the fly being consumed in it and then absorbed into 
 the tissues of the plant. 
 
 5. One group of plants which live on animal food 
 is known under the name of Drosera, or sundew. 
 This plant may be described as consisting ot a tuft of 
 diminutive orb-shaped leaves, from the center of 
 which there shoots up in midsummer a slender stem 
 
CARNIVOROUS PLANTS. 193 
 
 of inconspicuous flowers. As in tlie case of tlie 
 Yenus's-fljtrap, tlie leaves of this plant are its distin- 
 guisliing feature. These are covered with shining 
 scarlet hairs which secrete at their tips drops of a 
 clear viscid fluid resembling dew, which increase in 
 size and number with the heat of the sun, while real 
 dew would be quickly dried up under the same con- 
 ditions. It is from this fact that the popular name of 
 sundew is derived. But the design of this novel se- 
 cretion is more strange than the fact of its production. 
 Instantly that insects attracted by the fatal sweetness 
 touch and taste, they are lost. The adhesive quality 
 of the hquid holds them fast, while the dehcate hairs, 
 moving slowly but surely on the victim, '^ their httle 
 points like fangs and suck its juices, leaving only a 
 dry carcass. This accomplished, they leisurely relax 
 their hold, return to their natural position, and wait 
 for fresh victims. Unlike the Yenus's-flytrap, the 
 sundew takes no notice of the touch of anvthino^ un- 
 suitable for its food. The sensitive fibers refuse to 
 respond if they are touched by a straw or bit of 
 paper, and it is only when their natural prey is felt 
 that they show signs of life. The sundews are natives 
 of the temperate parts of both hemispheres, and are 
 found in dry and marshy places. 
 
 6. Another plant of kindred character is that 
 known as the Cephalotus^ which is a native of Austra- 
 lia. It is an almost stemless herb, the upper part of 
 which is divided into two or three short stems that 
 bear clusters of purplish leaves. Among these leaves, 
 principally occupying the surface, are several beautiful 
 14" 
 
194: THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 c id curious pitclier-sliaped appendages, attached by 
 stout stems. The form of the insect trap is shpper- 
 shaped, the color green, tinged with purple, and it is 
 furnished with two lateral oblique wings and a central 
 one dilated at the margin. These wings are fringed 
 with hairs, and over the top is a cup-shaped formation, 
 which acts as a lid to the trap beneath. This trap is, 
 as it were, baited with a sweet waterj fluid, which 
 attracts the insects, especially ants. The inner walls 
 are clouded with dark purple. The main stalk rises 
 about two feet above the cluster of leaves, and is 
 crowned in June and July with a cluster of small 
 white flowers. 
 
 7. Turning from these so-called sensitive-plants, in 
 which there appears to be an intelhgent movement, 
 something more than a merely automatic and, involun- 
 tary action of the leaves, let us consider the second 
 group of carnivorous plants, which may be grouped 
 as pitcher-plants. The Sarracenia variolaris is a 
 marked type, and is found in the Eastern and Southern 
 States of ]^orth America, widely distributed. The 
 whole inner surface of this tube-shaped flower is cov- 
 ered with fine bristles, projecting inward and inclin- 
 ing downward. This natural abattis extends to within 
 a short distance of the bottom. Below this line of 
 bristles the tube contains an astringent, sticky fluid, 
 which acts the part of both a narcotic and digester of 
 the ill-fated creature that lights on its treacherous 
 surface. That there may be no lack of food, J^ature 
 has provided this hypocritical plant with a cup of 
 sweets which is distributed in the form of drops of 
 
CARNIVOROUS PLANTS. 195 
 
 crystal honey. This secretion, which extends aloig 
 the outer ridge of the plant to the ground, is sweet 
 but not intoxicating, and it is up this alluring but 
 fatal pathway that ants, bugs, and other creeping in- 
 sects pass. Having once passed over the upper edge, 
 the fly, ant, or beetle becomes entangled in the mesh 
 of bristles within. Each struggle makes the end more 
 certain, as the prey is continually forced downward 
 till it falls into the fluid below, and then it passes 
 rapidly through the stages of intoxication and death. 
 So effectual is the breastwork of bristles that the 
 insect rarely escapes which crawls over the Vim of 
 that voracious cup. The tube is often found filled 
 to the depth of several inches vtdth a mass of decaying 
 hornets, beetles, ants, flies, "and worms. 
 
 8. Yet while insects of nearly every description 
 are found in this fatal pitcher, there are two which 
 successfully brave its dangers and make their home 
 in its leaves. One of these is a small moth, the 
 larva of which makes a web just within the mouth of 
 the tube and feeds on its substance. The other is a 
 flesh-fly, which drops her living larvae into the tube to 
 the number of a dozen or more. These feed on the 
 soft parts of the dead insects and on each other, so 
 that only one finally matures to burrow its way 
 through the base of the tube into the ground and be- 
 come a full-fledged fly. In this way the destructive 
 plant furnishes a nest and food for one of the crea- 
 tures on whose race it makes such continual war. 
 
 9. Closely allied to this Eastern genus of the 
 pitcher-plant is the Darlingtonia^ which is found on 
 
196 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 the western slopes of the Sierra ISTevada. This plant 
 has pitchers of two forms, one peculiar to the infant 
 state and constructed in the form of a twisted leaf, 
 and the other a large pitcher with an inflated head 
 which acts as a roof over the tube below. The flabby 
 two-leafed organ which hangs from the outer edge of 
 the head is orange-red in color, and smeared with a 
 sweet liquid on its inner surface. In the interior 
 structure of this plant there is a close resemblance to 
 the preceding one. We find the same network of 
 bristles, the same vat of intoxicating liquid below. 
 The head over the plant is perfectly waterproof, and 
 not a drop of rain or dew can ever get in to dilute 
 the strength of the death-doing secretion. In addi- 
 tion to the attraction of 'the honey-sweet fluid, the 
 colors of this plant seem to be chosen with a view to 
 charm the eye of the insect, and thus allure it to death 
 by the power of beauty. 
 
 10. The third, and in many respects most formi- 
 dable, type of carnivorous plants of this family is the 
 Wejpenthes^ which numbers upward of thirty different 
 species. They are wood-climbers, and the action of 
 the tendrils is a feature of equal interest with the 
 functions of the pitcher-shaped flower. In the young 
 plant the lid of the pitcher is tightly closed, but with 
 age it rises on the hinge and opens the cup to the 
 entrance of rain and dew. It is stated that these 
 pitchers have been found on the mountains of Borneo 
 measuring a foot and a half in length, and with a 
 bowl large enough to drown a small animal or a good- 
 sized bird. Regarding the interior formation of these 
 
CARNIVOROUS PLANTS. 197 
 
 bowls, we are told that from the mouth to a variable 
 distance down the pitcher is an opaque, smooth sur- 
 face, formed with a fine network of cells, covered with 
 a glass-like cuticle, which gives the insect no possible 
 foothold. Though exposed to the entrance of the rain, 
 the fluid in the cup is always acid, almost caustic, and 
 doubtless it is the digestive fluid of the plant. 
 
 11. That animal food is essential to the growth 
 and development of all these plants i^ beyond all 
 question. On close examination of a cross-section of 
 the pitcher of One of these vegetable ghouls there are 
 found near the bottom tubular cells leading down 
 through the stem into the main stalk. Through 
 these pipes or canals the liquid manure, so to speak, 
 resulting from the decomposition of insects, is con- 
 veyed to the various parts of the plant. The simi- 
 larity between this process and natural digestion will 
 at once impress itself on the mind. Many other 
 plants besides those which have been described are 
 flesh- eaters, and it is probable that science, as it ex- 
 tends its observations, will greatly increase the hst. 
 There are many parts of the world, especially in the 
 vast forests of the tropics, whose deep and gloomy 
 shades have never been penetrated by the eye of man, 
 and it would be by no means surprising if the adven- 
 turous naturalist should yet discover some monstrous 
 growth which would surpass, in the extent of its ap- 
 petite and its power of gratifying it, any plant yet 
 discovered — some ravenous shark or tiger of the vege- 
 table creation. 
 
 Anonymous, " A World of Wonders." 
 
198 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 THE COTTOISr-PLAl^T. 
 
 1. Under the Flantagenets and the Tudors wool 
 formed the chief export of England. The pastoral 
 races that inhabited the British Isles, unskilled in 
 weaving, suffered the more industrious Flemings to 
 convert their fleeces into tissues ; and the dominions 
 of the Duke of Burgundy, enriched by manufactures 
 and by the stimulus they gave to agriculture, became 
 the most prosperous part of Europe. At length the 
 islanders began to discover the sources of the wealth 
 which rendered Ghent and Bruges, Ypres and Lou- 
 vain, the marvel and envy of the mediseval world ; 
 and, gradually learning to keep their wool at home, 
 invited the Flemings to the shores of England. 
 
 2. The bigoted oppression of Spain came in aid 
 of this more enlightened policy. Our wool ceased to 
 be sent abroad, and English cloth eventually became 
 the chief of our exports. But, like all human affairs, 
 trade is subject to eternal fluctuation, new wants are 
 constantly created, new markets opened, new articles 
 introduced, and thus, almost within the memory of 
 living man, the wool-manufactory has ceased to be 
 the great staple of our industry ; and, thanks to the 
 inventive genius of our Arkwrights and Cromptong, 
 a vegetable fiber furnished by a plant totally unknown 
 to our forefathers now ranks as the first of all the 
 world-wide importations of England. 
 
 3. There are many different species of the cotton- 
 plant — ^herbaceous, shrubby, and arboreal. Their 
 
THE COTTON-PLANT. I99 
 
 original birtliplace is the tropical zone, where they are 
 found grooving wild in all parts of the world ; but the 
 herbaceous species still thrive under a mean tempera- 
 ture of from 60° to 64° F., and are capable of being 
 cultivated with advantage as far as 40° or even 46° 
 north latitude. The five-lobed leaves have a dark- 
 green color, the flowers are yellow with a purple cen- 
 ter, and produce a pod about the size of a walnut, 
 which, when ripe, bursts and exhibits to view the fleecy 
 cotton in which the seeds are securely imbedded. 
 
 4. It is almost superfluous to mention that the 
 United States is the first cotton -producing country in 
 the world. The area suitable for cotton south of the 
 thirty-sixth degree of latitude comprises more than 
 thirty-nine milhon acres, of which less than one sixth 
 part is now devoted to the plant. The yield depends 
 in part upon the length of season. Seven months are 
 required for an average crop, and the average periods 
 in which the last killing frost, of spring and the first 
 killing frost of autumn occur are March 23d and Oc- 
 tober 26th. Cotton is cultivated in large fields, and, 
 when the soil is superior, the plant rises to a height 
 of six or eight feet, although in the richest canebrake 
 soil, exhausted by successive crops, it dwindles down 
 to a height of three or four feet only. The aspect of 
 a^ cotton field is most pleasing in the autumn, when 
 the dark-colored foliage and bright yellow flowers, 
 intermingling with the snow-white down of the pods 
 when burst, produce a charming contrast. At that 
 time all hands are at work, for it is important to pluck 
 as much as possible during the first hours of morning. 
 
200 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 since the heat of the sun injures the color of the cot- 
 ton, and the over-ripe capsules shed their contents upon 
 the ground or allow the wind to carry them away. 
 
 5. The collected produce is immediately 'carried 
 to the steam-mill to be cleansed of the seeds and then 
 closely packed in bales, which in the seaports are 
 further reduced by hydraulic presses to half their 
 previous volume, thus causing a great saving in the 
 freight. Large clippers frequently carry eight or ten 
 thousand of these bales to Liverpool, whence, perhaps 
 on the day of their arrival, they are conveyed by rail 
 to the next manufacturing town, which returns them 
 in a few days to the port, ready to clothe the Austra- 
 lian gold-digger or the laborer on the banks of the 
 Ganges. 
 
 6. India, which still in the last century provided 
 Europe with the finest cambrics and muslins, now 
 yearly receives from England cotton goods to a large 
 amount. Thus the stream of trade may be said to 
 have rolled backward to its source, for though the 
 wants of the Hindoo are easily satisfied and cotton 
 grows at his very door, yet his hand-loom is unable to 
 compete with the machinery and the capital of Eng- 
 land. Even in the exportation of the raw material 
 he labors under great disadvantage when compared 
 with America, though railroads and ? better system of 
 culture have done much to improve the quality and 
 facilitate the transport of Indian cotton. 
 
 G. Hartwig, "The Tropical World." 
 
THE ROSE AMONG THE ANCIENTS. 201 
 
 THE EOSE AMOKG THE AKCIE:n:TS. 
 
 1. The rose was the theme of the earliest poets of 
 antiquity, and it was doubtless one of the first plants 
 selected to adorn the gardens which were laid out 
 around the new habitations constructed upon the ex- 
 change of the wandering for a civilized mode of life. 
 The most ancient authors upon husbandry whose 
 works are extant have all treated of the culture of 
 roses : Theophrastus among the Greeks, and among 
 the Romans Yarro, Columella, Palladius, and Pliny. 
 To Pliny are we specially indebted for information 
 on this subject, as the entire fourth chapter of the 
 twentieth book of his " ]^atural History" is devoted 
 to roses, and they are also occasionally mentioned in 
 other parts of the work. But after all the informa- 
 tion thus obtained much yet remains to be desired, 
 and, although we find in other ancient authors some 
 curious facts bearing upon other points in the history 
 of the rose, they are mostly so general in their char- 
 acter as to give us very little insight into the actual 
 culture Qf the rose at those periods. 
 
 2. The profuseness with which they were used 
 among the Greeks, the Pomans, the Egyptians, and 
 other ancient natii)ns in their religious solemnities, 
 their public ceremonies, and even in the ordinary cus- 
 toms of private life, would lead us to suppose, and 
 with some degree of correctness, that roses were very 
 abundantly cultivated by them all, and we are in- 
 clined to think that their cultivation was then far more 
 
202 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 general than at the present time, although the art of 
 producing them was in its infancy. However surpris- 
 ing in other respects may have been the progress of 
 the culture of roses within forty years, particularly 
 in France, Holland, and Belgium, there can be little 
 doubt that, although the Eomans were acquainted with 
 a much smaller number of varieties than the moderns, 
 yet flowers of those varieties were far more abundant 
 than the aggregate quantity of flowers of all the varie- 
 ties of roses cultivated at the present day. It can 
 not be positively asserted that the hybrid perpetual 
 roses of the present day were unknown at Eome, 
 since the gardeners of that city practiced sowing the 
 seeds of the rose, by which mode many of the most 
 remarkable varieties of that class have been obtained 
 by modern cultivators. The Romans, however, pre- 
 ferred to propagate by cuttings, which produced flow- 
 ers much sooner than the seed-bed. 
 
 3. But, though the Eomans may have had roses of 
 the same species with some of those which we now 
 cultivate, it is scarcely probable that these species 
 could have continued until this period and escaped 
 the devastation attendant on the revolutions of em- 
 pire, or the more desolating invasions of the Huns 
 and Goths. Thus it is that those roses of Psestum to 
 which allusion is so frequently made by ancient writ- 
 ers, and which, according to Yirgil and Pliny, bloomed 
 semi-annually and were common in the gardens 
 of that city, are not now to be found. Jussieu and 
 Laudresse, two French botanists, successively visited 
 Italy with the express object of finding this twice- 
 
THE ROSE AMONG THE ANCIENTS. 203 
 
 bearing rose in Psestum or its environs, jet, notwith- 
 standing their carefnlly prosecuted researches, thej 
 could find no traces of it whatever. Although the 
 number of varieties known to the Romans was very 
 Hmited, they had discovered a method of making the 
 blooming season continue many months. According 
 to Phny, the roses of Carthage, in Africa, came for- 
 ward early and bloomed in winter, those of Campania 
 bloomed next in order, then those of Malta, and, 
 lastly, those of Paestum, which flowered in the spring 
 and autumn. It was probably the blooming of this 
 last species which the gardeners of Rome discovered 
 (in Seneca's time) the secret of retarding by a certain 
 process, or of hastening by means of their warm 
 greenhouses. 
 
 4. The Romans derived the use of this flower 
 from the G-reeks. In Greece and throughout the 
 East roses were cultivated, not only for the various 
 purposes we have mentioned, but also for the extrac- 
 tion of their perfumes. Among the many plans which 
 they adopted for preserving the flower was that of 
 cutting off the top of a reed, splitting it down a short 
 distance, and inclosing in it a number of rose-buds, 
 which, being bound around with papyrus, prevented 
 their fragrance from escaping. The Greeks also 
 deemed it a great addition to the fragrance of the rose 
 to plant garlic near its roots. The island of Rhodes, 
 which has successively borne many names, was par- 
 ticularly indebted to the culture of roses for that 
 which it bears at this day. It was the Isle of Roses, 
 the Greek for rose being Rodon. Medals of Rhodes, 
 
204 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 "\ 
 
 whose reverse impressions present a rose in bloom on 
 one side and the sunflower on the other, are to be 
 found even now in cabinets of curiosities. 
 
 5. Extravagance in roses among the Romans kept 
 pace with the increase of their power, until they at 
 length desired them at all seasons. At first thej pro- 
 cured their winter's supply from Egypt, but subse- 
 quently attained themselves such skill in their culture 
 as to produce them in abundance, even at the coldest 
 season of the year, and, according to Seneca, by means 
 of greenhouses heated by pipes filled with hot water. 
 During the reign of Domitian the forcing of roses was 
 carried to such perfection, and flowers produced in 
 winter in so great abundance, that those brought from 
 Egypt, as before mentioned, excited only the con- 
 tempt of the citizens of the world's metropolis. This 
 fact, as also handed down to us by the epigram of 
 Martial, is of great assistance in estimating the impor- 
 tance of rose-culture at that period, and in showing 
 how the art of cultivating this plant had spread, and 
 how it was already far advanced among the ancient 
 Romans and their contemporaries. 
 
 6. If the Egyptians cultivated roses for transpor- 
 tation to Rome during the winter, they must have had 
 very extensive plantations for the purpose. The ex- 
 portation could not have been of loose flowers, "for 
 they would have been withered long before the ter- 
 mination of the voyage ; neither could it have been 
 of rooted plants in a dormant state, as nurserymen 
 now send them to every part of the world, because 
 the Romans had at that time no means of causing 
 
THE ROSE AMONG THE ANCIENTS. 205 
 
 them to vegetate and bldom in the winter. On the 
 contrary, the cultivators at Alexandria and Memphis 
 must, of necessity, have sent them away in the vases 
 and boxes in which they had planted them with that 
 object, and when they were just beginning to break 
 from the bnd, in order that they might arrive at 
 Rome at the moment they commenced expanding. 
 At that remote period, when navigation was far be- 
 hind its present state of perfection, the voyage from 
 the mouth of the Mle to the coast of Italy occupied 
 more than twenty days. When this long voyage is 
 considered, and also the quantity of roses required by 
 the Romans to en wreath their crowns and garlands, 
 to cover their tables and couches and the pavements 
 of their festive halls, and to surround the urns which 
 contained the ashes of their dead, it is evident that 
 the Egyptians, who traded in roses, in order to satisfy 
 the prodigality of the Romans, would be compelled 
 to keep in readiness a certain number of vessels to be 
 laden with boxes or vases of rose-plants, so prepared 
 as not to bloom before their delivery at Rome. The 
 cost of roses thus delivered in Rome must have been 
 immense, but we do not find a single passage in an- 
 cient authors which can give any light on this point ; 
 they only tell us that nothing for the gratification 
 of luxury was considered too costly by the wealthy 
 Roman citizens. 
 
 7. Nor do they afford more positive information 
 as to the species of rose cultivated on the borders of 
 the Mle, to gratify this taste of the Romans. Ac- 
 cording to Delile, there were founj in Egypt at the 
 
206 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 time of the French expedition into that country only 
 the white rose and the Centifolia or hundred-leaved 
 — ^two species not very susceptible of either a forcing 
 or retarding culture. The only rose known at that 
 time which bloomed in the winter was the rose of 
 Psestum, referred to by Yirgil as '' biferique rosaria 
 Psesti," and which was probably the same as our 
 monthly damask rose, and which produced in Egypt 
 and Pome flowers at all seasons, as the damask doe^ 
 now with us, under a proper mode of culture. 
 
 Samuel B. Parsons, " The Bose." 
 
 A CHAPTEK 0]Sr FLOWEES. 
 
 " With what a glory comes and goes the year ! 
 The buds of spring, those beautiful harbingers 
 Of sunny skies and cloudless times, enjoy 
 Life's newness, and earth's garniture spread out; 
 And when the silver habit of the clouds 
 Comes down upon the autumn sun, and with 
 A sober gladness the old year takes up 
 His bright inheritance of golden fruits, 
 A pomp and pageant fill the splendid scene." 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 1. Flowers ! Wild flowers ! how full of associa- 
 tion is the very name ! How fraught with reminis- 
 cences of the breezy hill ; how redolent of woodland 
 odors ; how musical with the dash of the waterfall, 
 
A CHAPTEH ON FJ.OVVERS. 207 
 
 the rushing of the mountain stream, the rustling of 
 the sedgy rivulet ! The blossoms which reward our 
 patient care within the garden's bounds are beautiful 
 bejond compare ; they have grown up beneath our 
 guardianship, and they recompense us as only I^ature 
 can recompense the heart that values her gifts. They 
 are beautiful, and we watch their development, we 
 dwell upon their loveliness, we drink their perfumed 
 breath with a sense of pleasure and of pride. But 
 the wild flowers — ^the gems which God's own hand 
 has scattered abroad in the wilderness — blossoms sown 
 by the wind, nursed by the shower, peering from 
 their covert on the hillside, smihng upon us from the 
 cleft of some dark ravine, looking down tenderly 
 from the face of some rugged cliff — these bring to 
 our souls those surprises of sudden joy which keep 
 the heart forever awake to a blessedness like that of 
 innocent childhood. 
 
 " Nature ne'er betrays 
 The heart that loves her. Other joys may fail, 
 And other hopes may wither ; bUght may fall 
 On Love's fair blossom, and dark mildew steal 
 O'er wealth's rich gifts ; the laurel crown may di'op 
 Its shining leaves, and all that men most prize 
 May cheat their souls with promises untrue; 
 But Nature's gifts are boundless, she doth show 
 Ever a loving face to those who come 
 In lowliness of spirit to her shrine." 
 
 2. Of all remedies for a world-wearied spirit, 
 commend me to a day in the woods. The feeling of 
 freedom, the unconsciousness of having left turmoil 
 
208 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 and disquiet behind, becomes the first element of re- 
 pose to the heart. Then come the thousand new de- 
 lights — new, even if enjoyed a myriad of times before 
 — which I^ature offers to our acceptance. The soul 
 and the sense alike are gratified. Beneath our feet is 
 spread a carpet of moss and fallen leaves, whose 
 elastic fabric gives buoyancy to our step. "We inhale 
 the spicy fragrance of the woodland air ; we gaze up- 
 ward and behold the towering majesty of the forest 
 king ; we look beside us, and the meek beauty of the 
 wild flower greets the eye ; while the ear, pained so 
 long by the confused murmur of a crowd, is now 
 soothed by a stillness unbroken save by JSTature's 
 voices. 
 
 3. Let us forth and wander, in memory or in 
 fancy, through such a scene, in the soft balmy days 
 of early summer, or beneath the lingering influences 
 of departing spring. The sun beats with too fierce a 
 heat on the upland walk ; but lo ! a green and 
 sheltered vale invites our steps, and leads to the cool 
 forest shade. We seek no path, for we would fain 
 wind as we list through the leafy labyrinth, and look 
 on J^ature in her most secluded bowers. The inter- 
 lacing branches have shut out every ray of sunshine, 
 and the shadows lie in heavy blackness upon the thick 
 turf. A pleasant shiver runs through the heated 
 frame, and we pause a moment to enjoy the grateful 
 coolness. A little onward lies a discrowned monarch 
 of the woods ; he has fallen beneath the weight of 
 years, and moss and wild vines are wreathing the up- 
 turned roots, while from the spot where he once flour- 
 
A CHAPTER ON FLOWERS. 209 
 
 ished are already springing other trees and of a totally 
 different race. 
 
 4. How beautifully tlie sunshine breaks into the 
 glade through the opening left by the ruined tree ! 
 See how it flickers through the maple's spreading 
 branches, glancing with arrowy beams between the 
 pagoda-like boughs of the hemlock, and touching with 
 gold the dark leaves of the gnarled oak, while it falls 
 like network upon the greensward, bringing out a 
 thousand beauties before unseen. Look how the red 
 berries of the serpent's-eye moss gleam out from their 
 velvet sheaths, mark the pale beauty of yon clump of 
 violets, whose perfume would betray their presence, 
 even though we saw them not. Behold the gorgeous 
 garb of that glowing wood-lily, lifting its head as if in 
 wonder at this sudden intrusion of sunlight upon its 
 royal retiracy. 
 
 5. Let us seat ourselves at the root of this rough 
 old oak. The short grass lies thick beneath our feet, 
 while a cushion of rich velvet moss is spread over the 
 rustic couch we have chosen. Oh ! we have driven 
 a tiny snake from his covert, and he glides rapidly 
 away from his woman-bom enemy. The squirrel — 
 the harlequin of the woods — ^bounds in antic mirth 
 "above our heads, and, as he looks down upon us with 
 
 a sort of ludicrous gravity in his little black eyes, 
 seems disposed to test our humor by showering his nut- 
 shells in the midst of us. The rabbit gazes out from 
 his hiding-place, and then, pointing his long ears in 
 terror, leaps away to find some more secure retreat. 
 Nor are there wanting sweet sounds in this sylvan 
 15 
 
210 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 hall. High on the topmost bough of the tallest tree 
 (for he is the most ambitious of warblers) is poised 
 the bluebird, making the clear air echo with his rich 
 notes. The gushing melody of the wood-robin comes 
 at intervals like the bubbling over of a musical foun- 
 tain, while blended in sweet concord come the voices 
 of an indistinguishable throng of lesser songsters. 
 And when, beneath the midday sun, the birds cease 
 their carols, then we have the vague music of leafy 
 harps, the distant murmur of a mountain stream, the 
 quiet ripple of a woodland brook. 
 
 " Earth speaks in many voices : from the roar 
 
 Of the wild cataract, whose ceaseless din 
 Shakes the far forest and resounding shore, 
 
 To the meek rivulet, which seems to win 
 Its modest way amid spring's pleasant bowers, 
 Singing its quiet tune to charm earth's perfumed flowers. 
 
 " Earth speaks in many voices: from. the song 
 
 Of the free bird which soars to heaven's high porch, 
 
 As if on joy's full tide it swept along 
 
 To the low hum which wakens when the torch 
 
 Summons the insect myriads of the night 
 
 To sport their little hour and perish in the light. 
 
 " Earth speaks in many voices : music breathes 
 In the sweet murmur of the summer breeze 
 
 That plays around the wild flower's pendent wreaths, 
 Or swells its diapason 'mid the trees 
 
 When eve's cold shadow steals o'er lawn and lea. 
 
 And day's glad sounds give place to twilight minstrelsy." 
 
 6. Eeader, did you ever spend a day in the woods, 
 loitering the hours away amid sights and sounds like 
 
A CHAPTER ON FLOWERS. 211 
 
 these, and wending your course homeward at night- 
 fall with a handful of flowers, a bunch of moss, or a 
 curiously knotted stick as your only visible reward, 
 while the wise and practical notabilities who call 
 themselves your friends would shake their heads, half 
 in scorn, half in pity, of your idleness and folly ? 
 And did you not feel that the patience with which 
 you listened to the lessons of narrow-minded world- 
 liness was gained from the quiet teachings of JS^ature 
 in her woodland temple ? 
 
 T. Oh ! it is good for the heart to give itself up to 
 such pure and genial influences. Refreshing to the 
 soul are these frequent draughts from the well-spring 
 of truth. We learn prudence and circumspection and 
 self -concealment in our intercourse with the world ; 
 but it is only in the presence of the works of God that 
 we learn to commune with the living soul which he 
 has breathed into our frail and perishing body. In 
 the thronged marts of our busy cities so much is done 
 by man, so many wonderful things are achieved by 
 his enterprise and genius, that we are apt to forget 
 the Creator who gave him power over all things 
 earthly. But when we see around us the rich garni- 
 ture of the flelds, the hills clothed in verdure, the 
 trees lifting their proud heads to heaven, the flowers 
 opening their many-colored urns of incense to the 
 breeze, when we hear no sounds but the voices of 
 God's humbler creatures, then do we feel ourselves 
 alone in the presence of the Most High. Then 
 do we find that within the recesses of our hearts 
 is a sanctuary where only God is worshiped ; then 
 
212 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 do we learn the mystery of faith and the peace of 
 hope. 
 
 8. It was Wordsworth, was it not ? who thanked 
 God for the mountains, feehng in his utmost heart 
 how much the sublimity of external hfe aided the 
 soul in its lofty soarings to the infinite. May we not 
 also thank the Creator in the same spirit for the lowly 
 blossom which spangles the wayside, as if to show that 
 the Being whose omnipotent hand could fix the moun- 
 tain on its rocky base had yet the omniscient good- 
 ness to foresee and provide for the humblest wants of 
 his creatures. As if to make us feel that the Almighty 
 Creator was also our " Father in heaven." 
 
 9. Beautiful indeed are the wild flowers of our 
 own dear land. They grow not in hedge-rows and 
 beside the tiny cottage, but they hide within the 
 forest, they climb the lofty mountain, they enamel 
 our wide expanse of wilderness. Listen to the sweet 
 utterance of " Eva the Sinless " : 
 
 " They tremble on the mountain height, 
 
 The fissured rock they press, 
 The desert wild with heat and sand 
 
 Shares too their blessedness ; 
 And wheresoe'er the weary heart 
 
 Turns in its dim despair, 
 The meek-eyed blossom upward looks 
 
 Inviting it to prayer. 
 
 " Each tiny leaf becomes a scroll 
 Inscribed with holy truth, 
 A lesson that around the soul 
 Should keep the dew of youth. 
 
THE TALIPOT-TREE. 213 
 
 Bright missals from angelic throngs 
 
 In every wayside left : 
 How were the earth of glory shorn 
 
 Were it of flowers bereft ! " 
 
 Emma C. Embuey, " American Wild Flowers." 
 
 THE TALIPOT-TKEE. 
 
 1. There are few objects in the vegetable king- 
 dom more remarkable and beautiful, or more useful 
 to man, than the talipot-tree, which is a species of 
 palm (the Corypha uinbracuUfera of Linnseus) pecul- 
 iar to the island of Cejlon and the Malabar coast. It 
 is said to be found also in the Marquesas and Friendly 
 Islands. Robert Knox says that it is as big and tall 
 as a ship's mast, but Cordiner gives more definite 
 dimensions by stating that one which he measured 
 was a hundred feet high and five feet in circumfer- 
 ence near the ground. The stem of this tree is per- 
 fectly straight ; it gradually diminishes as it ascends, 
 the circumference of the upper part being about half 
 that of the base ; it is strong enough to resist the most 
 violent tropical winds. It has no branches, and the 
 leaves only spring from its summit. These leaves, 
 which when on the tree are almost circular, are of 
 such prodigious diameter that they can shelter ten 
 or a dozen (Knox says from fifteen to twenty) men, 
 standing near to each other. 
 
214 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 2. Tlie flower of the tree whicli shoots above the 
 leaves is at first a cluster of bright yellow blossoms, 
 exceedingly beautiful to the eye, but emitting an odor 
 too strong and pungent to be agreeable. Before its 
 development the flower is inclosed in a hard rind, 
 which rind, upon the expansion of the flower, bursts 
 with a sharp noise. The flower shoots pyramidically 
 to a great height, frequently adding as much as thirty 
 feet to the elevation of the tree. From the flower 
 proceed the fruit or seeds, which are as large as cher- 
 ries, and exceedingly numerous, but not eatable ; they 
 are only useful as seeds to reproduce and multiply the 
 tree. It appears that the natives do not sow them, 
 but leave that operation entirely to IsTature. The 
 flower and the fruit only appear once on one tree. 
 Their appearance betokens that the tree has attained 
 to old age, which, according to the natives, it does in 
 a hundred years ; Ribeyro, a Portuguese writer, says 
 in about thirty years, which is more hkely to be cor- 
 rect. As soon as the fruit or seeds are ripe, the tree 
 dries up and decays so rapidly that in two or three 
 weeks it is seen prostrate and rotting on the ground. 
 
 3. Knox asserts that if the tree be cut down be- 
 fore it runs to seed, the pith, largely contained within 
 the stem, is nutritious and wholesome, and adds that 
 the natives take this pith "and beat in mortars to 
 flour, and bake cakes of it, which taste much like to 
 wheat bread, and it serves them instead of corn before 
 their harvest be ripe." We have not found these cakes 
 mentioned by any other writer on Ceylon, but as Knox 
 was so veracious and correct, we may admit that the 
 
THE TALIPOT-TREE. 215 
 
 natives were accustomed to make them. A better- 
 kiio^\Ti fact about the uses of the inner parts of the 
 tree is that sago is made from them. The stem or 
 trunk of the talipot, like that of most other palms, is 
 extremely hard without but soft and spongy within, 
 the greater part of its diameter being a soft, bro^vnish, 
 cellular substance. The sago is made by beating the 
 spongy part of the stem in a mortar, by which means 
 the fecula is procured. 
 
 4. Still, however, the great usefulness of the tree 
 is in its leaves. Growing on the tree, these leaves, 
 when expanded, are of a beautiful dark-green color ; 
 but those chiefly used are cut before they spread out, 
 and have, and retain for ages, a pale, brownish -yellow 
 color, not unlike old parchment. Their preparation 
 for use is very simple : they are rubbed with hard, 
 smooth pieces of wood, which express any humidity 
 that may remain, and increase their pliabihty, which 
 is naturally very great. This wonderful leaf is made 
 like a fan, and like a fan it can be closed or expanded, 
 and Avith almost as little exertion. It is in fact used 
 as a fan by the natives of Ceylon, and is at the same 
 time their only umbrella and parasol ; in addition to 
 which uses it forms their only tent when they are in 
 the field, and, cut up into strips, it serves them to 
 wi'ite upon instead of paper. 
 
 5. The leaf is so light that an entire one can be 
 carried in the hand ; but as this, from its great size 
 when expanded, would be inconvenient, the natives 
 cut segments from it, which they use to defend them- 
 selves from the scorching rays of the sun or from the 
 
216 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 rains. The narrow part is carried foremost, the better 
 to enable those who use them to penetrate through 
 the woods and thickets with which most of the coun- 
 try abounds. ]^o handles are used, but the two sides 
 of the leaf are grasped by the bearer. " This," says 
 Knox, in his quaint manner, " is a marvelous mercy 
 which Almighty God hath bestowed upon this poor 
 and naked people in this rainy country ! " He ought 
 to have added in this hot country, for the heats of 
 Ceylon, whose mean temperature is eighty-one de- 
 grees, are frequently and for long periods tremendous, 
 and the talipot-leaf is quite as valuable a protection 
 against them as against rain. 
 
 6. However much water may fall on the leaf, it 
 imbibes no humidity, remaining dry and light as ever. 
 The British troops, in their campaign in the jungles 
 against the Cingalese in 1817 and 1818, found to their 
 cost how excellent a preservative it was against wet 
 and damp. The enemy's musketmen were furnished, 
 each with a talipot-leaf, by means of which they 
 always kept their arms and powder perfectly dry, 
 and could fire upon the invading forces, while fre- 
 quently the British muskets, which had no such pro- 
 tection, were rendered useless by the heavy rains and 
 the moisture of the woods and thickets. 
 
 7. As tents, the talipot-leaves are set up on end. 
 Two or three talipot umbrellas thus employed make 
 an excellent shelter, and from being so light and port- 
 able, each leaf folding up to the size of a man's arm, 
 they are admirably adapted for this important service. 
 The chiefs, moreover, have regularly formed square 
 
THE TALIPOT-TREE. 217 
 
 tents made of them. In these the leaves are neatly 
 sewed together and laid over a framework ; the whole 
 is light, and can be packed up in a very small compass. 
 
 8. When used in lieu of paper, as we have men- 
 tioned, thej are cut into strips (those which we have 
 seen are about fifteen inches long by three broad), 
 soaked for a short time in boihng water, rubbed back- 
 ward and forward over a smooth piece of wood to 
 make them phable, and then carefully dried. The 
 Cingalese write or engrave their letters upon them 
 mth a stylus, or pointed steel instrument, and then 
 rub them over with a dark-colored substance, which, 
 only remaining in the parts etched or scratched, gives 
 the characters greater relief, and makes them more easy 
 to read. The coloring matter is rendered liquid by 
 being mixed with cocoanut oil, and when dry is not 
 easily effaced. On common occasions they write on 
 the leaf of another species of palm-tree, but the tali- 
 pot is used in all government dispatches, important 
 documents, such as title-deeds to estates, etc., and in 
 their books. A Cingalese book is a bundle of these 
 strips tied up together. As even the lawyers and the 
 learned in this country are very deficient in chrono- 
 logical knowledge, great confusion occurs as to dates ; 
 and it is very common to see a Cingalese judge at- 
 tempting to ascertain the antiquity of a document 
 produced in court by smelling and cutting it. 
 
 9. The oil employed in the writing imparts a strong 
 odor which preserves it from insects, but this odor is 
 changed by age. The talipot, however, appears to 
 have in itself a natural quality which deters the at- 
 
218 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 tack of insects, and preserves it from the decay of age 
 even without the oil. It may be worth while observ- 
 ing that the Cingalese, who engrave the most solemn 
 of their deeds, such as the foundation of donations to 
 a temple, on plates of fine copper, which are generally 
 neatly edged with silver, always make these plates of 
 precisely the same shape as the talipot strips used for 
 writing. 
 
 10. Besides all the uses described, the Cingalese 
 employ the talipot-leaf extensively in thatching their 
 houses. They also manufacture hats from it; these 
 hats are made with brims as broad as an outstretched 
 umbrella, and are chiefly worn by women nursing, to 
 defend them and their infants from the heat. 
 
 11. The talipot is not a very common tree at pres- 
 ent, and is rarely seen growing by those who only visit 
 the coasts of the island and do not penetrate into the 
 interior. It seems to grow scattered among other trees 
 
 in the forests. 
 
 Anonymous, " The Wonders of the World." 
 
 A TALK ABOUT USEFUL PLANTS. 
 
 1. The world is a great picture-book. Wherever we 
 walk or ride over its surface we see the picture-stories 
 on its stones and leaves. We see the grand procession 
 of its seasons, the winds, the storms, heat and cold, 
 sunlight and shadow, and we read in the rocks the 
 history of the world. We have already observed that 
 
A TALK ABOUT USEFUL PLANTS. 219 
 
 the surface of the globe has been prepared by frosts 
 and rains as a home for all nsefuland beautiful plants 
 — ^the rose, the cotton-plant, the vine, the grass for 
 the cattle of the field, the trees that give us shade and 
 shelter, and other useful plants bearing fruits after 
 their kind. Where there is soil of any kind we may 
 find plants. Except in a few barren and desolate 
 places, we shall find plants covering the entii'e surface 
 of the ground, and even extending under water along 
 all the coasts. Any spot of ground, if the chmate be 
 favorable, will be covered with plants in time. 'No 
 matter how thin the soil, plants will begin to grow, 
 and, dying, prepare a place for others. We may dig 
 up barren sand, and put it in a warm place and give 
 it water, and plants will appear. "We may break up a 
 stone and place the dry powder in a greenhouse, and 
 in a few weeks it will be covered with a green film. 
 If we examine this with a microscope, we shall find 
 the soft slime that has gathered on the broken stone 
 is formed of minute plants. Every stone wall along a 
 country lane becomes in a few months covered with 
 minute plants that we call lichens and mosses. Stag- 
 nant water in warm weather is soon tinted green, and a 
 powerful glass will show in a single drop hundreds of 
 fast-growing plants. We may leave a piece of bread 
 in a closet, and find after a few days that it is spotted 
 with mold, and this soft gray matter, we shall find, is 
 a plant, a mold-plant. Everywhere in the air are the 
 seeds of plants, ready at all times to spring up as new 
 plants. In June and July, in the ^Northern and 
 Middle States, any spot of soil left untouched for 
 
220 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 ten days will be covered with growing plants. In 
 some of the Southern States not a spot of ground re- 
 mains undisturbed more than a few weeks at any time 
 without new plants appearing as by magic. We can 
 dig up the subsoil anywhere and scatter it upon the 
 surface in June, and it will soon be green. We can 
 dig up a frozen clod from the garden in January and 
 put it in a flower-pot in a warm window, and in a few 
 days after it has thawed and dried, plants of some kind 
 will begin to grow. There may be soils in deserts, 
 but there is no rain. There may be soils in Grreen- 
 land, but it is always winter. Wherever there is a 
 soil and the right climate, we shall find plants. 
 
 2. ]S"ot only are there plants to be found in all 
 parts of the earth, but there is every reason to think 
 that they have been growing on some part of our 
 globe for a very long time. Some of the plants we 
 now see in our gardens are known to have been 
 growing in China and Egypt three thousand years 
 before Christ was born. That time is short indeed 
 for others, and we must count backward millions on 
 millions of years to the time when they first began to 
 grow. The plants that grew in those old days were 
 probably very small, neither bearing fruit nor fit for 
 food for animals. Then there came slowly better and 
 larger plants. There were new soils and new cli- 
 mates, and the plants, finding new conditions in which 
 they must live, changed their shape and size, and be- 
 came new kinds and new varieties. The Creator was 
 in no haste. A few millions of years made no differ- 
 ence in his work, and no doubt the plants, left to 
 
A TALK ABOUT USEFUL PLANTS. 221 
 
 themselves, grew up to the tribes and famihes m 
 which they now appear. In time many plants of 
 strange forms and gigantic stature appeared and 
 spread over the earth, and then disappeared utterly, 
 so that we can not find any like them now living. 
 Even to this day we can not be sure that we have 
 found all the kinds and varieties of plants that grow. 
 Some traveler may bring back from South America 
 or Africa a new plant that has no name, and is not 
 described in any of our lists of plants. There are 
 also other plants that seem to be disappearing, and 
 perhaps in a few years not one of their kind can be 
 found in the world. 
 
 3. While plants now cover almost the whole of 
 the land surface of the earth, and while we may be 
 sure that they have been growing here for countless 
 centuries on centuries, we must notice that not all 
 plants are equally useful either as food for ourselves 
 or for cattle, or useful for other purposes. Millions 
 on millions of plants grow every summer in this coun- 
 try that are of no use whatever. Many more are an 
 injury, because growing where better plants should 
 grow ; many are harmful and troublesome, and some 
 are even poisonous. It has always been so since men 
 began to live on the earth, and it probably took a very 
 long time to discover which of all the many varieties 
 of plants were really good and useful. There is 
 every reason to think that plants appeared and grew 
 upon the earth millions of years before the first men 
 came to eat their fruits. These men, far back in the 
 unknown past, were poor, starving creatures, dwell- 
 
222 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 ing in trees and in caves, and with only sticks for arms 
 and stones for tools. They found certain plants bore 
 fruits, that the leaves of others were soft and succu- 
 lent and fit to eat, or had roots that were fit for a cold 
 breakfast. We can not tell when it happened ; a 
 million years ago, perhaps longer. No one can tell 
 when or where men first saw that certain plants were 
 pleasant to the eye and good for food. In time the 
 art of cooking was invented, and then the number of 
 plants fit for food greatly increased, because many 
 plants that were not fit to eat raw could now be used. 
 4. Some prehistoric discoverer also learned that the 
 pith or interior parts of certain plants could be made 
 into cloths for garments and tent-covers. Other dis- 
 coverers learned that certain trees gave v^ood admira- 
 ble for bows and for spears. At first, and perhaps for 
 many thousand years, all plants grew wild and took 
 care of themselves. The idea of planting seeds and 
 cultivating the ground about the young plants was a 
 great step in advance. As soon as men began to do 
 this they learned that the plants were greatly im- 
 proved, and that they themselves, their wives and 
 children could hve in greater comfort and safety. 
 When they depended alone on wild fruits, nuts, and 
 berries they were little better than wild beasts. When 
 they began to cultivate plants, men became some- 
 thing like civilized human beings. So it has been 
 since men began to care for plants. The more they 
 cultivated them, the more civilized they became, the 
 greater the variety and the value of the wealth they 
 won from the ground. 
 
A TALK ABOUT USEFUL PLANTS. 223 
 
 5. Then another curious thing happened. When 
 men began to cultivate plants thej gained more food 
 to eat, better garments to wear, and greater comfort 
 in living, and learned that the plants were hkewise 
 improved. The first wild fruits were small and sour, 
 or of very poor flavor. As soon as the plants were 
 cultivated the fruits grew larger and sweeter, and the 
 crops were more abundant. The plants, finding them- 
 selves protected and allowed to grow in better soil, 
 quickly took advantage of these things and changed 
 their character, becoming larger and stronger, and 
 bearing more beautiful fiowers and finer fruits. As 
 men became more skillful, the plants improved still 
 more and changed their character greatly, and new 
 kinds appeared. To-day many of us might not recog- 
 nize a wild apple if we found one on a tree in the 
 woods, so small and poor would it appear beside the 
 hundreds of beautiful kinds we see in the fruit stores. 
 We see the wild rose by the roadside in June, and 
 wonder how the Jacqueminot, the Sofrano, and La 
 France could have come from such a plain, single 
 flower as that. At one time these splendid beauties 
 of the greenhouse did not exist, and there were only 
 the small wild roses to be found anywhere. In the 
 same way all our fine vegetables have come from a 
 few small wild plants growing in the woods. 
 
 6. The work of cultivating and improving plants 
 began before there were books or any means of re- 
 cording events ; or, as we say, in " prehistoric times." 
 It may have been thousands of years before any man 
 thought of such a thing as history. After a while 
 
224 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 one man told another of the plants he had taken from 
 the woods, and he repeated it to others. Still other 
 men learned by experiment how to cultivate the soil 
 and explained this to others who wished to learn, and 
 thus in time there grew up the art of agriculture, or 
 field-culture. A great many facts were collected and 
 handed down from father to son, and at last these 
 facts were written out and put in books. So we find 
 the art of caring for plants is one of the oldest arts in 
 the world. Men also began to study plants as living 
 things, without regard to their being useful or not, 
 and there grew up the science of botany. This sci- 
 ence has given names to plants, has classified them, 
 or arranged them into groups and families, and has 
 gathered a great many facts as to how plants live and 
 grow. Botany includes the study of all plants, both 
 wild and useful plants. It is a delightful and most 
 interesting science, and will repay years of study. 
 
 Charles Barnard, " Talks about our Useful Plants." 
 
 SUBTEEEA]!^EAJSr YEGETATIOK 
 
 1. Of all the phenomena which attract the natu- 
 ralist's attention, as he wanders over the surface of 
 the earth, there is none which makes a deeper im- 
 pression on his mind than the omnipresence of life. 
 On the snow-clad cone of Chimborazo, eighteen thou- 
 sand feet above the level of the sea, Hu aboldt found 
 butterflies and other winged insects, while high over 
 
 ^^ 
 
SUBTERRANEAN VEGETATION. 225 
 
 his head the condor was soaring in solitary majesty. 
 At the still greater elevation of 18,460 feet, at the 
 Doonkiah Pass in the Himalaya Mountains, Dr. 
 Hooker plucked flowering plants, and saw large flocks 
 of wild geese winging their flight above Kanchin jinga 
 (28,100 feet) toward the unknown regions of central 
 Asia. Thus man meets with life as far as he is able 
 to ascend, or as far as his sight plunges into the at- 
 mospheric ocean. Besides the objects visible to his 
 eye, innumerable microscopical organisms pervade the 
 realms of air. 
 
 2. According to Ehrenberg's brilliant discovery, the 
 impalpably fine dust which, wafted by the Harmattan, 
 often falls on ships when hundreds of miles from the 
 coast of Africa, consists of agglomerations of silica- 
 coated diatoms, individually so small as to be invisible 
 to the naked eye, and everywhere numberless minute 
 germs of future life — eggs of insects and sporules of 
 cryptogamic plants — well fitted by cilia and feathery 
 crowns for an aerial journey, float up and down in the 
 atmosphere ; while the waters of the ocean are found 
 in like manner filled with myriads of animated atoms. 
 But organic life not only occupies those parts of our 
 globe which are accessible to solar light ; it also dives 
 profoundly into the subterranean world, wherever rain 
 or the melted snow, filtering through the porous earth 
 or through vents and crevices, is able to penetrate into 
 natural caverns or artificial mines. For the combina- 
 tion of moisture, warmth, and air is able to develop 
 organic life o Jen thousands of feet below the surface 
 of the earth, while light, though indispensable to most 
 16 
 
226 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 creatures, would blight and destroy the inhabitants of 
 the subterranean vaults. 
 
 3. On surveying the flora of these dismal recesses, 
 we find it consisting exclusively of mushrooms or 
 fungi, the lowest forms of vegetation, which, shun- 
 ning the light, love darkness and damp. Their ap- 
 pearance in the caves is, as everywhere else, dependent 
 upon the existence of an organic basis, and thus they 
 are most commonly found germinating on pieces of 
 wood, particularly in a state of decomposition, which 
 have been conveyed into the caverns either through 
 the agency of man or by the influx of water. Spe- 
 cies of a peculiarly luxuriant growth are sometimes 
 seen to spread over the neighboring stores, or appar- 
 ently to spring from the rocky ground, where, how- 
 ever, on closer inspection, vestiges of decayed organic 
 substances will generally be detected. 
 
 4, Thus vegetation in caves most commonly keeps 
 pace with the quantity of moldering wood which they 
 contain, and flourishes not only near their entrance 
 but in their deepest recesses, as, for instance, in the 
 Cave of Adelsberg, where at a distance of more than 
 a thousand fathoms from its entrance the pegs which 
 have been driven into the stalactital walls for the 
 purpose of measuring its length are covered with a 
 rich coat of fungi. ISTothing can be more curious 
 than to see these plants, ^^ "ving and luxuriating in 
 deep stillness and gloom, under circumstances so alien 
 to the ordinary conditions of life. Among the fun^i 
 found in caves, many also vegetate upon the s;^ 
 
 of the earth exposed to the influence of light, anc jb 
 
SUBTERRANEAN VEGETATION. 227 
 
 seldom degenerate into monstrous forms in tlieir less 
 congenial subterranean abodes ; but many are the ex- 
 clusive children of darkness. The Austrian naturalist 
 Scopoli published in 1772 the first exact description 
 of more than seventy subterranean fungi, collected 
 chiefly in the mines of Schemnitz and Idria, and 
 about twenty years later Humboldt wrote his cele- 
 brated treatise on the same subject. Since then G. 
 r. Hoffmann has described the subterranean flora of 
 the Harz Mountains, and latterly the botanists Wel- 
 witsch and Pokomy have examined the caves of 
 Carinthia, where they discovered no less than eighteen 
 species of fungi, among others the mouse-tail mush- 
 room {Agav'^v^s myurus^ Hoffm.), which is also found 
 in the Harz, and bears on a slender hairy stalk, more 
 than a foot long, a small hat, scarcely a quarter of an 
 inch in diameter. Some of these fungi are remarka- 
 ble for their size {Thelephora rvMginosa sa/nguino- 
 lenta), others for their elegance (Diderma nigrijpei). 
 
 5. Some years ago a gigantic fungus, found grow- 
 ing from the woodwork of a tunnel near Doncaster, 
 England, afforded a striking proof of the luxuriance of 
 subterranean vegetation. It measured no less than 
 fifteen feet in diameter, and was, in its way, as great 
 a curiosity as one of the colossal trees of California. 
 
 6. Even the plants that flourish in the darkness of 
 caves have been renc ..3d- subservient to our use. 
 The cultivation of the edible mushroom in spacious 
 caverns or ancient quarries is practiced to a great ex- 
 ten^^in the environs of Paris, at Arcueil, Moulin de la 
 E/Jche, and Saint- Germain, but particularly at Mont- 
 
228 THE PLANT WORLD. 
 
 %-ouge, on the southern side of the city. The mush- 
 room beds are entirely underground, seventy or eighty 
 feet below the surface, at a depth where the tempera- 
 ture is nearly uniform all the year round. These ex- 
 tensive catacombs, formed by long, burrowing galleries, 
 have no opening but by a circular shaft, to be descend- 
 ed by clambering down a perpendicular pole or mast, 
 into the ^es of which large wooden pegs are fixed, at 
 intervals of ten or twelve inches, to rest the feet upon. 
 7. The baskets containing the ripe mushrooms are 
 hoisted from below by a pulley and rope. The com- 
 post in which they grow consists of a white gritty 
 earth, mixed with good stable manure, and is molded 
 into narrow beds about twenty inches high, ranged 
 along the sides of the passages or galleries, and kept 
 exquisitely neat and smooth. The mushroom sporules 
 are introduced to the beds either by flakes of earth 
 taken from an old bed or else from a heap of decom- 
 posing stable manure in which mushrooms have natu- 
 rally been engendered. The beds are covered with a 
 layer of earth an inch thick, the earth being merely the 
 white rubbish left by the stone-cutters above. They 
 must be well watered and removed after two or three 
 months, when their bearing qualities are exhausted. 
 In one of the caves at Montrouge alone there are six 
 or seven miles of mushroom bedding, a proof that 
 this branch of industry is by no means unimportant. 
 G. Hartwig, '' The Subterranean World." 
 
 THE END. 
 
F 
 
 D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 AM I LIAR FLOWERS OF FIELD AND 
 GARDEN. By F. Schuyler Mathews. Illustrated with 
 200 Drawings by the Author, and containing an elaborate Index 
 showing at a glance the botanical and popular names, family, 
 color, locality, environment, and time of bloom of several hun- 
 dred flowers. i2mo. Library Edition, cloth, $1.75 ; Pocket 
 Edition, flexible covers, $2.2*5. 
 
 In this convenient and useful volume the flowers which one f -J- in the fields are 
 identified, illustrated, and described in familiar language. Their connection with gar- 
 den flowers is made clear. Particular attention is drawn to the beautiful ones which 
 have come under cultivation, and, as the title indicates, the book furnishes a ready 
 guide to a knowledge of wild and cultivated flowers alike. 
 
 "I have examined Mr. Mathews's little book upon 'Familiar Flowers of Field and 
 Garden,' and I have pleasure in commending the accuracy and beauty of the drawings 
 and the freshness of the text. We have long needed some botany from the hand of an 
 artist, who sees form and color without the formality of the scientist. The book deserves 
 a reputation." — L. H. Bailey, Professor of Horticidticre, Cornell U7iiversity. 
 
 " I am much pleased with your 'Familiar Flowers of Field and Garden.' It is a 
 useful and handsomely prepared handbook, and the elaborate index is an especially 
 valuable part of it. Taken in connection with the many careful drawings, it would 
 .seem as though your little volume thoroughly covers its subject." — Louis Prang. 
 
 " The author describes in a most interesting and charming manner many familiar 
 wild and cultivated plants, enlivening his remarks by crisp epigrams, and rendering 
 identification of the subjects described simple by means of some two hundred draw- 
 ings from Nature, made by his own pen. . . . The book will do much to more fully 
 acquaint the reader with those plants of field and garden treated upon with which he 
 may be but partly familiar, and go a long way toward correcting many popular 
 errors existing in the matter of colors of their flowers, a subject to which Mr. Mathews 
 has devoted much attention, and on which he is now a recognized authority in the 
 trade." — New. York Florists' ExcJia7ige. 
 
 "A book of much value and interest, admirably arranged for the student and the 
 lover of flowers. . . . The text is full of compact inform.ation, well selected and interest- 
 ingly presented. ... It seems to us to be a most attractive handbook of its kind."— 
 New York Sun. 
 
 "A dehghtful book and very useful. Its language is plain and familiar, and the 
 illustrations are dainty works of art. It is just the book for those who want to be 
 familiar with the well-known flowers, those that grow in the cultivated gardens as well 
 as those that blossom in the fields." — Ncivark Daily Advertiser. 
 
 "Seasonable and valuable. The young botanist and the lover of flowers, who have 
 only studied from Nature, will be greatly aided by this work." — Pittsburg Post. 
 
 "Charmingly written, and to any one who loves the flowers— and who does not? 
 
 will prove no less fascinating than instructive. It will open up in the garden and the 
 fields a new world full of curiosity and delight, and invest them with a new interest in 
 his sight." — Christian Work. 
 
 " One need not be deeply read in floral lore to be interested in what ^Ir. Mathews 
 has written, and the more proficient one is therein the greater his satisfaction is likely 
 to be." — New York Mail a7id Express. 
 
 " Rlr. F. Schuyler Mathews's carefiil description and giaceful drawings of our 
 ' Familiar Flowers of Field and Garden ' are fitted to make them familiar even to those 
 who have not before made their acquaintance." — New York Evening Post. 
 
 New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 
 
D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 ^ ■ — — ■ __ 
 
 PAMILIAR TREES AND THEIR LEAVES. 
 
 ^ By F. Schuyler Mathews, author of "Familiar Flowers of 
 Field and Garden," " The Beautiful Flower Garden," etc. Il- 
 lustrated with over 200 Drawings from Nature by the Author. 
 i2mo. Cloth, $1.75. 
 
 " It is not often that we find a book which deserves such unreserved commendation. 
 It is commendable for several reasons : it is a book that has been needed for a long 
 time, it is written in a popular and attractive style, it is accurately and profusely illus- 
 trated, and it is by an authority on the subject of which it treats." — Public Opinion. 
 
 " Most readers of the book will find a world of information they never dreamed of 
 about leaves that have long been familiar with them. The study wiU open to them 
 new sources of pleasure in every tree around their houses, and prove interesting as well 
 as instructive." — San Francisco Call. 
 
 "A revelation of the sweets and joys of natural things that we are too apt to pass 
 by with but little or no thought The book is some what more than an ordinary botan- 
 ical treatise on leaves and trees. It is a heart-to heart talk with Nature, a true appre- 
 ciation of the beauty and the real usefulness of leaves and trees." — Boston Courier. 
 
 " Has about it a simplicity and a directness of purpose that appeal at once to every 
 lover of Nature." — N'ew York Mail and Express. 
 
 " Mr. Mathews's book is just what is needed to open our eyes. His text is charm- 
 ing, and displays a loving and intimate acquaintance with tree life, while the drawings 
 of foliage are beautifully executed. We commend the volume as a welcome companion 
 in country walks." — Philadtlphia Public Ledger. 
 
 "The book is one to read, and then to keep at hand for continual reference." — 
 Chicago Dial. 
 
 " The unscientific lover of Nature will find this book a source of enjoyment as well 
 as of instruction, and it will be a valuable introduction to the more scientific study of 
 the subject." — Cleveland Plain Dealer. 
 
 " This book will be found most satisfactory. It is a book which is needed, written 
 by one who knows trees as he knows people." — Minneapolis Journal. 
 
 "A book of large value to the student. The reader gathers a wide and valuable 
 knowledge which will awaken new interest in every tramp through the forest" — C/ti- 
 cago hiter-Ocean. 
 
 " A most admirable volume in many ways. It meets a distinct and widely felt 
 want ; the work is excellently done ; its appearance is very timely. . . . Written in a 
 clear and simple style, and requires no previous technical knowledge of botany to under- 
 stand it." — Baltimore News. 
 
 ' ' This very valuable book will be prized by all who love Nature. " — The Churchman. 
 
 "Of the many Nature books that are constantly inviting the reader to leave pave- 
 ment and wander in country bjrpaths, this one, with its scientific foundation, and its 
 simplicity and clearness of style, is among the most alluring." — St. Paul Pioneer-Press. 
 
 New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 
 
T 
 
 D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 HE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE, 
 
 AND OBSERVATIONS ON NATURE. By Gilbert 
 White. With an Introduction by John Burroughs, 80 Illus- 
 trations by Clifton Johnson, and the Text and New Letters of 
 the Buckland edition. In two volumes. i2mo. Cloth, $4.00. 
 
 " White himself, were he alive to-day, would join all his loving readers in thanking 
 the American publishers for a thoroughly excellent presentation of his famous book. 
 . . . This latest edition of White's book must go into all of our libraries; our young 
 people must have it at hand, and our trained lovers of select literature must take it into 
 their homes. By such reading we keep knowledge in proper perspective and are able 
 to grasp the proportions of discovery." — Maurice Thojnpson, in the Independent. 
 
 " White's * Selbome ' belongs in the same category as Walton's * Complete Angler' ; 
 . . . here they are, the * Complete Angler ' well along in its third century, and the other 
 just started in its second century, both of them as highly esteemed as they were when 
 first published, both bound to live forever, if we may trust the predictions of their re- 
 spective admirers. John Burroughs, in his charming introduction, tells us why White's 
 book has lasted and why this new and beautiful edition has been printed. . . . This new 
 edition of his work comes to us beautifully illustrated by Clifton Johnson." — New York 
 Times. 
 
 " White's ' Selbome ' has been reprinted many times, in many forms, but never be- 
 fore, so far as we can remember, in so creditable a form as it assumes in these two 
 volumes, nor with drawings comparable to those which Mr. Clifton Johnson has made 
 for them." — New York Mail and Express. 
 
 " We are loath to put down the two handsome volumes in which the source of such 
 a gift as this has been republished. The type is so clear, the paper is so pleasant to 
 the touch, the weight of each volume is so nicely adapted to the hand, and one turns 
 page after page with exactly that quiet sense of ever new and ever old endeared de- 
 light which comes through a window looking on the English countryside— the rooks 
 cawing in a neighboring copse, the little village nestling sleepily amid the trees, trees 
 so green that sometimes they seem to hover on the edge of black, and then again so 
 green that they seem vivid with the flaunting bravery of spring." — New York 
 Tribune. 
 
 "Not only for the significance they lend to one of the masterpieces of English 
 literature, but as a revelation of English rural life and scenes, are these pictures de- 
 lightfully welcome. The edition is in every way creditable to the pubhshers." — 
 Boston Beacon. 
 
 " Rural England has many attractions for the lover of Nature, and no work, per- 
 haps, has done its charms greater justice than Gilbert White's ' Natural History of 
 Selborne.' " — Boston Journal. 
 
 "This charming edition leaves really nothing to be desired." — Westminster 
 Gazette. 
 
 " This edition is beautifully illustrated and bound, and deserves to be welcomed by 
 all naturalists and Nature lovers."— Z^m^<7« Daily Chronicle. 
 
 " Handsome and desirable in every respect. . . . Welcome to old and young." — 
 Ne%v York Herald. 
 
 "The charm of White's ' Selborne' is not definable. But there is no other book of 
 the past generations that will ever take the place with the field naturalists."— ^a///- 
 more Sun. 
 
 New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 
 
D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF USEFUL STORIES. 
 
 Each book complete in itself. By writers of authority in their various 
 spheres, ibmo. Cloth, 40 cents per volume. 
 
 NOW READY. 
 
 Y^BE STOR Y OF THE STARS. By G. F. Cham- 
 
 J. BERS, F. R. A. S., author of " Handbook of Descriptive and 
 Practical Astronomy," etc. With 24 Illustrations, 
 
 "The author presents his wonderful and 'at times bewildering facts in a bright and 
 cheery spirit that makes the book doubly attractive." — Boston Home Journal. 
 
 'HE STORY OF ''PRIMITIVE'' MAN. By 
 Edward Clodd, author of " The Story of Creation," etc, 
 
 " No candid person will deny that Mr. Clodd has come as near as any one at this 
 time is likely to come to an authentic exposition of all the information hitherto gained 
 regarding the earlier stages in the evolution of mankind." — New York Sun. 
 
 HE STORY OF THE PLANTS. By Grant 
 
 Allen, author of " Flowers and their Pedigrees," etc. 
 
 "As fascinating in style as a first-class story of fiction, and is a simple and clear 
 exposition of plant life." — Boston Hotne yournal. 
 
 "J^HE STORY OF THE EARTH. By H. G. 
 jt Seeley, F. R. S., Professor of Geography in King's College, 
 London. With Illustrations. 
 
 "It is doubtful if the fascinating story of the planet on which we live has been pre- 
 viously told so clearly and at the same time so comprehensively." — Boston Advertiser. 
 
 HE STORY OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM. By 
 
 G. F. Chambers, F. R. A. S. 
 
 " Any intelligent reader can get clear ideas of the movements of the worlds about us. 
 . Will impart a wise knowledge of astronomical wonders." — Chicago Inter-Ocean. 
 
 T 
 
 T 
 
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 HE STORY OF A PIECE OF COAL. By E. 
 
 A. Martin, F. G. S. 
 
 " The value and importance of this volume are out of all proportion to its size and 
 outward appearance." — Chicago Record. 
 
 HE STORY OF ELECTRICITY. By John 
 Monro, C. E. 
 
 " The book is an excellent one, crammed full of facts, and deserves a place not 
 alone on the desk of the student, but on the workbench of the practical electrician." — 
 New York Times. 
 
 T 
 
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 HE STORY OF EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS 
 
 OF THE EAST. By Robert Anderson, M.A., F. A. S., 
 author of *' Early England," " The Stuart Period," etc. 
 
 New York • D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 
 
T 
 
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 ^HE GARDEN'S STORY; or. Pleasures and 
 Trials of an Amateur Gardener. By George H. Ellw anger. 
 With Head and Tail Pieces by Rhead. i2mo. Cloth, extra, 
 $1.50. 
 
 "Mr. EUwanger's instinct rarely errs in matters of taste. He writes out of the 
 fullness of experimental knowledge, but his knowledge differs from that of many a 
 trained cultivator in that his skill in garden practice is guided by a refined aesthetic 
 sensibility, and his appreciation of what is beautiful in nature is healthy, hearty, and 
 catholic. His record of the garden year, as we have said, begins with the earliest 
 violet, and it follows the season through until the witch-hazel is blossoming on the 
 border of the wintry woods. . . . This little book can not fail to give pleasure to all 
 who take a genuine interest in rural life." — New York Tribune. 
 
 r 
 
 HE ORIGIN OE CULTIVATED PLANTS. 
 
 By Alphonse de Candolle. i2mo. Cloth, $2.00. 
 
 " Though a fact familiar to botanists, it is not generally known how great is the 
 uncertainty as to the origin of many of the most important cultivated plants. ... In 
 endeavoring to unravel tlie matter, a knowledge of botany, of geography, of geology, 
 of history, and of philosophy is required. By a combination of testimony derived from 
 these sources M. de Candolle has been enabled to determine the botanical origin and 
 geographical source of the large proportion of species he deals with. " — The A thenceutn. 
 
 y^HE EOLK-LORE OE PLANTS. By T. F. This- 
 
 -• ELTON Dyer, M. A. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " A handsome and deeply interesting volume. ... In all respects the book is ex- 
 cellent. Its arrangement is simple and intelligible, its style bright and alluring. 
 ... To all who seek an introduction to one of the most attractive branches of folk- 
 lore, this delightful volume may be warmly commended. — Notes and Queries. 
 
 F 
 
 LOWERS AND THEIR PEDLGREES. By 
 Grant Ai.lfn, author of "Vignettes of Nature," etc. Illus- 
 trated. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " No writer treats scientific subjects with so much ease and charm of style as Mr. 
 Grant Allen. The study is a delightful one, and the book is fascinating to any one 
 who has either love for flowers or curiosity about them." — Harijoid Courant. 
 
 "Any one with even a smattering of botanical knowledge, and with either a heart 
 or mind, must be charmed with this collection of essays." — Chicago Evening Jouriial. 
 
 7-^HE GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OE PLANTS. 
 By Sir J. William Dawson, F. R. S. Illustrated. i2mo. 
 Cloth, $1.75. 
 
 "The object of this work is to give, in a connected form, a summary of the develop- 
 ment of the vegetable kingdom in geological time. To the geologist and botanist the 
 subject is one of importance with reference to their special pursuits, and one on which 
 it has not been easy to find any convenient manual of information. It is hoped that its 
 treatment in the present volume will also be found sufficiently simple and popular to be 
 attractive to the general reader." — From the Preface. 
 
 New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 
 
D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 OUTINGS AT ODD TIMES. By Charles C. 
 Abbott, author of " Days out of Doors " and " A Naturalist's 
 Rambles about Home." l6mo. Cloth, gilt top, $1.25. 
 
 " A charming little volume, literally alone with Nature, for it discusses seasons and 
 the fields, birds, etc., with the loving freedom of a naturalist born. Every page reads, 
 like a sylvan poem ; and for the lovers of the beautiful in quiet out-door and out-of- 
 town life, this beautifully bound and attractively printed little volume will prove a 
 companion and friend." — Rochester Union ancT Advertiser. 
 
 A 
 
 D 
 
 NA TURALIST'S RAMBLES ABO UT HOME. 
 By Charles C. Abbott. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 "The home about which Dr. Abbott rambles is clearly the haunt of fowl and fish, 
 of animal and insect life ; and it is of the habits and nature of these that he discourses 
 pleasantly in this book. Summer and winter, morning and evening, he has been in 
 the open air all the time on the alert for some new revelation of instinct, or feeling, 
 or character on the part of his neighbor creatures. Most that he sees and hears he 
 reports agreeably to us, as it was no doubt delightful to himself. Books like this, 
 which are free from all the technicalit'es of science, but yet lack little that has scien- 
 tific value, are well suited to the reading of the young. Their atmosphere is a healthy 
 one for boys in particular to breathe." — Boston Tratiscript. 
 
 A YS OUT OF DOORS. By Charles C. Abbott- 
 
 i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 "'Days out of Doors' is a series of sketches of animal life by Charles C. Abbott, 
 a naturalist whose graceful writings have entertained and instructed the public before 
 now. The essays and narratives in this book are grouped in twelve chapters, named 
 after the months of the year. Under ' January ' the author talks of squirrels, musk- 
 rats, water-snakes, and the predatory animals that withstand the rigor of winter; 
 under 'February' of frogs and herons, crows and blackbirds; under 'March' of gulls 
 and fishes and foxy sparrows; and so on appropriately, instructively, and divertingly 
 through the whole twelve."^AVw York Sun. 
 
 HE PLAYTIME NATURALIST. By Dr. J. E. 
 
 Taylor, F. L, S., editor of " Science Gossip." With 366 Illus- 
 trations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 "The work contains abundant evidence of the author's knowledge and enthusiasm, 
 and any boy who may read it carefully is sure to find something to attract him. The 
 style is clear and lively, and there are many good illustrations." — Nature. 
 
 ' Y^HE ORIGIN OF FLORAL STRUCTURES 
 
 J- through Insects and other Agencies. By the Rev. George 
 Henslow, Professor of Botany, Queen's College. With nu- 
 merous Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.75. 
 
 "Much has been written on the structure of flowers, and it might seem almost 
 superfluous to attempt to say anything more on the subject, but it is only within the 
 last few years that a new literature has sprung up, in which the authors have described 
 their observations and given their interpretations of the uses of floral mechanisms, more 
 especially in connection with the processes of fertilization." — Frotn Introduction. 
 
 T 
 
 New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 
 
D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SERIES. 
 
 IV 
 
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 York Home Journal. 
 
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 OMAN'S SHARE IN PRIMITIVE CUL^ 
 TURE. By Otis Tufton Mason, A. M., Curator of the 
 Department of Ethnology in the United States National Mu- 
 seum. With numerous Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.75. 
 "A most interesting resumi oi t\ie revelations which science has made concerning 
 the habits of human beings in primitive times, and especially as to the place, the duties, 
 and the customs of women." — Philadelphia Inquirer, 
 
 " A highly entertaining and instructive book. . . . Prof. Mason's bright, graceful 
 style must do much to awaken a lively interest in a study that has heretofore received 
 such scant attention." — Baltimore American. 
 
 " The special charm of Mr. Mason's book is that his studies are based mainly upon 
 ctually existing types, rather than upon mere tTa.dition."—Fhiladelphia Times. 
 
 HTHE PYGMIES. By A. de Quatrefages, late 
 
 •'• Professor of Anthropology at the Museum of Natural History, 
 Paris. With numerous Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.75. 
 
 " Probably no one was better equipped to illustrate the general subject than Quatre- 
 fages. While constantly occupied upon the anatomical and osseous phases of his sub- 
 ject, he was none the less well acquainted with what literature and history had to say 
 concerning the pygmies. . . . This book ought to be in everj-^ divinity school in which 
 man as well as God is studied, and from which missionaries go out to convert the human 
 being of reality and not the man of rhetoric and text-books." — Boston Literary World. 
 
 " It is fortunate that American students of anthropology are able to enjoy as lumi- 
 nous a translation of this notable monograph as that which Prof Starr now submits to the 
 public." — Philadelphia Press. 
 
 " It is regarded by scholars entitled to offer an opinion as one of the half-doz«/« most 
 important works of an anthropologist whose ethnographic publications numbered nearly 
 ■one hundred. " — Chicago Evening Post. 
 
 ^HE BEGINNINGS OF WRITING. By W. J. 
 
 -^ Hoffman, M. D. With numerous Illustrations. i2mo. ("loth, 
 
 $1.75. 
 This interesting book gives a most attractive account of the rude methods employed 
 by primitive man for recording his deeds. The earliest writing consists of pictography 
 which were traced on stone, wood, bone, skins, and various paperlike substances, Dr, 
 Hoffman shows how the several classes of symbols used in these records are t« be in- 
 terpreted, and traces the growth of conventional signs up to syllabaries and alphabets — 
 the two classes of signs employed by modern peoples. 
 
 IN PREPARATION. 
 THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDERS. By Dr. Schmeltz 
 THE ZUNl. By Frank Hamilton Cushing. 
 THE AZTECS. By Mrs. Zelia Nuttall. 
 
 New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 
 
D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 THE STORY OF THE WEST SERIES. 
 
 Edited "by Ripley Hitchcock. 
 
 " There is avast extent of territory lying between the Missouri River and the Pacific 
 coast which has barely been skimmed over so far. That the conditions of life therein 
 are undergoing changes little short of marvelous will be understood when one recalls 
 the fact that the first white male child bom in Kansas is still living there ; and Kansas 
 is by no means one of the newer States. Revolutionary indeed has been the upturning 
 of the old condition of affairs, and little remains thereof, and less will remain as each 
 year goes by, until presently there will be only tradition of the Sioux and Comanches, 
 the cowboy life, the wild horse, and the antelope. Histories, many of them, have been 
 written about the Western country alluded to, but most if not practically all by outsiders 
 who knew not personally that life of kaleidoscopic allurement. But ere it shall have 
 vanished forever we are likely to have truthful, complete, and charming portrayals oi 
 it produced by men who actually knew the life and have the power to describe it." — 
 Henry Edward Rood, in the Mail and Express. 
 
 NOW READY. 
 
 "J^HE STORY OF THE INDIAN. By George 
 
 ■*■ Bird Grinnell, author of " Pawnee Hero Stories," " Black- 
 foot Lodge Tales," etc. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
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 to be looked for in such a work, and which adds not a Uttle to the charm of it." — 
 London Daily Chronicle. 
 
 " Only an author qualified by personal experience could offer us a profitable study 
 of a race so alien from our own as is the Indian in thought, feeling, and culture. Only 
 long association with Indians can enable a white man measurably to comprehend their 
 thoughts and enter into their feelings. Such association has been Mr. Grinnell's."^ 
 New York Sun. 
 
 T 
 
 HE STORY OF THE MINE. By Charles 
 Howard Shinn. Illustrated. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " The author has written a book, not alone full of information, but replete with the 
 true romance of the American mine." — New York Times. 
 
 " Few chapters of recent history are more fascinating than that which Mr. Shinn 
 has told in * The Story of the Mine.' "—The Outlook. 
 
 "Both a history and a romance. . . . Highly interesting, new, and thrilling."— 
 Philadelphia Inquirer. 
 
 IN PREPARATION. 
 
 The Story of the Trapper. By Gilbert Parker. 
 
 The Story of the Cowboy. By E. Hough. 
 
 The Story of the Soldier. By Capt. J. McB. Stembel, U. S. A. 
 
 The Story of the Explorer. 
 
 The Story of the Railroad. 
 
 New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 
 
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 HE BEGINNERS OF A NATION. A History 
 of the Source and Rise of the Earliest English Settlements in 
 America, with Special Reference to the Life and Character of 
 the People. The first volume in A History of Life in the 
 United States. By Edward Eggleston. Small 8v9. Cloth, 
 gilt top, uncut, with Maps, $1.50. 
 
 •* Few works on the period which it covers can compare with this in point of mere 
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 peal will read the volume with interest and delight."— iV^w York Evenifig Post. 
 
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 attractive by a vigorous and resonant style, the book will receive much attention. It 
 is a great theme the author has taken up, and he grasps it with the confidence of a 
 master." — iWw York Tivies. 
 
 " Mr. Eggleston's ' Beginners ' is unique. No similar historical study has, to our 
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 to merge the critic in the historian. His sense of humor is never dormant. He renders 
 some of the dullest passages in colonial annals actually amusing by his witty treatment 
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 yawns. And with all this he does not sacrifice the dignity of history for an instant." — 
 Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. 
 
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 the able analysis of men and events will commend Mr. Eggleston's work to earnest 
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 esting as a noveV— Brooklyn Standard-Union. 
 
 "The value of Mr. Eggleston's work is in that it is really a history of 'life,' not 
 merely a record of events. . . . The comprehensive purpose of his volume has been 
 excellently performed. The book is eminently x^zA^M^."— Philadelphia Times. 
 
 New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 
 
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 RUDYARD KIPLING'S NEW BOOK. 
 
 HE SEVEN SEAS. A new volume of poems by 
 RuDYARD Kipling, author of " Many Inventions," " Barrack- 
 Room Ballads," etc. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50 ; half calf, $3.00 ; 
 morocco, $5.00. 
 
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 lately dead."— ^. D. Howells. 
 
 " The new poems of Mr. Rudyard Kipling have all the spirit and swing of their 
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 his, and which have made, and seem likely to keep, for him his position and wide 
 popularity." — London Times. 
 
 " He has the very heart of movement, for the lack of which no metrical science 
 could atone. He goes far because he can." — London Academy. 
 
 " ' The Seven Seas ' is the most remarkable book of verse that Mr. Kipling has 
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 volume pulses with power — power often rough and reckless in expression, but invariably 
 conveying the effect intended. There is scarcely a line which does not testify to the 
 strong individuality of the writer." — London Globe. 
 
 " If a man holding this volume in his hands, with all its exiravagance and its savage 
 realism, is not aware that it is animated through and through with indubitable genius — 
 then he must be too much the slave of the conventional and the ordinary to understand 
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 " ' The Seven Seas ' is packed with inspiration, with humor, with pathos, and with 
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 " Mr. Kipling's ' The Seven Seas ' is a distinct advance upon his characteristic 
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 Chicago Tribune. 
 
 " In ' The Seven Seas' are displayed all of Kipling's prodigious gifts. . . . Whoever 
 reads 'The Seven Seas' will be vexed by the desire to read it again. The average 
 charm of the gifts alone is irresistible." — Bosh • Journal. 
 
 New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 
 
D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 HTHE RISE AND GROWTH OF THE ENG- 
 
 LISH NATION. With Special Reference to Epochs and 
 
 Crises. A Historj- of and for the People. By W. H. S. 
 
 Aubrey, LL. D. In Three Volumes. i2mo. Cloth, 84.50. 
 
 " The merit of this work is intrinsic. It rests on the broad inteUigence and true 
 philosophy of the method employed, and the coherency and accuracy of the results 
 reached. The scope of the work is marvelous. Never was there more crowded into 
 three small volumes. But the saving of space is not by the sacrifice of substance or 
 of sr>-le. The broadest view of the facts and forces embraced by the subject is exhibited 
 with a clearness of arrangement and a definiteness of application that render it per- 
 ceptible to the simplest apprehension." — AVw York Mail and Express. 
 
 "A useful and thorough piece of work. One of the best treatises which the 
 general reader can use." — London Daily Chronicle. 
 
 "Conceived in a popular spirit, yet with strict regard to the modem standards. 
 The title is fully borne out. No want of color in the descriptions." — London Daily 
 News. 
 
 "The plan laid down results in an admirable English history." — London Morning 
 Post. 
 
 "Dr. Aubrey has supplied a want. His method is undoubtedly the right one." — 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 " It is a distinct step forvvard in history writing; as far ahead of Green as he was of 
 Macaulay, though on a different line. Green gives the picture of England at different 
 times — Aubrey goes deeper, showing the causes which led to the changes." — Neiv 
 York World. 
 
 "A work that will commend itself to the student of history, and as a comprehen- 
 sive and convenient reference book." — The Argonaut. 
 
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 " Up to date in its narration of fact, and in its elucidation of those great principles 
 that underlie all vital and worthy- history. . . . The painstaking division, along with 
 the admirably complete index, will make it easy work for any student to get definite 
 views of any era, or any particular feature of it. . . . The work strikes one as being 
 more comprehensive than many that cover far more space." — The Christian hi- 
 telligencer. 
 
 " One of the most elaborate and noteworthy of recent contributions to historical 
 literature." — Xeiv Haven Register. 
 
 " As a popular history it possesses great merits, and in many particulars is excelled 
 by none. It is full, careful as to dates, maintains a generally praiseworthy impartiality, 
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 " These volumes are a surprise and in their way a marvel. . . . They constitute an 
 almost encylopaedia of English history, condensing in a marvelous manner the facts 
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 unsurpassed value to the historical student or even the general reader, and when more 
 widely known will no doubt be appreciated as one of the remarkable contributions to 
 English history published in the century." — Chicago Universalist. 
 
 " In every page Dr. Aubrey writes with the far reaching relation of contemporary' 
 incidents to the whole subject. The amount of matter these three volumes contain is 
 marvelous. The style in which they are written is more than satisfactory'. . . . The 
 work is one of unusual importance." — Hartford Post. 
 
 New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 
 
IV 
 
 D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 ITH THE FATHERS. Studies in the History 
 of the United States. By John Bach McMaster, Professor 
 of American History in the University of Pennsylvania, au- 
 thor of " The History of the People of the United States/" 
 etc. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 *'The book is of great practical value, as many of the essays throw a 
 broad light over living questions of the day. Prof. McMaster has a clear, 
 simple style, that is delightful. His facts are gathered with great care, and 
 admirably interwoven to impress the subject under discussion upon the mind 
 of the reader." — Chicago Inter-Ocean. 
 
 " Prof. McMaster's essays possess in their diversity a breadth which covers 
 most of the topics which are current as well as historical, and each is so 
 scholarly in treatment and profound in judgment that the importance of 
 their place in the library of political history can not be gainsaid." — Wash- 
 ington Times. 
 
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 a study which an abstruse writer only makes perplexing. All through the 
 studies there is a note of intense patriotism and a conviction of the sound 
 sense of the American people which directs the government to a bright 
 goal." — Chicago Record. 
 
 ' ' A wide field is here covered, and it is covered in Prof. McMaster's own 
 inimitable and fascinating style. . . . Can not but have a marked value as a 
 work of reference upon several most important subjects." — Boston Daily 
 Advertiser. 
 
 "There is much that is interesting in this little book, and it is full of solid 
 chunks of political information." — Buffalo Cominercial. 
 
 ' ' Clear, penetrating, dispassionate, convincing. His language is what one 
 should expect from the Professor of American History in the University of 
 Pennsylvania. Prof. McMaster has proved before now that he can write 
 history with the breath of life in it, and the present volume is new proof." 
 — Chicago Tribune. 
 
 " Of great practical value. . . . Charming and instructive history." — 
 New Haven Leader. 
 
 " An interesting and most instructive volume." — Detroit Journal. 
 
 "At once commends itself to the taste and judgment of all historical 
 readers. His style charms the general reader with itS"T5pej:i^ and frank ways, 
 its courageous form of statement, its sparkling, crisp narrative and descrip- 
 tion, and its close and penetrating analysis of characters Vnd events."— 
 Boston Courier. ^ 
 
 New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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 005 342 500 8 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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