The Romance of Plant Life

y an acre of plants-Coltsfoot, dandelion, pansies, in sunshine and in cold-Woodsorrel and crocus-Foxglove-Leaves and light-Adventures of a carbon

. It is difficult to imagine anything less lively than an ordinary vegetable. They seem to us the very model of dullness, stupidity, and slowness; they

n anybody is living a particularly dull, une

est information about the study of plants, and which are not very attr

, swim, or fly about, whilst plants have roots and do not move from one spot to another. But it is not true to say that plants cannot move, for most plants grow,

er on. But it is perhaps the Sensitive Plant which shows most distinctly tha

the main stalk droops; soon afterwards other leaves higher up the stalk begin to be affected in the same way, and fall limply down one after the other. It is supposed that this movement frightens a grazing animal, who will imagine there is something uncanny about the plant an

n be detected. But all plants are at work; they have periods of rest which correspond to our slee

ntly done by considering how our plant world would strike an inhabitant of the planet Neptune. Our theoretical Neptunian would be accustomed to a year of 60,127 days (164 of our years

ould clothe themselves with the luxuriant greenery of midsummer. Hops would fly round and round their poles, climbing at the rate of a foot a minute. Bare places, such as the gravel heaps near a sandpit, or the bar

unially, the activity of pl

year, that we never seem to realize what it means. There are some 1,400,000,000 human beings on th

. In 1897 we grew enough corn to give a ration of 1lb. per diem to every inhabitant for 68 days, and we manage to get a large amount from every acre (28

at all. Plants do take in a small amount of mineral matter from the earth, but these

th, but all the rest has vanished into the atmosphere. The water which was contained in the wood has become steam and is evaporated; the woody matter consis

s flowers drink up the water in a vase, and wither if they do not receive enough, so all plants suck up water by their roots. The carb

n which wood is burnt in a fire; heat and light are obtaine

outside. This shows what happens: the sunshine has been taken up or absorbed by the leaves of t

leaves in making wood, sugar, and starch come

living tree. The important point is that it is the sunshine which is used by plants to make all these refr

orbs as much as it can, and, for so long as the light lasts, its living particles are hard at work: water or sap is hurrying up the stem and streaming out of the leaves as water vapou

h changes to sugar and passes down the leaf-stalk into the stem, where it is used up in

are yard of leaf surface should be heavier, because a certain amount of starch has been formed in it. The amount actually made in one hour has been estimated by Dr. Horace Brown as 1/500 lb. So that 100 square yards of leaves working in sunshine for five hours might make one pound of starch. But one can estimate the activity of plants in another way. Look at the amount of work done by the Grass, etc., on an acre of pasture land in one year.

involves the consumption of food which has been

s that of every living creature, is in the f

is all-important function, a

sightly heaps of shale one may see quantities of its golden blossoms. Now if one looks at them on

ve than the Coltsfoot. In cold wet weather it is so tightly closed that it is barely possible to make out the yellow colour of the flower, but on warm sunny days it ope

y spread out widely, but in cold wet weather the he

g of them all are the littl

on a fine spring morning will close up the flowers of the Crocus. In cold weather, if you bring one o

her insects are flying about, and they can enter the flower if it is open. These insects help in setting the seed (as we shall see in anot

te blossom bends so that its head turns to the best lighted or sunniest side. Thus, if you have Foxgloves planted against a wall, every fl

ct of placing the leaves where they can get as much sunshine as possible. The leaves themselves are also

to obtain as much as possible of the sunlight to carry

nstance, Elm, Lime, or Horsechestnut, arrange themselves so that they interfere with one another as little as possible.[1] Very li

nt plants are competing together to catch the light on one square yard

tition amongst the plants, that makes it certain that

ers the slope of its leaves and turns its s

e gas, carbonic acid,[2] unite with water: when these are made to join toget

gar, starch or vegetable fats, and many other substances can

activity but, by its influence, flowers, leaves, and stems move and turn in s

. The well-known radium rays are also destructive to bacteria, and hinder the growth of certain fungi (Becquerel's rays have a

hen the leaf is at work forming sugar the particles of gas are rushing into the leaf, and other particles come from elsewhere to ta

ed up as starch in the grain. This grass will become hay and in due course be eaten by a bullock. The starch is changed and may be stored up in the fat of the animal's body. When this is eaten at somebody's dinner, the fat will most probably be consumed or broken up; this breaking up may be compa

table fat for the winter. Next spring the vegetable fat becomes starch and then sugar: as sugar it will go to assist in forming woo

nto the fungus. Very soon the mushroom-like heads of this fungus begin to swell and elongate; they burst through the bark and form a clump of reddish-yellow Paddock-stools. A fly comes to the fungus and lays an egg in it. This egg becomes a fat, unpleasant little maggot which eats the fungus, and amongst others devours our carbon atom, which again becomes fat in its body. Then a tomtit or other

ntain a large percentage of water. This may be as much as 95 to 98 per cent in water plants, a

nd passing into the leaves. On these leaves there are hundreds of minute openings called stomata, by which

orous; it is also by this current that every living cell is

hrough its leaves 3,500,000 pints of water and an acre of hops from 5-1/2 to 7 millions. A single oak tree, suppose

and falls off as fluid water. A very young greenhouse plant (Caladium nymphaefolium) was found by

its leaf, and it is possible to drink this water. The usual story is to the effect that a panting traveller finds this palm in the middle of the desert, and saves his life by quenching his thirst with its cr

or ascending current passes up the stem and pours out into the atmosphere. There the vapour is hurried off b

these living cells seem to have the power of absorbing or sucking in water,[3] and eventually they are so full and distended within, that the internal pressure becomes almost incredible. Wieler found in the young wood of a Scotch fir that the pressure was sixteen atmospheres, or 240 lb. to the square inch. Dix

nderwood & Underwoo

in the Andreas C

uths of ca?ons to indicate water, and may, ind

st but work at this high tension, and, in

to find any serious lack of water. But in Italy or Gree

cial work to do: the graceful trees which shade the spring, the green mosses on the stones, the fresh grass and bright flowers or waving reeds, are all associated in a common work. They protect and shelter each other; their dead

Nymph in the shape of a lovely young woman watching over the sp

ssociation which can be quite well compared to a city or some other association of human beings. They do compete, for they

t Britain are not so obviously dependent on one particular spring,