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A CHAT ABOUT PLANTS.

LONG years ago I was in the Holy Land.

It was the last day I was to spend near Jerusalem, and as the sun sank towards the blue waters of the Mediterranean, I found myself once more sitting on the banks of the Jordan. The air was perfectly calm; the tolling of a convent bell came faintly over the plain from Bethlehem, and mingled its well-beat cadences with the gentle, playful murmuring of the sacred stream at my feet. By my side sat an Arab, tranquilly following with his eye the light clouds of his pipe, as they gracefully rose up in the clear, blue ether, but apparently buried in deep thought. Abu Abdallah was his name; so I said, “ Abu Abdallah, do you believe in God?" "Thou sayest it, oh brother!" was his quiet answer. "But Abu Abdallah, I fear you do not believe that your soul is immortal;" for the old Arab, though my friend for the while, was a sad thief, and when he swiftly rode through the desert, there were voices heard, it was said, mournful voices of men, who called for the sweet life he had taken from them. He gazed at me for an instant from the depth of that unfathomable eye, the precious heirloom of a son of the Orient, but vouchsafed not a word. I was struck by his silence, and asked again. "Oh brother, oh brother, thou wrongest me!" he said, and quietly rising, he seized upon a little shapeless mass, that lay half hid in the fragrant herbs at our feet, and gently pushing it into the purling stream, he added: “Has not the God of our fathers, whose prophet is Mahomet, given us the Rose of Jericho? And does not my brother, who reads the books of the wise men of the Franks, know that the burning sands of the desert are its home, and that it delights in the fiery winds of the west, which scatter the caravan, and strew the sands of the Sahara with the bones of the traveller? There it grows, and blossoms, and our children love it. But the season comes again, and it withers and dies. And the dread simoom rises, and seizes the dry, shrivelled roots, that my brother beholds there, and on the wings of the tempest the Rose of Jericho rides far far east, until it falls upon holy soil. Now let my brother wait and he shall see!"

And we did wait, waited until the shadows grew long, and dreamy dusk covered mountain and plain. And the little shapeless mass became a miracle indeed, and right before our eyes! The roots had expanded, the leaves had un

folded, life and breath had returned to the dead child of the Sahara, and the very blossoms began to show, and to rival the faint rosy tints of the evening sun!

I never forgot that lesson of immortality -I never forgot that Rose of Jericho. On my return to Europe I learned that botanists called it "Anastatica," the flower of resurrection. I wished to know more about it, and that was the way I first learned something about plants.

I found botany very little attractive— very little deserving of its ancient name of the "lovely science." I found that botanists would go out into the fields, their text-books in their pockets, and gather the tender children of Flora into huge masses, then dry them and classify them, describe their head-dress and uniform, their rank and dignity, and finally deposit them in magnificent herbariums. There they were, well dried and well pasted, clad, to be sure, in all the pomp and circumstance of high-sounding names-so much Latin hay. But where was their color and graceful shape? where the breath of air that made them gently wave to and fro ? where the sweet perfumes they gratefully sent up to their Maker? where the bright water at their side, in which they reflected their lovely form? where the whole glorious scene for which they were intended by Nature, and to which they lent, in return, life and beauty?

Thus it was that botanists of old collected the material only-not without bestowing unceasing industry upon it, not without making unheard of sacrifices, often of the very lives of devoted laborers in that field of science-but they were content with a form only and a name. They were like the French officer, who in one, I forget which, of the French revolutions, came to Rome and there had the good fortune to discover a precious inscription on a monument, dating far back into antiquity. Proudly, and carefully, he detached one bronze letter after another, then slipped them into a bag, and sent them to the antiquarians of Paris to be deciphered.

But there have arisen, within the last thirty years especially, men who have studied plants with the view, not only to know who they were, but rather what they were, how they lived and how they died, what their relation was to the world, and what their purpose in the great household of Nature. Kindred sciences have lent their aid; the miscroscope has laid

open the innermost recesses of plants; travellers have brought home new, generalizing views, and an insight has at last been gained into the life of the vegetable world. Great, startling discoveries have there been made, new truths and new beauties have been revealed to us, and natural science has unfolded the most delicate resources and most curious relations in the vegetable kingdom.

Thus we have learned, that it is a fallacy-to be sure as old as botany itselfthat plants have no motion. Old Aristotle, it is true, had a curious idea, that they were buried in deep slumber, out of which nothing could awake them, and that thus by a kind of enchantment, they were spellbound, until the great word should be spoken, that was to restore to them life and motion. Modern science also teaches that the characteristic of organic bodies is independent motion, that of inorganic, rest. But plants have both life and motion; we dare not as yet say whether it be the effect of a mere dream, of a mechanical pressure from without, or of instinctive life within. For what do we as yet know of the simplest functions of the inner life of plants? Who has not, however, observed how the pale sap courses through the colossal stems of gigantic trees and the delicate veins of a frail leaf, as rapidly and marvellously as through the body of man? Take a microscope and you will see the plant full of life and motion. All its minute cells are filled with countless little currents, now rotary and now up and down, often even apparently lawless, but always distinctly marked by tiny grains which are seen to turn in them or to rise without ceasing. In this world nothing is motionless, says a modern philosopher. Let the air be so still, that not a breath shall be felt to creep through it, and yet the forest leaves will seem stirred as if in silent prayer. The earth moves small things and great, all obey the same law, and the little blade of grass goes around the sun as swiftly as the tallest pine. The very shadow dances, as if in idle mockery, around the immovable flower, and marks the passing hours of sunshine.

But plants move not only where they stand-they travel also. They migrate from land to land, sometimes slowly, inch by inch, then again on the wings of the storm. Botanists tell us of actual migrations of plants, and a successive extension of the domain of particular floras, just as we speak of the migration of idioms and races. Individual plants, however, travel only as man ought to travel, when they

are young. If they have once found a home, they settle quietly down, grow, blossom, and bear fruit. Therefore it is, that plants travel only in the seed. For this purpose, seeds possess often special organs for a long journey through the air. Sometimes they are put, like small bombshells, into little mortars, and fired off with great precision. Thus arise the wellknown emerald rings on our greenswards, and on the vast prairies of the West, which some ascribe to electricity, whilst the poet loves to see in them traces of the moonlight revels of fairies. The truth is scarcely less poetical. A small circular fungus squats down on a nice bit of turf. It prospers and fills with ripening seed. When it matures, it discharges the tiny balls, already mentioned, in a circle all around, and then sinks quietly in the ground and dies. Another season, and its place is marked by an abundance of luxuriant grass, feeding upon its remains, whilst around it a whole ring of young fungi have begun to flourish. They die in their turn, and so the circle goes on enlarging and enlarging, shifting rapidly, because fungi exhaust the soil soon of all matter necessary for their growth, and closely followed by the rich grass, that fills up their place, and prevents them from ever retracing their steps.

A similar irritability enables other plants also to scatter their seeds far and near, by means of springs bent back, until a breath of wind, a falling leaf, or the wing of an insect, causes them to rebound, and thus to send the pollen with which they are loaded often to a great distance. The so-called Touch-me-not balsam scatters its ripe seeds, by such a contrivance, in all directions, and the squirting cucumber is furnished, for the same purpose, with a complete fire-engine. Some of the geraniums, also, of our greenhouses have their fruit-vessels so curiously constructed, that the mere contact with another object, and frequently the heat of the sun alone, suffices to detach the carpels, one by one, with a snapping sound, and so suddenly as to cause a considerable jerk, which sends the seeds far away.

Other fruit-vessels again, have, as is well known, contrivances the most curious and ingenious, by which they press every living thing that comes near them into their service, and make it convey them whithersoever they please. Every body is familiar with the bearded varieties of wheat and other grain; they are provided with little hooks which they cunningly insert into the wool or hair of grazing cattle, and thus they are carried

about until they find a pleasant place for their future home. Some who do not like to obtain services thus by hook and crook, succeed by pretended friendship, sticking closely to their self-chosen companions. They cover their little seeds with a most adhesive glue, and when the busy bee comes to gather honey from their sweet blossoms, which they jauntily hang.out to catch the unwary insect, the seeds adhere to its body, and travel thus on four fine wings through the wide, wide world. Bee fanciers know very well the common disease of their sweet friends, when so much pollen adheres to their head that they cannot fly; and must miserably perish, one by one, under the heavy burden which these innocent-looking plants have compelled them to carry. We have but little knowledge as yet of the activity of life in the vegetable world, and of its momentous influence on the welfare of our own race. Few only know that the gall-fly of Asia Minor decides on the existence of ten thousands of human beings. As our clippers and steamers carry the produce of the land from continent to continent, so these tiny sailors of the air perform, under the direction of Divine Providence, the important duty of carrying pollen, or fertilizing dust, from figtree to fig-tree. Without pollen, there come no figs, and, consequently, on their activity and number depends the productiveness of these trees; they, therefore, regulate in fact the extensive and profitable fig trade of Smyrna. A little, ugly beetle of Kamschatka has, in like manner, more than once saved the entire population of the most barren part of Greenland from apparently unavoidable starvation. He is a great thief in his way, and a most fastidious gourmand, moreover. Nothing will satisfy him on a long winter evening-and we must charitably bear in mind that these evenings sometimes last five months without interruption-but a constant supply of lily bulbs. The lilies are well content with this arrangement, for the being eaten is as natural to them as to a Feejee-islander; and they are, as compensation, saved from being crowded to death in a narrow space, whilst those that escape the little glutton, shoot up merrily, next summer, in rich pastures. Still better content are the Greenlanders; for, when their last mouthful of meat, and their last drop of trainoil are gone, they dig and rob the little, provident beetle of his carefully hoarded treasure, and, by its aid, manage to live until another season. It is thus that we see every where the beautiful and close

bonds of love connecting even those parts of creation, that seem to be without sense or voluntary motion, humble subjects of the dominion of the elements, and which yet respond to the action of those mysterious powers, that rule, under God, in nature. The flower opens its gorgeous chalice, filled with rich honey, to the tiny insect; the insect, in return, carries the fructifying pollen to the flower's distant mate, and thus propagates it anew. The herbs of the field send forth their luxuriant tufts of leaves for the browsing cattle, and sheep and oxen carry the seed in their hides from meadow to meadow. The trees themselves, planted by stones that birds have dropped, grow and flourish until "they are strong, and the height thereof reaches unto heaven, and the beasts of the field have shadow under it, and the fowls of heaven dwell in the boughs thereof."

When neither quadruped nor insect can be coaxed or forced to transport the young seeds that wish to see the world, they sometimes launch forth on their own account, and trust to a gentle breeze or a light current of air, rising from the heated surface of the earth. It is true, nature has given them wings to fly with, such as man never yet was skilful enough to devise for his own use. The maple-our maple, I mean-has genuine little wings, with which it flies merrily about in its early days; others, like the dandelion and the anemone, have light downy appendages, or little feathery tufts and crowns, by which they are floated along on the lightest breath of air, and enjoy, to their heart's content, long autumnal wanderings. These airy appendages are marvellously well adapted for the special purpose of each plant: some but just large enough to waft the tiny grain up the height of a molehill, others strong enough to carry the seed of the cedar from the low valley to the summit of Mount LebThe proudest princes of the vegetable kingdom often depend for their continuance on these little feathery tufts, which but few observers are apt to notice. A recent writer tells us that, a few years ago, the only palm-tree the city of Paris could then boast of, suddenly blossomed. Botanists were at a loss how to explain the apparent miracle, and skeptics began to sneer, and declared that the laws of nature had failed. An advertisement appeared in the papers, inquiring for the unknown mate of the solitary tree. And behold, in an obscure court-yard away off, there had lived, unknown and unnoticed, another small palm; it also had blossom

anon.

ed apparently alone, and in vain—but a gentle breeze had come, and carried its flower-dust to its distant companion, and the first palm-flowers ever seen in France were the result of this silent mediation.

Reckless wanderers, also, there are among the plants, who waste their substance, and wildly rove about in the world. The rose of Jericho, which we have already noticed, and a club moss of Peru, are such erratic idlers that wander from land to land. When they have blossomed and borne fruit, and when the dry season comes, they wither, fold their leaves together, and draw up their roots, so as to form a light, little ball. In this form they are driven hither and thither on the wings of the wind, rolling along the plains in spiritlike dance, now whirling in great circles about, now caught by an eddy and rising suddenly high into the air. It is not until they reach a moist place that they care to rest a while, but then they settle down at once, send down their roots, unfold their leaves, assume a bright green, and become quiet, useful citizens in their own great kingdom of plants.

There are, however, thousands of plants that have neither servants nor wings to gratify their wishes, and who seem condemned to see their offspring die at their feet. But here again we see how the resources of nature are always far superior to the apparent difficulty.

Even

These very seeds which seemed so hopelessly lost, often travel fastest of all; they travel on the wings of birds. The latter steal our fruit, our cherries and grapes; they carry them off to some convenient place, eat the pulpy part, and drop the stone with the seed in it, where it is most likely to find a genial soil and a sheltered home. their evil propensities must thus serve the purposes of nature. Jays and pies, it is well known, are fond of hiding grains and acorns among grass or moss and in the ground, and then, poor things, forget the hiding place, and lose all their treasure. Squirrels, also marmots and mice, bury nuts under ground, and often so deep that neither light nor warmth can reach the hidden grain. But then comes man, and cuts down the pinewood, and lo! to the astonishment of all, a young coppice of oaks shoots up, and the wonder is, where all the acorns have so suddenly come from. It is not without its ludicrous side, to see even the ingenuity of men baffled by these unconscious but faithful servants of nature. We are told that the Dutch, with a sublime kind of political wisdom, destroy the plants which produce our nutmeg, for the purpose of keeping up

their monopoly, and high prices into the bargain, by the limited amount of the annual produce, which is entirely in their own hands. With this view, they cut down every tree of the kind in the Molucca Islands, where it was originally indigenous, and punish, to this day, with the severest penalties the mere possession of a nut. But it so happens that a little bird of the same Moluccas also is fond of these nuts; and as the air cannot very well be guarded and watched, even by Dutch ingenuity, he insists upon eating them, and carries the seed to distant islands of the ocean, causing the stupid Hollanders infinite trouble and annoyance.

Seeds that have not learned to fly with their own or other people's wings, it seems are taught to swim. Trees and bushes which bear nuts, love low grounds and river banks. Why? Because their fruit is shaped like a small boat, and the rivulet playing with its tiny riples over silvery sands, as well as the broad wave of the Pacific, carry their seed alike, safely and swiftly, to new homes. Rivers float down the fruits of mountain regions, into deep valleys and to far off coasts, and the Gulf Stream of our own Atlantic carries annually the rich products of the torrid zone of America to the distant shores of Iceland and Norway. Seeds of plants growing in Jamaica and Cuba have been gathered in the quiet coves of the Hebrides. The fruit of the red bay has the form of a pirogue; at first it sinks to the bottom, but nature has given it a small hole in the upper part; a little air-bubble forms there, and causes it to rise again. The gigantic cocoa-nut itself, weighing not rarely more than five pounds, but air-tight in its close shell, and buoyant by its light, fibrous coat, is thus drifted from island to island, and rides safely on the surges of the ocean from the Seychelles to the distant coast of Malabar. There it lodges, and germinates in the light moist sand, so that the Indians of old fancied that they grew under water, and called them sea cocoas. A still more striking provision of nature is this, that there are some seeds of this kind so exquisitely adjusted to their future destination, as to sink in salt water, while they swim with safety in sweet

water.

Large vegetable masses even travel on the great waters of the ocean. Compact fields of marine plants are occasionally met with in the Southern seas, and on the coast of Florida, large enough to impede the progress of vessels, and filled with millions of crustacea. They are not

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