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Title: Flowers and their friends
Author: Morley, Margaret Warner
Language: English
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FLOWERS AND THEIR FRIENDS
BY
MARGARET WARNER MORLEY
AUTHOR OF “SEED-BABIES,” “A FEW FAMILIAR FLOWERS,” ETC.
GINN & COMPANY
BOSTON · NEW YORK · CHICAGO · LONDON
COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY
MARGARET WARNER MORLEY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
36.4
=The Athenæum Press=
GINN & COMPANY · PROPRIETORS
BOSTON · U.S.A.
A LETTER
TO THE READERS OF THIS BOOK.
❃
DEAR CHILDREN,—
It would be very stupid indeed to try to read a book written in Arabic
or Hebrew; we should soon tire and put it down.
It is just as uninteresting to read English words whose meaning we do
not understand; we might as well devote ourselves to a foreign and
unknown tongue.
I hope you will never do it. If you do not know what a word means, find
out. There is a list of words you may not know at the back of this book
to help you. They are all words used in the book, and if you look you
may not find them as stupid as you think. Some day you will discover
that the dictionary is quite an exciting and interesting volume.
Meantime enjoy the flowers and their insect friends all you can, and be
sure you know the meaning of all the words that tell about them.
Your friend,
THE AUTHOR.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
MORNING-GLORY STORIES 1
THE FLOWER 3
THIS IS THE FLOWER SO BRIGHT AND GAY 11
THE CALYX 13
BLOSSOM DEAR 14
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE GARDEN 16
THE OVULES 23
THE LEAVES 27
TO THE MORNING-GLORY 29
THE CONVOLVULUS FAMILY 30
STORIES ABOUT THE GERANIUM FAMILY 47
TROPÆOLUM STORIES:
TROPÆOLUM HONEY 49
THE TROPÆOLUM 50
WHO LIES CURLED UP 57
MORE ABOUT THE TROPÆOLUM 58
JEWELWEED STORIES:
A DAINTY CAVE 65
TOUCH-ME-NOT 66
EARDROPS 71
LADY’S SLIPPER 72
THE HUMMING BIRD 74
PELARGONIUM STORIES:
THE PELARGONIUMS 75
AN AFRICAN 80
PELARGONIUM LEAVES 81
THE GERANIUM FAMILY 84
HYACINTH STORIES 93
THE HYACINTH 95
SIGNS OF SPRING 96
THE HYACINTH’S SCEPTRE 98
TUNICS 99
THE BEE 104
STORIES ABOUT ALL SORTS OF THINGS 105
NECTAR GUIDES 107
CELLS 108
POLLEN CELLS 120
THE POLLEN 127
THE ANTHERS 128
OVULE CELLS 129
CHLOROPHYLL 134
ROOT CELLS 144
SKIN CELLS 148
TUBE CELLS 162
STRENGTHENING CELLS 165
WE AND THE PLANT PEOPLE 168
WHAT ARE THE FLOWERS MADE OF 176
WHAT BECOMES OF THE FLOWERS 181
NOTHING BUT LEAVES 191
SIGNS OF OTHER TIMES 214
WHY ARE THE FLOWERS SO LARGE AND BRIGHT 218
HOW MOTHER NATURE MAKES NEW FLOWERS 223
TONGUES AND TUBES 231
[Illustration: Morning-Glory Stories.]
Morning-Glory Stories.
THE FLOWER.
[Illustration: [Flower]]
The morning-glory and the bracted bindweed might be taken for sisters,
they look so much alike. There is no doubt but that they are closely
related, although the bindweed grows wild and the morning-glory has to
be sown by us.
The bindweed lives in the country and twines over the hedges by the
roadside; you can see its pink-and-white flowers all summer long if you
look in the right places.
It is a jolly sort of life the bindweed leads, always twining, twining,
twining, with its leaves facing the sunshine and its flowers dancing on
their slender stems.
We often call the bindweed the wild morning-glory, and we and the bees
are fond of it. We enjoy looking at it, and probably the bees do, too,
though they have yet another reason for liking it. Just watch one go
into a wild morning-glory some fine day. You will think she expects to
find something very delightful indeed from the way she hurries in. And
so she does. She buzzes down the white line to the very bottom of the
flower, crowds her head as far in as she can get it, and then thrusts
her long brown tongue yet deeper in to where the honey lies. For the
flower makes honey for the bee, and keeps it hidden as deep as possible.
There are five openings in the bottom of the flower cup that go straight
into the honey wells. You need only look into a morning-glory and you
will see them. All kinds of morning-glories, as well as the bindweeds,
have them.
The bees know this, and wherever you see the morning-glories you will
see their little winged friends.
Very many flowers provide honey for the insects, and it is fortunate for
us that they do; for if they did not, we should see no butterflies and
have no honey, for butterflies and bees cannot live without the honey
the flowers give them.
Flower honey has a special name; we often call it nectar, for a good
reason which I mean to tell you another time.
The places where the nectar is stored are the nectar holders, or
nectaries.
It must be a fine thing to go to a flower and take a drink of honey
whenever you wish; but what will you say when I tell you the bees get
bread as well as honey from the flowers?
Yet this is what happens. You could not live upon honey alone; neither
could a bee. Perhaps you could not live upon bread and honey; but you
could if you were a bee, that is, _beebread_ and honey.
For beebread is much more nutritious than the bread we eat. In fact, it
takes the place of meat and eggs and milk and all the other things we
take such pains to get.
You do not see where a bee finds bread in a flower?
That is because you are not a bee. If you were, you would know at once.
Suppose you watch a bee go into a morning-glory.
She will be in a great hurry, and you will have to keep your eyes open,
or all will be over before you know what has happened.
She will suck up the honey, and then very likely she will turn around
and around on the white pole-like part that stands up in the middle of
the flower. She is not doing this for fun, nor because she is confused
and does not know which way to go next.
She is gathering fine flour of which to make beebread.
Put your finger into the morning-glory and you, too, may gather this
fine flour.
When you take your finger out there will be something like fine white
powder clinging to it. Well, that is the flour from which the bee makes
her beebread. We call it _pollen_, and if we look closely we shall find
it is stored in five tiny boxes.
These boxes, which are called _anthers_, open by a slit along one side,
and the bee puts her funny little feet into the slits and scrapes out
the pollen, which she moistens with honey and packs into baskets on her
hindermost legs, or fastens to the hairs on the under side of her body.
Then she goes home and packs her load away in the hive for future use.
You see it is not much trouble to make beebread—that is, if you know
how. It does not have to be raised or baked, yet I doubt if you or I
would be able to make it so that a bee would consider it fit to eat.
[Illustration: Anther. Filament. The Stamen.]
These anthers are held up on long white stalks which grow to the inside
of the flower cup, and which are named _filaments_.
Since there are five anthers there are five filaments.
We call the whole thing, anther and filament, a _stamen_.
But this is not all there is to be found in a morning-glory flower.
There is something else, and if it were not for this something else we
should not have the fun of learning about honey and stamens, because
there would be none! Both honey and stamens exist because of this
something else.
It is in the very center of the flower, and the stamens stand about it
in a circle. It stands up like a pole and has a knob at the top. The
knob sticks out above the stamens as a rule. When the flower cup falls,
the stamens fall too, because the filaments grow fast to it. But this
something else does not fall. It stays on the vine, and you can see it
better after the flower cup has fallen.
We call it the _pistil_. It has neither honey nor pollen, yet on its
account the bees and butterflies visit the flowers.
[Illustration: THE PISTIL.]
Here is its picture, and you may look at it as carefully as you please.
The knob at the top is called the _stigma_, the long, slender part is
called the _style_, and the round bottom the _ovary_.
If you look over all the vine you will make a discovery. You will find a
great many of these pistils in different stages of growth. When the
flower cup first falls off, the pistil is very small and has its style
and stigma. Then the style and stigma fall, and only the ovary remains.
This grows larger and plumper, and you tell me it is the seed-pod, and
is full of seeds. You are right about that; it _is_ the seed-pod, and
the pistil is the part where the seeds grow.
So now you see how very important it is, and I would advise you to take
another look at it.
If there were no seeds there could be no more plants, so the growth of
the seed is a matter of great importance.
When the seed first begins to form it is tiny and soft and delicate. It
is attached to the inside of the ovary, and we do not then call it a
seed, but an ovule. The word “ovule” means “little egg,” and the ovules
are really the eggs of the plant, as you will agree if you think a
moment.
If all goes well, the tiny, soft ovule becomes a large, hard seed. But
it cannot do this alone; it needs help. Probably you never could guess
what helps it, so I will tell you at once: it is the pollen.
If a pollen grain can unite with an ovule, the two thus joined together
can grow into a seed. So you see the flower does not provide pollen for
the use of the bee alone. It makes it for its own seed-children.
But the bee is the messenger that carries the pollen to the ovule. You
see the pollen grain of our morning-glory lies in the anther below the
stigma, and it must reach the stigma so as to find its way down to the
ovary. Just how all this comes about you will know later; only now
remember that the pollen must get to the stigma, and that the bee puts
it there. Not on purpose, though. The bee collects pollen for her own
use, but in doing so touches the stigma with her pollen-covered body,
and some of the pollen grains stick to the stigma instead of remaining
on the bee.
When the pistil is ripe, the stigma is sticky and holds fast the pollen
grains that touch it. The union of ovule and pollen is called
_fertilization_, and by flying about from flower to flower the insects
carry pollen from one flower to another, and thus fertilize the plants.
You will know a great deal more about this later.
So we see the pollen is made for the sake of the seeds. The honey is
also made for the sake of the seeds, for it attracts the insects that
are necessary to fertilize the flower. Even the flower cup has its
bright and beautiful coloring to attract the attention of the insects
and call them to it. The name of the flower cup is the “corolla,” and
means “a little crown” or “garland.”
The corolla is not the only covering the inner parts have. Look at the
end of the flower next the stem and you will see the green calyx. When
the corolla falls off, the calyx stays and protects the tender ovary.
The calyx has five parts, or sepals, and these fold about the ovary like
a green cup and keep it safe.
[Illustration: Calyx.]
When the ovules are ready for the pollen, the flower puts on its
beautiful garland as a sign that the life of the plant is to be renewed.
When we look at the flowers in the fields and gardens we may know that
their loveliness is also a promise for the future.
THIS IS THE FLOWER SO BRIGHT AND GAY.
Most flowers have, like the morning-glory, corolla, stamens, and nectar
to assist the pistil in developing the seeds.
The sweet pea has, and somebody once told a story about it that I am
going to tell you, because I think it will help you to remember the
parts of the flower and their uses.
[Illustration: [Flower]]
This is the flower so bright and gay.
This is the stamen that lives in the flower so bright and gay.
[Illustration: [Stamen]]
[Illustration: [Anther]] This is the anther that grows on the stamen
that lives in the flower so bright and gay.
This is the pollen that lies in the anther that grows on the stamen that
lives in the flower so bright and gay. [Illustration: [Pollen]]
This is the bee that gathers the pollen that lies in the anther that
grows on the stamen that lives in the flower so bright and gay.
[Illustration: [Bee]]
[Illustration: [Stigma]] This is the stigma that brushes the bee that
gathers the pollen that lies in the anther that grows on the stamen that
lives in the flower so bright and gay.
[Illustration: [Style]] This is the style that leads from the stigma
that brushes the bee that gathers the pollen that lies in the anther
that grows on the stamen that lives in the flower so bright and gay.
[Illustration: [Ovary]] This is the ovary that stands under the style
that leads from the stigma that brushes the bee that gathers the pollen
that lies in the anther that grows on the stamen that lives in the
flower so bright and gay.
[Illustration: [Ovule]] This is the ovule that hides in the ovary that
stands under the style that leads from the stigma that brushes the bee
that gathers the pollen that lies in the anther that grows on the stamen
that lives in the flower so bright and gay.
[Illustration: [Seed]] This is the seed that grows from the ovule
BECAUSE
the ovule hid in the ovary, the ovary stood under the style, the style
led from the stigma, the stigma brushed the bee, the bee gathered the
pollen, the pollen lay in the anther, the anther grew on the stamen, and
the stamen lived in the flower so bright and gay!
THE CALYX.
The calyx is green.
The calyx is strong.
[Illustration: [Calyx]]
The calyx protects the ovary.
It has five sepals—five green sepals.
They overlap like the tiles on a roof and thus protect the ovary from
rain. They also protect it from insects that otherwise might destroy it.
The calyx covers the base of the corolla and forms a green urn, a little
vase, in which to hold it secure from harm.
It is not bright and delicate like the corolla, but what would the
flower do without it?
[Illustration: [Calyxes]]
BLOSSOM DEAR.
[Illustration: [Blossom]]
Blossom dear, what is the power
Draws the shining wings to thee?
Nestled in thy dainty bower
I can always find a bee.
Little friend, my bees find honey
Hidden deep as deep can be.
Without fear and without money
Come they for these sweets to me.
[Illustration: [Flower]]
Flower, flower, give _me_ honey,
Give me honey from thy store.
I will pay with love and money;
_Stores_ of money, and love much more.
[Illustration: [Bees]]
[Illustration: [Bee]]
Dear, I cannot give you honey.
Shall I truly tell you why?
Bees pay better worth than money
As they have wings, but you can’t fly!
So I coax them with my honey,
Feed them with my very best,
While their wings bear life to many
Waiting in the cradle nest.
For the children of the flowers
Need the precious pollen dust,
And the bees have winged powers
To bear to them this sacred trust.
[Illustration: [Bee]]
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE GARDEN.
The morning-glory lay rolled up in the bud down under the leaves. One
day it bloomed.
[Illustration: [Morning-Glory]]
The firm stem held it up, the bud unrolled, and the blossom stood there,
fresh and fair.
The bees saw it from afar, and came as fast as they could.
They flew to the pink corolla, and, entering, enjoyed the feast spread
for them.
The morning-glory, because of their coming, had filled the nectar cups
and opened the boxes of snow-white pollen.
One after the other the bees came, drank the nectar, and carried away
the pollen. As fast as the cups were emptied they were filled again.
The honeybees and the bumblebees were provided with baskets, which they
filled with pollen; but the other bees carried it away on the long hairs
of their bodies.
The morning-glory glowed in the sunshine all day long, happy, no doubt,
in the consciousness that the little seed-children had begun to grow. It
was because of them the bees were made so welcome.
[Illustration: [Morning-Glory]]
We can imagine the flower might feel like saying, “This is my
seed-children’s birthday party; come often, dear bees, and sip my nectar
and take my pollen. But be like the good fairies and bring each a gift
to my seed-children.”
The bees buzzed and came and went and came and went.
Each time they took away nectar and pollen to their hives, and each time
left something for the seed-children.
Do you suppose they left a cap of darkness, and a pair of seven-league
boots, and a sword that always conquered, and a magic carpet that took
people wherever they wanted to go, as the fairies used to do in the
times when fairies were alive and came to the christenings of little
children?
I do not think the bees brought any of these things to the birthday
party of the seed-children.
The bees, not being real fairies, were obliged to bring what they could.
[Illustration: [Morning-Glory]]
Now, the day that the pink morning-glory bloomed, a great many other
morning-glories came out of their buds, and they all gave the bees a
welcome.
They filled their cups with nectar and opened their boxes of snow-white
pollen.
Such a feast as was spread for the bees! Blue morning-glories, and pink
and purple and white ones, on all sides they stood, fresh and smiling,
and invited the bees to come.
And the bees came. They went from one to the other as fast as they
could. They sucked up nectar from all, and took it home and made
morning-glory honey of it. And they gathered snow-white pollen from all,
and took it home and made morning-glory beebread of it.
But they did not carry home all the snow-white pollen. They bore some of
it as gifts to the seed-children.
[Illustration: [Morning-Glory]]
The seed-children needed the pollen; they could not grow into seeds
without it, and they needed the pollen from another flower, not that
from their own. So the pollen the bees brought them was better far than
caps or boots or carpets or any of those things the fairies used to
bring to human children.
And this is why the morning-glories made the bees so welcome. They could
not take their pollen to each other, for they could not leave their
stems; so they employed the bees to carry it for them.
The morning-glories nodded to each other across the garden. “I will send
my bee to you,” one said to another, and the bee came and left a few
grains of pollen from the friendly flower. In this way the
morning-glories exchanged pollen all day long, so that each had plenty
of fresh neighbors’ pollen to give the seed-children.
[Illustration: [Morning-Glory]]
The flowers lasted all day, from sunrise to sunset, and the nectar
lasted all day, and the snow-white pollen. But when night came the bees
went home to sleep, and the morning-glories, too, slept. They rolled in
the edges of their corollas so that the way to the nectar cups was
closed.
Next day the morning-glories did not open again. There was no more
nectar in their cups and no more snow-white pollen in their anther
cells. Other morning-glories came out of their buds and invited the
bees, but these staid shut. Soon the corollas, faded now and no longer
lovely to look at, fell off. Their work was done. They had been
beautiful to show how happy they were and how lovely life was; by their
beauty, too, they had brought the bees and gained the pollen they wanted
to make other lovely flowers live. Now, their messages of love and
happiness given, they fell off, and the pollen boxes, empty and
withered, fell with them.
But they left behind life and hope, for each tiny seed had received its
grain of life-assuring pollen. For only the corolla and the stamens
fell. The seed-children still clung to the stem; they lay in their
cradles, nicely wrapped up by the green calyx leaves. And then the
little stems that held the seed-babies’ cradles turned down and hid the
little cradles under the leaves.
The seed-babies grew and grew. They would soon have outgrown their
cradles, only the strange thing is, the cradles grew too! They grew as
fast as the seeds and kept them snug and safe.
[Illustration: [Morning-Glory]]
So all summer long, until the frost came and it was time for the
morning-glories to take their long winter sleep, the buds opened in the
morning. All summer long the bright morning-glories filled their cups
with nectar and opened their boxes of snow-white pollen for the bees.
And all summer long the seed-children received their pollen and grew and
grew in their cradles that grew too. But after a while the green cradles
turned brown. And after another while the brown cradles opened to let
the seed-children look out, and as soon as this happened every little
black seed—for they had grown quite black by this time—fell out of its
cradle! It did not hurt it to fall out, for it tumbled and rolled down
to the earth, where, at last, the wind came and covered it with leaves,
as the robins covered up the babes in the woods. And the little black
seed-babies lay there as snug as seed-babies could be.
Then the snow came and spread a blanket over them, and the leaves and
the snow kept them as warm as they wanted to be until springtime came
and the snow went away; and the seeds began to stretch themselves and
think it was time to wake up and go out and see what was going on in the
big world above.
[Illustration: [Morning-Glory]]
THE OVULES
[Illustration: [Ovules]]
When the ovules get ready to grow, the flower prepares to bloom.
All about the ovules the delicate walls of the ovary shut tightly.
The white filaments of the stamens group themselves about it; you cannot
see the ovary, they stand so close to it.
Their anther cells reach halfway up to the stigma, for the white stigma
stands above the anthers. The anthers and the stigma are there for the
sake of the ovules.
But this is not all.
[Illustration: [Corolla]]
A delicate corolla of bright colors surrounds the stamens and pistil. It
holds them in its white tube, and spreads the bright border out wide for
the bees to see and come to the help of the ovules.
But this is not all.
[Illustration: [Calyx]]
The green calyx wraps its sepals about the end of the corolla tube, and
when the corolla falls the calyx covers nicely the ovary and helps it
protect the ovules.
But this is not all.
[Illustration: [Ovary]]
When the bees have been and have left their message of life, and when
the corolla has faded and fallen, the stems of the flowers turn down and
hide the ovary with its seedlets under the leaves.
But this is not all.
[Illustration: [Flower]]
The leaves work day and night to make food for the plant, and some of it
goes to the ovules. The leaves eat what is in the air and change it to
food for the rest of the plant and the ovules.
But this is not all.
The roots suck food from the hard earth; they help the leaves make food.
But this is not all.
The stems carry the food from the roots to the leaves, and from the
leaves to the flowers, where it gets to the ovules.
Why should so much be done for the sake of the tiny ovules, white little
atoms at the heart of the flower?
Why should the flowers care? Why should they spread bright corollas and
arrange these cunning protections and draw up the sap for the sake of
the tiny white ovules?
[Illustration: [Ovary]]
Look into the ovary and see them.
Six small white things are they, so small and soft you would scarcely
think they were worth much care.
But look again and think a little. They are very wonderful, although so
small. They grow to the ovary by a little stem; they get the good sap to
grow on through this stem. They have a little hole through their
delicate coats, and through this hole the pollen enters.
When the pollen is in, the little hole closes, and the ovules feel
strong and alive. They draw in the sap the leaves have made them through
their little stem; they grow larger and firmer. They cease to be tiny
white round things; they get two leaves with a little stem and a bud
between them.
They are no longer ovules, they are seeds. They are little sleeping
vines. In each black little seed is a whole vine packed away.
After a time the old vine will fade away. It will fall and turn brown.
It will do no more work of changing gases and minerals into living
plant. It will not again have green leaves and bear bright flowers.
But there will be more morning-glories, for the vine has stored some of
its life in the seeds, and they will not fade and cease to work. All
that is left of the life of the vine is in the seeds. All the
morning-glories that will grow and delight us with their bright flowers
next summer lie packed away in the dark seeds.
Dear little seeds, live on through the cold winter; without you we never
again could see our bright morning-glories!
And that is why the vines take such care of the seeds; the whole race of
morning-glories is in their keeping.
THE LEAVES.
The leaves of the morning-glory consider each other. They stand close
together, but, as you see, they do not crowd.
[Illustration: [Leaves]]
They turn a little to one side that all may have as much room as
possible, for each needs all the light and air it can get.
The leaves also have regard for the roots working away in the dark
earth. Instead of being flat, they have a channel down the middle, a
gutter to convey the rain water from leaf to leaf, and finally to the
ground above the roots.
Some of the roots, it is true, stray away, but some stay close to the
plant and suck up the rain the leaves send them.
The young leaves fold together. They are very tender, and too much cold
or too much heat would harm them; and if they were open, the sun would
draw away too much of their water.
[Illustration: [Leaves]]
So they lie close and snug, and do not open until they have grown large
and strong enough to meet the bright sunshine and the cold night.
Then they open wide; they become green and do their work, which is to
make food for the plant.
TO THE MORNING-GLORY.
[Illustration: [Morning-Glory]]
What do you do with your pollen so white?
What do you do with your honey so sweet?
What is the use of your border so bright?
And what is the use of your calyx so neat?
THE CONVOLVULUS FAMILY.
[Illustration: [Convolvulus]]
This is a large and, on the whole, aristocratic family.
About two thousand different kinds of plants belong to it; but not so
many in our climate. Perhaps not more than two hundred of the
Convolvulaceæ, which is the proper name of this family, come as far
North as we live.
They are rather cold-blooded people, these Convolvulaceæ, and prefer to
stay in or near the tropics.
Up our way are the morning-glories, as you know. This is not their
native home, though, as it is of the bloodroots, the bindweeds, and all
the other wild flowers.
They were brought here from the hot part of America, near the equator.
Somebody saw them, no doubt, and of course fell in love with them and
sent some seeds to their friends in the North, or else took them when
they went home.
Perhaps a sailor boy, landing in South America and seeing the bright
flowers in the morning sunshine, thought of the New England village
where he lived and which he often longed for there in that strange hot
country, and perhaps he sent the seeds of these bright flowers home in a
letter. But whoever may have sent the first seeds, it is certain the
morning-glories received a hearty welcome in our Northern world. And
they soon behaved like old settlers.
They grew cheerily where they were planted, and their seeds fell to the
ground, where they managed to survive the cold Northern winter.
This must have been a great surprise to them the first time they felt
it!
Then up they came in the spring just as though they were at home. They
even strayed away from the people’s gardens and grew wild near the
villages.
Perhaps they met their Northern cousins the bindweeds there. And what a
surprise _that_ must have been,—to come up from South America and find a
member of one’s own family who had always lived in the cold North!
See how astonished the morning-glory at the bottom of the page looks as
it gazes upon its cousin the bindweed!
For the bindweeds, you must know, are like the bloodroots and mandrakes
and other wild flowers; they are natives of our Northern climate.
[Illustration: [Convolvulus]]
[Illustration: [Convolvulus]]
There are several kinds of bindweeds just as there are several kinds of
morning-glories; but they are all, morning-glories and bindweeds alike,
descended from some way-back convolvulus ancestor, just as you and your
cousins and your second cousins and your third cousins and your
fourteenth cousins are all descended from the same great, great, great,
way-back grandfather.
There is another member of the Convolvulus Family with which we are all
pretty well acquainted, and that is our little red-flowered cypress
vine. You remember it, with its feathery leaves which we train over
trellises in our flower gardens.
You would hardly think at first glance that it was a relative of the
morning-glory. But it is, as you would discover if you looked at it very
carefully and saw how much it is like a morning-glory in its way of
growing, in spite of appearances.
It comes to us from Mexico, and you could hardly expect a Mexican
convolvulus to be just like a South American one, the habits of the two
countries are so different, you know.
Why, you would hardly know your own relatives if they had been born and
brought up in South America for a few generations.
The next time you go to Mexico be sure and look out for the cypress
vine, which, for all I know, may be looked upon as just a common weed
there, as we look at thistles and dandelions here. We would think
thistles and dandelions beautiful flowers if we had to raise them in
gardens with a great deal of trouble. But because we have to dig them
out of our gardens and lawns we call them weeds and detest them.
Way down South, and also in some parts of Florida, there lives a lovely
convolvulus. It grows something like our morning-glories, only its
leaves are all sorts of shapes, heart-shaped and halberd-shaped and
angled, all together on the same vine sometimes.
Its blossoms are real flower queens, they are so large and white and
fragrant. They have a tube which is three or four inches long, and a
snowy border still larger. They are called _bona nox_, which you know
very well is the Latin for “good night.”
The reason they are called this is, they do not open in the morning at
all, but always at night.
People have them growing over their porches sometimes, and sometimes
call them “moonflowers.”
The long white buds are twisted tightly shut in the daytime, but as soon
as the sun sets, if you are watching, you will see something to astonish
and delight you. For see, the bud moves a little! Then, all at once, the
great white flower spreads out its corolla with a grace and serenity
that thrill you. Before your very eyes the bud unfolds, and you have
seen a flower blossom out! At the same moment a delicate and delightful
fragrance fills the air.
But why does it bloom at night you ask.
The morning-glory has a bright bell to call the bees, but the bees do
not fly at night. Does this large, fragrant white flower not care for
the bees? Does it not wish pollen from other flowers?
That it does; above all things it wants pollen, and that is why it has
opened this large, white, fragrant corolla.
See its tube, how long and deep. What bee could reach into _that_
nectary?
A humming bird might, but the humming birds are all tucked up on their
tiny perches sound asleep. They will never sip the nectar from those
large white moonflowers.
[Illustration: [Humming bird]]
But what am I saying? Here comes one now! Such a whirr of wings! Such a
dainty bird as poises before the large sweet flower! It thrusts in its
bill, but stay! that is not a bird’s bill finding its way to the bottom
of those deep-placed nectaries. It is a long, slender tube such as
butterflies have, and this is no bird, but a large night-flying moth.
These moths are heavier than butterflies and look very much like humming
birds when darting through the air.
But if you see one at rest you know at once it is no humming bird. When
the humming birds are darting about in the sunshine, these moths are
hidden beneath a leaf or in some other safe place.
Perhaps they fear some bird with a taste for moths will eat them if they
come out. Perhaps they love the quiet night. However that may be, as
soon as it is dusk they fly out. They are hungry after their sleep
through the long summer day, and dart about to find flowers that are
still open.
The morning-glories, we know, are closed, for they love the bees, but
the moonflowers are filling the air with perfume; their fragrance guides
the moths to the white flowers that shine out in the dim light.
Now you see why the moonflowers are white and why they are fragrant.
They wish to call these friendly night-moths to come and carry pollen
from flower to flower.
If they were red or purple the moths could not so easily see them, and
if they had no odor the moths could not smell them a long way off, and
so might not come close enough to find them.
So our fair Southern friend the moonflower loves the moths and not the
bees. Into its long white tube their long, slender tongues can easily
reach and find the nectar, and in taking it they brush the pollen
against their tongues or their faces, and when they go to another flower
it is rubbed against the stigma.
The sphinx moths are the fellows with long sucking tubes that fly in the
evening.
A good many members of the Convolvulus Family make us happy by their
beauty, but some of them do more than this. The sweet potato, for
instance, gives us something to eat. You know what it gives us, but
probably you did not know the sweet potato is a convolvulus and first
cousin to the morning-glory and moonflower, and that it has come to us
all the way from India.
Some say its home is in the East Indies too, and when you go there, if
you look in the right place, you may see it growing wild. I doubt if the
wild plant bears such big potatoes though; probably they are the result
of long cultivation.
[Illustration: SWEET POTATO VINE.]
It is also said that its home is in tropical America. Very likely it
belongs to all these places. Some plants have a way of living all over
the world at once.
How they managed to get separated so far is a problem we must try to
solve some day.
The sweet potato generally lies flat on the ground and sends out long
stems in all directions. Its leaves, as you can see, are more or less
like morning-glory and bindweed leaves. Its flowers are also like
morning-glories, though they are not so pretty. It has a habit of
storing up quantities of starch and sugar in its roots. It does this,
hoping to use the starch and sugar again as food in forming new shoots.
But sometimes we step in and disarrange all these fine plans, for we,
too, need starch and sugar as food, and we take the big sweet roots and
eat them.
People plant large fields of sweet potatoes, particularly in the South.
So next time you eat a sweet potato, remember it is one kind of
morning-glory which has given it to you.
The sweet potatoes are no relation whatever to our common potatoes; they
do not belong to the same family.
The sweet potato is not the only useful morning-glory. There is the
jalap, though if you have ever made its acquaintance you may differ from
me as to its value; for however useful it may be from the doctor’s point
of view, it certainly possesses properties which are quite the reverse
of agreeable.
It, too, forms large tubers, which it stores full of plant food, but it
so happens that this particular plant food is not fit for human food. We
put it to quite another use. In fact, jalap is used as a medicine. It
grows very luxuriantly at Jalapa, or, as the Mexicans spell it, Xalapa,
in Mexico, and that is the way it gets its name of jalap.
In spite of its very disagreeable taste and beneficial effect upon sick
people, the jalap is a lovely vine with beautiful deep pink flowers.
If you saw it growing along the eastern slopes of the Mexican mountains
you would never suspect it of being a medicine plant, and you _might_
not suspect it of being a convolvulus, since its flowers are flat
instead of tubular in form.
[Illustration: SCAMMONY.]
Several members of the Convolvulus Family have the same medicinal
properties as jalap, and one in particular, whose name is scammony, is
very highly esteemed.
It has an uncommonly bad taste, and its swollen roots are brought all
the way from Syria and Asia Minor, not because of their bad taste, but
because of their power as a medicine. The scammony, like the jalap, is a
pretty plant in spite of its bad-tasting, medicinal roots.
Most of the Convolvulaceæ have a milky, bitter juice,—even our pretty,
harmless morning-glories,—and in the jalap and scammony this seems to be
exaggerated in quality and quantity.
A few of the Convolvulaceæ manage to make woody stems and become shrubs
instead of vines.
Two of these live on the Canary Islands, and their sap, instead of being
nauseous and bad-smelling, has a delicate and delicious fragrance.
People take the wood from root and stems and press out the oil to be
used in making perfumery.
Perhaps you know the odor of oil of rhodium. Whenever you smell it you
are inhaling the fragrance from a Canary convolvulus.
It is a little surprising to find our convolvulus so widespread and so
really useful in different parts of the world; but there is another side
to the history of this highly respectable family. _Every_ family,
probably, has its black sheep, and not even the Convolvulaceæ can hope
to have all their relatives honest and useful or beautiful.
Still, one hates to speak of the dodders. They are in the world,
however, and they belong to the Convolvulus Family; there is no denying
that, however much one might like to. None of the Convolvulus Family
ever speak of them—at least I have never heard of their doing so.
As a rule, the members of the Convolvulus Family are aristocrats. They
have descended from a long line of plants that have gone on improving.
That is what makes an aristocrat in plant land,—to be descended from a
long line of plants that have _kept on improving_. Simply to belong to
an old family does not count for much in the plant world, unless that
old family has kept on doing something to improve itself.
We know the Convolvulaceæ are aristocrats for one thing by their tubular
corollas; it took good, wide-awake ancestors to make corollas without
separate petals anyway, and particularly tubular ones. Then their color
tells their history. They are often blue or purple, which is a _very_
aristocratic color among flowers. Instead of being blue-blooded, they
are blue-colored.
The moonflower is not blue, but think what a tube it has and what a
large fine corolla; and then think, too, that it has learned to bloom at
night so as to get fertilized by the moths, and _that_ is a very
aristocratic thing to do, I assure you.
If a flower blooms at night it is as great an honor as to wear a blue
corolla. For you see it has taken as much growth in the direction of
progress to acquire the night-blooming habit as to acquire a blue
corolla.
The cypress vine has a red corolla, which is a good color, but not quite
as advanced as blue. You see, in the beginning of the world flowers were
yellow; then some became white, then pink. Probably red was the next
step, then came purple, and last of all blue.
But the cypress vine has very finely divided leaves, as you remember,
and in that it is ahead of the morning-glories. For in the beginning of
the world, we are told, leaves were not divided, and only after a long
time did some plants learn to divide them, and so increase their
usefulness as leaves.
But when we come to the dodders, they have no leaves at all. The reason
for this is, they do no work for themselves. The green leaves, as you
know, prepare the food for the plant and work very hard to do it. If the
dodders have no leaves, where do they get their food? That is just the
trouble. They make other plants give it to them. They are very much like
tramps, going about and living on other people. Only they are worse than
tramps, for they do not say, “Please give me something to eat. I am
hungry and want some starch and nitrogen compounds.” They do nothing of
the sort. They catch hold of another plant and take away its juices
without leave or license. So you see they are really thieves and
robbers, these rascally dodders. No wonder the morning-glories are not
proud of them. Not that the dodders care. It is a question whether they
even know they are related to the morning-glories.
They think of little but how to get something to eat out of other
people.
They begin their shameful career from the very seed. Instead of
sprouting in the spring with the other seeds, they lie still until all
the other plants have gone out of their seeds and are at work making
green leaves and storing their stems with plant juices.
[Illustration: [Dodder]]
[Illustration: [Dodder]]
Then Dodder the Robber comes out. But instead of sending down a root and
up a stem like other seeds, he just pushes out a little thread-like
body, which fastens into the ground. You might think this an honest
little root going down into the ground if you did not know friend
Dodder. But it is no root; it does not suck up juices from the earth: it
simply anchors the little robber so he cannot be blown away. Now the
thread-like body grows larger and sticks up out of the ground, carrying
the seed-coat with it. The seed-coat is packed with food which the
parent plant stored away there. The young dodder nourishes itself with
this food until it is all gone; then it casts off the empty seed-coat,
and behold young Dodder ready for the fray. What he very much wants at
this time is a fresh young twig to cling to and suck the juice out of.
If nothing of the sort is handy he is in a bad way, for he is too
helpless to do anything for himself. He has no green leaves, and does
not know how to make any, and without green leaves he cannot get a thing
to eat. Poor Dodder! after all, it is not wholly his fault he is such a
good-for-nothing specimen of planthood. You see he came from bad stock.
His parents were like this before him, and no one has ever taught him
any better. Well, there he lies, as helpless a plant as you can imagine.
But just let a green shoot come within reach! _Then_ you will see! He
twists around it without stopping to say “by your leave.” He pierces it
with little suckers that draw out its juices. Now Dodder is all right.
He has plenty of food without the trouble of making a bit of it himself.
[Illustration: [Dodder]]
And then how he grows! Up the poor weed he twines, a slender yellow stem
that looks as much like yellow yarn as anything else. Around and around
he turns; he has no leaves to make, only useless little scales that show
where long ago his ancestors once had honest leaves.
You will sometimes find the weeds in a damp place a perfect tangle of
dodder vines, so that nothing else is to be seen. They cover the weeds,
sucking out their juices and smothering them. And when the time comes
the dodder breaks out into innumerable bunches of flowers, which grow at
short distances along the yellow stems. These flowers are small and
generally white, and clustered so close together that they form a sort
of knot or rosette on the stem.
You would never imagine to look at them that they belonged to our
Morning-Glory Family.
Their corollas are more or less cleft, being grown together only at the
base.
Sometimes the flowers are orange-colored or reddish, but they do not
seem to attract the insects much. Nor do they care, for they can easily
fertilize themselves, the anthers and stigmas being so close together.
They have none of the ingenious arrangements for cross-fertilization
that characterize their more fortunate relatives. They are thoroughly
degraded plants.
There lives a dodder in Europe which grows upon flax, and so does damage
to the flax fields, and I am sorry to say this little pest has tramped
his way across the ocean into _our_ flax fields. We do not thank Europe
at all for sending us such an emigrant.
As the dodders have nothing to do but suck the juices of other plants
and make seeds out of them, you may be sure they set any quantity of
seeds to keep up the disreputable race of dodders.
Yet, in spite of the dodders, dear Convolvulus People, let us say to
you, as our beloved old Rip Van Winkle says to us, “May you live long
and prosper, and all your family!”
[Illustration: [Convolvulus]]
[Illustration: Stories About the Geranium Family]
Stories About the Geranium Family
TROPÆOLUM STORIES.
TROPÆOLUM HONEY.
[Illustration: [Tropæolum]]
If you had a horn as red as a rose,
And full to the brim with honey,
If a bee came along and begged you for some,
Now tell, would you give her any?
[Illustration: [Tropæolum]]
If I had a horn as red as a rose,
And full to the brim with honey,
If a bee came along I’d invite her in,
And give her all she could carry!
THE TROPÆOLUM.
Like the morning-glory flower, the tropæolum, or nasturtium, as we
usually call it, has several important organs. It has a pistil and
stamens, and plenty of rich nectar.
[Illustration: [Tropæolum]]
Its corolla, as you know, is large and showy, but it is not in the form
of a tube. It is divided, into several distinct pieces called petals.
Its calyx, too, is not green, but is colored somewhat like the corolla.
[Illustration: [Tropæolum]]
And what is that we see—that long red horn?
That is the tropæolum’s nectary. It is framed from the calyx, in which
certain of the sepals have grown together to form this horn of plenty.
We are tempted to call it a horn of plenty because it is shaped like a
cornucopia and is overflowing with sweet nectar.
It is no wonder the bees and humming birds visit Tropæolum so
constantly.
She has provided a most attractive dish of honey for them, but she has
so cleverly placed it that they cannot reach it without doing her a
service. In our climate bees and humming birds are her constant
visitors, but in her own home, in South America, she may have visitors
we do not know. She may have a favorite moth whose tongue just fits into
her long red horn, or it may be a humming bird that comes to her there,
for South America is the home of the humming birds, or it may be a
butterfly. We do not know about that, but we do know that her red spur
has doubtless grown to its present form to please some beloved bird or
insect, and that the bill or tongue of that bird or insect is as long as
her red spur.
Why do you suppose Tropæolum makes honey for the insects and the birds?
Why does she love to have them come and take the nectar from her long
red horn?
I think I know the reason why. She has placed her horn of nectar just
back of her stamens. The bees must walk over the stamens before they can
reach the nectar. The humming bird must touch the anthers when he
thrusts in his bill. Whatever takes the honey must touch the anthers.
This is why Tropæolum has a long red horn full of rich nectar. She
wishes the birds and insects that come to her for honey to touch her
anthers, which are overflowing with red pollen.
She has made the pollen for her friends, and not for her own use. She
wishes her neighbors, the other tropæolums, to have the beautiful gift;
but how can she send it to them?
[Illustration: [Humming bird]]
She makes herself beautiful and bright; she fills her horn with honey
and exhales fragrance.
[Illustration: [Tropæolum]]
The bees and the humming birds see her and approach. No doubt they
rejoice in the bright colors, the perfume, and the nectar. They come on
bright wings, and as they approach the nectary the grains of red pollen
cling to them.
They cannot get enough nectar from one flower; each gives them a little,
then they fly to others for more. From flower to flower they hasten and
scatter pollen as they go. The pollen from one flower is often left in
another, and this is what the tropæolum wants. It wishes its pollen to
reach another flower, and uses the bees and the humming birds as its
messengers.
Its stamens lie flat on the floor of the flower. When one is about to
ripen its anther rises and stands up in front of the spur, where the
nectar is ready. Then out bursts the fine red pollen. Only one anther
ripens at a time. It sometimes takes several days for the tropæolum to
shed all its pollen.
As soon as the pollen is gone the anther lies down again out of the way.
The stamens do not crowd the doorway of the spur; they lie down out of
the way until they ripen, then they stand in front of the spur, and when
their pollen is shed they lie down again.
They do not obstruct the way to the nectary because they wish the bees
and birds to find an easy entrance.
Why does one anther ripen at a time? Why do not all shed pollen
together, as is the habit of the morning-glory, and finish in one day?
Perhaps the tropæolum fears the rain may ruin the chances of the seeds
to get pollen. We know that water spoils the pollen, and though the
tropæolum has fringes to keep it from the nectary, and a roof to protect
it, more or less would doubtless beat in during a hard shower.
Does the tropæolum bloom, then, in the rainy season in its own hot
home—in the rainy season when the showers are terrific?
We should like to know that.
If it did, that would be a good reason for ripening the anthers one at a
time. If one were spoiled, another might succeed.
We may be sure there is a good reason for this habit of the tropæolum,
though we may not have discovered it.
When at last the pollen is gone and the anthers are empty and shriveled,
the spur is still full of honey.
In front of it has risen, not a stamen this time, but a dainty
five-rayed stigma. It is held in place by the style, and is ripe and
ready for pollen. It has unfolded its five rays that it may catch and
hold the pollen grains.
But all its pollen is gone! The bees and the birds have carried it away.
The bees ate some and carried some home to their hives. None remains for
the five-rayed stigma. But here comes a bee, a large, yellow-banded
bumblebee. She has a ball of red pollen in each of her two baskets. She
gathered it in another tropæolum blossom, and intends to take it home to
feed the young bees; but as she enters our pollenless flower for nectar,
lo! she brushes aside the five-rayed stigma. A few grains of pollen from
her legs cling to the stigma, for it is sticky and holds them.
The bee hurries away. She does not know what she has done; she does not
know that in brushing aside the stigma that stood in her way she has
given life to the seeds and provided for a new generation of tropæolum
vines.
The flower gave pollen to its neighbors, and now in its need they have
sent pollen to it.
Soon the bright corolla fades and falls. Its work is done. It expressed
its joy in life; it called the bees, and by them sent pollen to its
neighbors, and took pollen from them in return.
For many days it kept its long red horn full of sweet nectar, until its
stigma rose and took the pollen, when the flower faded and fell. But the
five-rayed stigma did not fall. It remained attached to the green little
fruit that lay hid in the heart of the flower.
It is not easy to see this fruit when the flower first opens, for it is
small and hidden by the stamens.
But after the pollen has reached the stigma the fruit grows rapidly. The
corolla falls, and the stem that holds the fruit curls up. It curls up
until it has drawn the green fruit down under the leaves, out of the way
of the buds that wish to open. The stigma and style fall off at last,
and leave the fruit to ripen alone.
[Illustration: [Tropæolum]]
WHO LIES CURLED UP?
[Illustration: [Fruit]]
Who lies curled up under the shields?
Under the shields of its parents?
A cunning young fruit peeps out o’er the world,
From under the shields of its parents.
[Illustration: [Flower]]
It is parted in three with a seed in each part,
This cunning young fruit I’ve told you about.
It is parted in three, yet the three are one fruit,
Lying under the shields of the parents.
The stems curl up and pull it down
Under the shields of its parents.
It lies there all safe, so near the warm ground,
Under the shields of its parents!
MORE ABOUT THE TROPÆOLUM.
[Illustration: [Tropæolum]]
The tropæolum, which people call nasturtium, has shields to defend
itself.
Warriors are content with one shield, but the tropæolum has many.
They have only to protect themselves from the darts of the enemy, but
the tropæolum has a harder task: it has to protect itself against the
pangs of hunger.
It needs many shields to do this, for hunger is a tireless foe, and has
his quiver always full of arrows.
You see, in the tropæolum the shields are the leaves, and they are held
out on long stems to catch the darts Apollo, the sun, flings at them.
These are not unfriendly darts, but as they strike the little shields of
the tropæolum they make them tingle with life. Then the shield leaves go
to work and make food for the plant. They make starch and many other
things. They make a spicy juice, for one thing, that causes our tongues
to smart if we taste it. Sometimes we bite a tropæolum stem, for we like
the taste of the sharp juice. But we do not want too much of it, for it
makes the palate at the back of the nose tingle, and that is why we call
it “nasturtium.” “Nasturtium,” you know, comes from two Latin words,
_nasus tortus_, which mean “convulsed nose”; and nobody likes to have a
“convulsed nose” very long at a time!
“Nasturtium” is not the right name for our plant with its many shields.
There is another plant which “convulses” our noses, and which the botany
tells us is the nasturtium, but which we call _water cress_. We eat it
in the spring of the year.
The right name of our garden nasturtium is “tropæolum,” which comes from
a Greek word meaning “trophy,” its many shields probably being likened
to so many trophies taken from the enemy.
Another name for it is “Indian cress,” and, like the water cress, it
sometimes is eaten, only in this case it is the flowers instead of the
leaves that find themselves converted into a salad. The fruits, too,
share a similar fate. Like the rest of the plant, they are filled with
spicy juice. This is a misfortune to them, since it tempts people to
take these juicy, spicy fruits and pickle them to eat.
Perhaps the plant learned to store up this stinging, spicy juice to
protect itself from being eaten by animals. But what can it do to
protect itself from the pickle jar?
Perhaps, however, the stinging juice was but a result of the plant’s
peculiar method of growth. Of course juice must have some sort of taste,
and why not a stinging taste as well as any other?
This plant prepares another liquid which is not sharp and stinging, but
sweet and spicy; with this delicious nectar it fills its long spur and
keeps it full.
The bees collect it and convert it into tropæolum honey to fill their
waxen cells.
This the plant does not object to. It makes the nectar for the bees, and
when, they take it away and store it up for winter use the tropæolum
suffers no loss. But when some one comes along and picks the fruits and
stores _them_ up for winter use, that is another matter!
We are tempted to call the spur of the tropæolum its “horn of plenty,”
for that is the name of the horn overflowing with good things that never
is empty.
The Goddess of Plenty owns this horn. You can see it in her pictures, as
it always stands at her side, and there overflows with flowers and
fruits. All that is good that grows in the earth is in the horn of the
Goddess of Plenty. It is her cornucopia, for “cornucopia,” you know,
means “horn of plenty.”
The goddess got her horn from the Naiads. They, you know, are the nymphs
of the brooks and fountains, and they gave it to her.
This is the story of how she got it.
The river god, Acheloüs, and Hercules, the god of strength, struggled
together. Hercules threw the god Acheloüs and seized him by the throat.
Then Acheloüs, in order to escape, changed himself into a serpent.
This did not help him, for Hercules seized him by the neck and would
have choked him, but Acheloüs again changed his shape.
[Illustration: [Acheloüs and Hercules]]
He became a bull, but this was not enough to defend him from the great
strength of Hercules, who seized him by the neck and dragged him to the
ground, and in the struggle rent one of his horns from his head.
The nymphs of the brooks and the fountains, who were related to the
river god, Acheloüs, consecrated the horn and gave it to the Goddess of
Plenty.
[Illustration: SATURN.]
That is one story, but some say the following is the history of
cornucopia.
You know Saturn, the oldest of the gods, had a bad habit of swallowing
his children. When Jupiter was born, his mother, Rhea, did not wish his
father, Saturn, to swallow him; so she gave him to the care of the
daughters of the king of Crete. They fed him on milk from the goat
Amalthea, and watched over him and protected him so that his father
should not find him. The people of Crete danced about him and made such
a noise when he cried that his father could not hear him.
He must have cried very loud indeed to make all that necessary; but
then, he was destined to become a very great god, so no doubt he _did_
make more noise than ordinary babies.
Out of gratitude to his kind nurses, and also as a token of esteem to
the good Amalthea, Jupiter broke off one of her horns and endowed it
with a very wonderful power. It became filled at once with whatever its
possessor might wish!
[Illustration: JUPITER.]
This was a horn of plenty indeed!
Now you know both stories, and you may take your choice as to which one
you will believe. Whether our tropæolum had either of these in mind, it
certainly made a very dainty cornucopia when it constructed its
honey-horn and filled it for the bees, the butterflies, and the humming
birds.
The tropæolums we have in our gardens are not the only kinds; there are,
in fact, some forty different tropolæums living in South America and
Mexico, and in Peru there is one which has large tuberous roots filled
with plant food, which is also good food for man, and is eaten in some
parts of South America instead of potatoes!
How would you like to dig your potatoes out of the nasturtium bed?
It certainly would be a pretty place to work on a summer day, and how
fine the fields would look all covered with gay tropæolum blooms instead
of plain green potato tops with their dull blue flowers!
[Illustration: [Tropæolum]]
JEWELWEED STORIES.
A DAINTY CAVE.
[Illustration: [Touch-me-not]]
Touch-me-not has a dainty cave
Spotted with red and poised in the air.
Touch-me-not is a pretty knave
With ruby spots and yellow cave,
Swinging there
So fresh and fair.
[Illustration: [Touch-me-not].bn]
TOUCH-ME-NOT.
Touch-me-not lives in moist places. Her feet stand in the damp earth and
her head looks up above the bushes. Other plants love the damp, rich
soil along the brookside, and Touch-me-not is sometimes crowded for
room.
[Illustration: [Touch-me-not]]
She is a tender little plant, this Touch-me-not, and yet she is brave
and wise. She knows that if she is to live she must have strong seeds,
and that to produce strong seeds she must be strong herself and
beautiful.
She finds it easy to be beautiful in the pleasant world, where the sun
shines upon her and the breezes fan her.
So forth from the axil of every leaf she swings out her dainty buds.
They open their petals at last, all yellow and spotted with red. Cunning
caves for the bee, they swing on slender stems. The tangle of weeds by
the brookside is dotted all over by the bright blossoms. Light as they
are, their slender stems bend under their weight.
The bees see them from a distance; they are attracted by the bright
colors and fly to visit the touch-me-nots. They search for honey, and of
course they find it, for the touch-me-not has wisely provided nectar for
bees and birds.
The pretty yellow flowers contain rich honey in the little spur at the
back. The end of the spur turns down, and it is in this turned-down tip
the honey is made. From there it runs into the upper part of the spur,
where the bees can reach it.
The moist roadside in many places is dotted with yellow touch-me-not
flowers. They hang like earrings from their stems, and many call the
plant “jewelweed” because of them. It is a pretty sight in the morning
to see the bright jewels sparkling in the dew.
“Rubythroat” flashes about among them. “Rubythroat” is our northern
humming bird. His throat is ruby red and sparkles in the sun. The rest
of his body is green and brown. He shines like a jewel in the sunlight
and darts from flower to flower. You cannot watch him, he flies so fast.
But when he wishes a sip of honey he poises on his tiny wings before the
jewelweed.
Into the dainty swinging flower he darts his slim black bill. He is
partial to the honey of the touch-me-not, and wherever it grows in
abundance you will be sure to see the rubythroats darting about.
Rubythroat does the flower a favor in return for the honey he gets.
You know about that. He carries pollen to it from some other flower.
This new pollen enables strong seeds to form. The jewelweed is very
careful to have strong seeds. It covers the pistil with a hood of its
own anthers. Behind the anthers in a dark little room the pistil waits
until all the pollen is gone and the anthers have fallen off.
The flower does not wish its pistil to receive its own pollen. The earth
is crowded, and the seeds must be strong to grow. So the pistil is
hidden behind the screen of the anthers until there is no more pollen
left; then it comes forth and waits for the birds or the bees to bring
it fresh pollen.
The anthers and pistil are not on the floor of the touch-me-not flower,
as they are in the nasturtium. They hang from the roof like tiny
chandeliers.
The bees do not walk over them, but touch them with their heads or
backs, and the humming bird touches them with the top of its bill or
with the feathers on its face.
When the birds or the bees have brought the pollen, the yellow corolla
falls off and the fruit grows fast.
It is a smooth and delicate fruit, and it may be you know what it does
to help the seeds find room.
When the fruit is ripe, the outer covering all of a sudden splits and
curls up with considerable force, acting like a spring and shooting the
seeds far over the thicket.
[Illustration: [Touch-me-not]]
It spreads them far and wide, so they have a better chance to find a
place to take root when the time comes.
The fruits are so eager to send the seeds on their journey, and so
fearful that some harm will come to them, that they snap them away if
any one touches the pods. If you jostle these eager plants you will hear
the seeds flying in all directions. If you touch a seed-pod it goes off
in your fingers. No wonder we call the plants “touch-me-nots”! Some call
them “snapweed” or “snappers,” and the botany calls them “impatiens,”
because they are so impatient!
They have yet another name, “lady’s eardrop,” and I do not know how many
more. People must like the pretty things to give them so many names.
[Illustration: [Touch-me-not]]
EARDROPS.
[Illustration: [Eardrop]]
[Illustration: [Eardrop]]
Eardrops of gold with red rubies beset,
Hang from the ears of a dear little maid.
“Where did you get them, my darling, my pet?”
“Down by the brook you can pick them,” she said.
LADY’S SLIPPER.
In the garden grows a relative of our jewelweed. It is called the
“garden balsam,” and sometimes “lady’s slipper.”
Its own home is far-off India.
Its flowers are larger than those of the jewelweed and are not yellow,
but white or red or pink, and sometimes pink and white spotted. In
shape, however, it is very like the jewelweed; it hides its pistil
beneath the anthers in the same way and snaps its seeds afar.
Its flowers grow double and close to the stalk, and it makes a fine show
in the garden in the fall of the year.
There is one thing I should like very much to know, and that is, just
when and how this Indian balsam and its cousin the North American
jewelweed got separated.
Way, way back, farther back than the building of the pyramids, these two
plants must have had the same ancestors. Now, where did those ancestors
live? In India? In America? Somewhere between? And what caused them
finally to get so widely separated?
Who is going to tell us?
For over two hundred and fifty years the Indian balsam has been
cultivated as a garden plant, and no doubt this long cultivation has
done much to bring about changes. Still, its resemblance to the
jewelweed is quite unmistakable, and we cannot doubt the relationship of
the two.
THE HUMMING BIRD.
[Illustration: [Humming Bird]]
[Illustration: [Humming Bird]]
Flashing in the sunshine,
Dashing through the air,
Sparkling like a jewel,
See him everywhere!
Poised before a flower
For a moment’s space,
Off again like lightning
On some headlong chase!
[Illustration: [Humming Bird]]
Blossoms all set swinging
On each slender stem.
Touch-me-nots are happy
When he visits them,
For he shakes the pollen
From his shining crest.
Rubythroat is joyous,
Touch-me-not is blest!
PELARGONIUM STORIES.
THE PELARGONIUMS.
[Illustration: [Pelargonium]]
A pelargonium is a “stork’s bill.” “Pelargonium” comes from a Greek word
meaning “stork,” and the plant is so named because of the long, beaklike
seed-pods. We call the pelargoniums “geraniums,” and raise them in our
houses. “Geranium” means almost the same as “pelargonium,” for a
geranium is a “crane’s bill,” “geranium” coming from a Greek word
meaning “crane,” and the plant is so called because of the shape of the
seed-pods.
I do not think there is much difference between a crane’s bill and a
stork’s bill, and these two plants with their seed-pods so very much
alike were, no doubt, named “stork’s bill” and “crane’s bill” to
distinguish them from each other. But we have succeeded in hopelessly
mixing them up, for everybody insists upon calling the pelargonium
“geranium,” and the geraniums which grow wild in our woods and fields we
call “crane’s bill” and “herb Robert.”
The pelargoniums are mostly Africans. There are a great many kinds of
them, and all but ten or twelve live in South Africa among the Bushmen,
the Boers, and the Englishmen.
The rest have chosen to settle in the northern part of Africa, in the
Orient, if you know where that is, and in Australia. Some people believe
there are four hundred different pelargoniums, and some say there are
less than two hundred. You see, the pelargoniums change easily. Thus a
great many varieties are always arising, and it is almost impossible at
this late day to discover which was the original form of the plant.
The pelargoniums we know best are the ones we call “horseshoe
geraniums,” “Lady Washington geraniums,” and “rose geraniums.”
We are apt to think of the whole Pelargonium Family as being ornamental
rather than useful, but in that wonderful South African country where so
many of them live, there is actually a pelargonium that produces edible
tubers!
The next time you go to Cape Colony you must be sure and eat potatoes
gathered from a geranium plant!
Down in Algeria, where the walls are so white and the sun shines so hot,
the people express an oil from their geraniums and sell it. Other
geraniums also yield this fragrant oil, but nowhere is it so largely
used as in sunny Algeria.
Pelargoniums love to grow. You need only break off a twig and stick it
in the ground, and it will grow as merrily as though nothing had
happened.
One day a double-flowered crimson pelargonium blew away in a gale of
wind. It broke off just above the root and away it went. It was rescued,
stuck back into the pot of earth, abundantly watered, and continued to
open its flowers as though such an escapade were an everyday occurrence!
Now about its beak. The pelargonium has a beak, no doubt, but it does
not put it to the same use the stork does, for its beak is made up of
the long styles of the pistil which cling fast to a central column. The
whole fruit looks a _little_ like a long bird’s beak. This beak _opens_,
but not to swallow little fishes as a stork’s beak does.
[Illustration: [Pelargonium]]
[Illustration: [Pelargonium]]
It opens to let out a feather! When the seed gets ripe, the case in
which it lies at the bottom of the pistil breaks away, and the style
curves up and breaks loose from the central support. As soon as the
style loosens, out comes the feather. Not a real feather, of course, but
a tuft of silvery white hairs that grow along the inside of the style
and are packed close as can be until the style lets them out; then they
separate and form a wide fringe along the loosened style. Finally, the
style is only held by the very tip; then this gives way, and the feather
flies away with seed and style. It flies on the wings of the wind, of
course, since it has none of its own.
In this way the geranium seeds are sometimes carried long distances. But
this is not the end of the story. At last the seed with its coverings
and feather rests on the ground. The seed end is towards the ground, and
the very tip of the pod is provided with a few short, stiff hairs, that
point backwards like the barbs on a fish hook or a bee sting.
[Illustration: [Pelargonium]]
Now what do you suppose these hairs are for? Do you think their being
there is a mere accident? Not at all. When the weather is damp, the
style, with the feather attached, curls up. Then it acts like a gimlet
and forces the pointed end of the seed into the ground. When it becomes
dry, the style straightens out. But the seed cannot be pulled out of the
ground when this happens, because the barbs on the tip of the seed-case
hold it fast! So it does time and again. When it is damp, the seed is
forced deeper into the earth. When it is dry, the style straightens out
so as to be ready to curl up again.
You see how it is, do you not? The pelargonium is _planting its seed_.
[Illustration: [Pelargonium]]
Certainly the geraniums are good parents. All the members of this
astonishing family do something clever for the sake of the seeds.
AN AFRICAN.
[Illustration: [Geranium]]
There’s a native of Cape Town
Always wears a scarlet crown.
Not a lord of high degree,
But a simple peasant he.
You will see him, if you look,
Resting in some sunny nook.
He’s no Boer nor Englishman,
But a native African!
[Illustration: [Geranium]]
He just wanders up and down
O’er the wilds of hot Cape Town;
Takes no part in strife or war,—
Doesn’t know what it is for.
Boers may fight if they must needs.
Calm he sits among the weeds.
No soldier he in battle’s hum,
But just a red geranium!
PELARGONIUM LEAVES.
Some of the pelargoniums decorate their leaves with horseshoes. All are
in the habit of folding their leaves fan-like in the bud. When they grow
large these folds straighten out. It is a good thing to be folded up
fan-like in the bud; the leaf then takes up less room, and is kept snug
and safe until it grows strong enough to care for itself. The
pelargonium indulges in large stipules. These are green, leaf-like
bodies growing on the leaf stalk where it is attached to the stem of the
plant. They fold over the young leaf and protect it; but after the leaf
comes out of the motherly arms of the stipules and stands up on a long
stem, the work of the stipules is done, and gradually they fade and
wither away.
[Illustration: [Pelargonium]]
Most pelargonium leaves are covered with a fine coat of hairs. In the
warm countries where pelargoniums grow wild they need a coat of down to
prevent the sun from scorching them.
As long as there is plenty of water in the leaves the sun cannot harm
them, no matter how warmly it shines; but if it can draw out the water,
then the leaf must fade. The coat of hairs for one thing prevents the
water from evaporating too rapidly. Thus the pelargonium does not wear
its fuzzy coat to protect it from the cold, but from the sun. The hairs
also prevent the rain or dew from stopping up the breathing pores of the
leaf.
Most pelargonium leaves have a habit of using perfumery of one kind or
another. They make it themselves out of the food they find in the earth
and the air. The rose geraniums we think are particularly successful in
this respect.
Why do you suppose the pelargoniums perfume their leaves?
Perhaps it is to prevent animals from grazing them, for animals do not
like to eat strong-scented things, even if to our senses the odor is
agreeable. If this _is_ the reason, we are glad the pelargoniums
selected a perfume that we can enjoy.
We think there may be some such reason for the fragrance of the
pelargonium, because plants are never wasteful. They make only what will
be useful to them in some way. They love to be beautiful, but are never
satisfied unless theirs is a useful beauty. The fragrance of the leaves,
however, may be due to some cause and useful for some purpose that we
know not of.
[Illustration: [Pelargonium]]
THE GERANIUM FAMILY.
The Geranium People are rather unsettled as to their relatives—or,
rather, _we_ are somewhat confused on the subject. Probably the
geraniums know all about it, but they will not tell the botanists, so
the botanists have to do the best they can by themselves.
[Illustration: [Geranium]]
Some say the tropæolum belongs to the Geranium Family, and it certainly
does bear quite a strong family resemblance to the geraniums.
They also say the Impatiens Family is a branch of the geraniums and the
pelargoniums, which you know we _always_ call geraniums. The crane’s
bills and herb Roberts and all _their_ near relations of course are
geraniums, and some say the wood sorrels belong to this distinguished
family.
Whether these all belong to one family or not, one thing is certain:
they are all agreeable to us, and are not so very numerous even when
taken all together. The whole of them do not number half so many as do
the branches of the Convolvulus Family.
Like the race of white people, they belong principally to temperate
climates.
They do not all belong to _our_ climate, however.
The nasturtiums, for instance, are South Americans and Mexicans. They
like to keep warm better than some other members of their family, and
their seeds cannot, as a rule, live through our cold winters. But if we
gather the seeds and put them away out of the fierce winter cold and
plant them in the spring, then the nasturtiums will grow their best and
please us with their bright flowers. We cannot help liking them, they
are so jolly with their gay flowers and their round leaves with twisting
stalks.
We like them, too, because the flower stem curls up and draws the seeds
under the leaves out of the way of the young buds that are waiting to
bloom.
I do not know whether wild nasturtiums are as large and bright as the
cultivated ones. Very likely not, as people have taken great pains to
make them large and bright by selecting the seeds of the largest flowers
from year to year and giving them good soil in which to grow.
Perhaps the members of the Geranium Family we really know best are the
pelargoniums from the Cape of Good Hope. It is about as warm in their
African home as it is in our Florida, so of course they cannot live out
of doors through our cold Northern winters. But we take them in the
house when cold weather comes, and sometimes put them in the cellar.
Of course they do not grow much in the cellar, but they _rest_ there,
and when they are taken out in the spring are all ready to wake up and
blossom.
The whole Geranium Family seems to take extra care of its seeds.
We know how the nasturtium curls up its stem so as to draw the seeds
below the leaves out of the way, giving the buds a chance to come out,
and also protecting the seeds.
The pelargoniums do not do that, but they do something much more
elaborate for the sake of their seed-children, as we know. They give
them a parachute to fly with, for one thing. A parachute, you know, is a
contrivance by which bodies can be sustained in the air while falling or
blowing along in the wind.
But the parachute is not all,—they give them an auger by which to bore
into the ground and plant themselves.
[Illustration: [Pelargonium]]
The North American crane’s bill seeds perform in a very similar way,
their flowers and seed-cases being quite like those of the pelargonium.
How do you suppose North American crane’s bills came to be like South
African pelargoniums?
This is a matter which needs investigating.
The pelargoniums are not as juicy as the nasturtiums, but they are
somewhat juicy, and their juice has a slightly acid taste instead of
being pungent, like the nasturtium juice.
Where pelargoniums live out of doors the year round they grow very large
and have stems that are quite woody.
Some of them, as we know, are useful to the human race as well as
ornamental, supplying food and an oil highly esteemed as a perfume.
The wood sorrels do not look much like the rest of the Geranium Family.
But they do resemble it in their habit of caring for their seeds. Out in
the fields you will find the small, yellow-flowered sheep sorrel, with
its clover-like, sour-tasting leaves. Now hunt for a seed-pod. They are
pretty little things that stand up something like Christmas candles.
Touch a ripe one and it splits open down each of its five cells and
shows you a row of white seeds in each. You think the seeds are not ripe
because they are white, and you touch one of them. What has happened?
That seed surely exploded! No, there it is—the other side of the table,
not white, but dark brown. Queer performance, this. You touch another
and another, and at last you get to understand it. Each seed is
surrounded by an elastic white covering, and this it is that suddenly
curls up, very much as the impatiens pod does, and sends the seed within
it flying!
[Illustration: [Pelargonium]]
When night comes the sorrel goes to sleep. Its leaflets droop and shut
together as you see in the picture, and the flowers, too, close. The
sorrel loves the sunshine, and often does not open on cloudy days.
There are a great many sorrels in the world besides our sheep sorrel; in
fact, we are told there are about two hundred and five of them!
We have only three or four out of all that number, and they are not all
yellow like the sheep sorrel. One that lives in the cool Northern woods
is white, with delicate pink veins. Pretty little things they are, and
farther South there lives a pretty violet one.
Like the pelargoniums, the sorrels are to be found at the Cape of Good
Hope. In fact, most of the two hundred and five kinds live there and in
South America.
Like the pelargoniums, too, the South African sorrels are much larger
and brighter than their American relatives.
We like them so well we raise them in our greenhouses and window boxes.
They are much larger than our wild sorrels and have bright pink or white
or yellow corollas.
Down in Peru, too, there grows a very useful sorrel; they call it “oca,”
and raise it for its potatolike tubers which the people eat.
The Mexicans also have a sorrel with edible bulbs and bright red
flowers. In fact, the sorrel, like the potato, has a habit of storing up
plenty of underground food which is also good food for man, and several
species of sorrel are raised for this purpose in different parts of the
world.
In those places, instead of a potato field you have a sorrel field.
We often eat the leaves of the wood sorrel for the sake of their
pleasant acid taste. The proper name of the sorrel is “oxalis,” and
comes from a Greek word meaning “acid.” But if we were to extract this
acid from the sorrel and then eat it, we would have a serious time, for
in its concentrated form it is a fearful poison. It is sold under the
misleading name of “salt of lemons,” and for this reason people often
ignorantly taste it, thinking that “salt of lemons” can do them no harm.
This dangerous “salt of lemons” is very useful in calico printing, in
dyeing, and in the bleaching of flax and straw.
The next time you come across a patch of sheep sorrel, stop and think of
all it and its relatives are able to do for us.
We usually think of the Geranium Family as being merely ornamental; but,
as we have seen, some kinds of tropæolum, several kinds of sorrel, and
at least one kind of pelargonium yield edible tubers which are eaten in
different parts of the world, and the modest little oxalis yields a
substance valuable for manufacturing purposes.
Even our commonplace crane’s bill that blooms so abundantly in the woods
in early summer has something for us, for from its roots a medicine is
obtained.
[Illustration: [Pelargonium]]
[Illustration: Hyacinth Stories]
Hyacinth Stories
THE HYACINTH.
[Illustration: [Hyacinth]]
Out in the garden there’s something so dear!
Just as dear,
Do you hear?
Something that comes in the spring of the year
Fragrant as roses and fresh as the dew,
Purple and pink and violet too.
Something new,
Darling too.
Guess what it is and I’ll show it to you!
[Illustration: [Hyacinth]]
SIGNS OF SPRING.
Out of doors are signs of spring. The buds on the trees look full, and
some are beginning to burst. But there is very little life as yet.
[Illustration: [Hyacinth]]
Only in the hyacinth bed it is different, for there the hyacinths have
waked up; their stiff leaves have opened the door of the earth for the
blossoms to come out. The flower clusters are nearly ready to bloom, but
the buds are still green. The tall stem has lifted them up into the air
and sunlight, and, although the air is still cold, they continue to
grow.
Soon the green buds undergo a change. The topmost one on each flower
cluster softens to a tender blue or pink.
The green buds grow lovely as they stand on their stems in the sun.
Delicate tints steal over them, the green color fades away, and many
colors take its place.
They open into charming flowers and give forth a delightful fragrance.
The whole garden is sweet with the odor of hyacinths, and we feel that
the beautiful summer has sent us a messenger.
[Illustration: [Hyacinth]]
THE HYACINTH’S SCEPTRE.
[Illustration: [Sceptre]]
Kings bear a sceptre, and so do I.
Theirs is a symbol of power, and so is mine.
Theirs is a costly rod with an emblem at the top
Mine is a tall green rod bearing flower bells.
My sceptre is called a “scape.”
“Scape” means “sceptre,” the sign of kings.
[Illustration: [Hyacinth]]
TUNICS.
[Illustration: [Tunic]]
A tunic, as everybody knows, is a dress worn by the old Romans. The
Greeks wore a garment very much like that of the Romans, and it, too, is
often called a tunic.
Tunics did very well in a climate where it was always summer and upon
people who did not have to hurry about and work hard. But, graceful as
they are, and appropriate to Greece and Italy, they would hardly be
suitable for an American business costume in midwinter. For a tunic is
not very close fitting. It is a loose garment which would be apt to fly
away in our Northern gales.
The tunic was sometimes confined at the waist by a girdle and sometimes
let to hang loose.
We do not wear tunics, but we admire them very much in pictures, for
they show the beautiful lines of the human form instead of concealing
and altering them and making them ugly by ridiculous and tight-fitting
clothes—very often tight in the wrong place, as is the case with modern
garments.
But there _are_ tunics worn in America, and they are never tight in the
wrong place, though, truth to tell, they are not loose and flowing like
the Roman or Greek tunic.
Perhaps you do not know that so commonplace an object as an onion wears
a tunic, yet I assure you it is true. And the onion does not come from
Rome or Greece,—that is, probably not. As far as we can find out, that
homely vegetable first saw the light in the southwestern part of Asia,
but it was known in Rome and Greece at a very early date, and lived in
those places long before it found its way to us.
So it has seen more tunics than we have, if it is not a native Greek or
Roman. Not that its garments look at all like a classical tunic!
Probably its bulb is said to be “tunicated,” or covered with tunics,
because the different scales wrap about it like so many garments, and in
a general way the word “tunic” is used to mean any garment.
The hyacinth, too, has a tunicated bulb. It came from the Levant, a
country where people wear loose garments like the Greek and Roman tunic.
I do not think, however, the bulbs are called “tunicated” because they
came from the lands where tunics are worn. I think it is merely a name
the botanists gave them for convenience to tell that they were covered
by coats or scales.
What do you suppose a hyacinth tunic is, anyway? Merely a leaf scale!
That is, instead of growing into a leaf it remained a scale, and _some_
of the scales on a full-grown bulb are really the lower parts of the
leaves. The upper part has fallen off and left the fleshy base to feed
the plant.
Tulips have tunics too, and so have many other plants. And bulb tunics
are a _very_ convenient sort of garment to have, for they not only wrap
up the plant, but feed it!
They answer the same purpose that tubers do on potato roots. You know
what tubers are? They are just swollen portions of underground stems.
When you eat your next potato remember it is a tuber, and that a tuber
is merely a short piece of stem _very_ much thickened. If you cannot
believe this, look a potato in the eyes. There you will see the truth,
for the eyes are merely the joints of the stem, and at each is a little
bud that in the spring will start to grow, just like the buds on the
branches of a tree. The bud grows at the expense of the material in the
tuber, and the hyacinth grows at the expense of the food stored in the
bulb. Of course, after a while green leaves form and make more food, but
the very first food comes from the thick underground scales.
[Illustration: [Hyacinth]]
The hyacinth belongs to the royal Lily Family, and is a very great
favorite with people all over the world. Sometimes its flowers are
single and sometimes double, and they always give forth a delightful
fragrance. Its home, as we know, is in the Levant, a country made up of
the islands and the coast along the eastern part of the Mediterranean
Sea, particularly of Asia Minor and Syria.
It grows so readily and comes up so early in the spring and is so lovely
it is no wonder people everywhere cherish it. Its bulb is large and
fleshy, and, as we know, is made up of thick _scales_. These scales are
full of starch and other food materials to feed the young plant.
For the young plant is in the very center of the bulb, with the fleshy
scales folded about it very much as the scales are folded about a tree
bud. In fact, a bulb is very much like a bud. The bottom of the bulb is
a _very_ short, broad stem. The scales grow on this stem as the leaves
do on a branch. They are alternate in arrangement, but packed so closely
together you have to look _very_ carefully in order to discover that
they are arranged like leaves on a stem. After all, as we know, these
scales are only modified leaves. The bracts of the pelargonium are
leaves modified to protect the young buds, and the scales of the
hyacinth are leaves modified to protect and feed the plant within.
For what do you think? At the very center of the hyacinth bulb is a tiny
flower cluster wrapped about by half a dozen tiny leaves! These are
white and delicate and very, very small. But in the spring they grow and
come out of the bulb in the form of green leaves and bright flowers.
[Illustration: [Hyacinth Bulb]]
THE BEE.
[Illustration: [Bee]]
I am a rollicking bumblebee.
I sail through the air as it pleases me.
I sail by the trees and around the flowers;
I love the sun and hate the showers.
I have a taste does credit to me;
I never eat bread and such fiddle-dee-dee.
For honey and pollen’s the sensible food;
They favor digestion and suit the mood.
[Illustration: [Bee]]
I sleep in my nest all winter long,
But rush fearlessly forth in the March wind’s song,
For I’m sure there’s some one waiting for me,
Since a hyacinth blue’s in love with this bee!
[Illustration: STORIES ABOUT ALL SORTS OF THINGS]
STORIES ABOUT ALL SORTS OF THINGS
NECTAR GUIDES.
The bee is always in a hurry. She flies from flower to flower as fast as
she can.
[Illustration: [Flower]]
She sees the flowers far off and comes straight to them, choosing the
brightest. She has learned that the bright flowers hold much honey and
often have guides to the nectary, so that she does not have to hunt
about, but, alighting on a flower, follows the bright guide. Sometimes
it is a spot in front of the nectary and sometimes a line leading to it.
It leads her at once by the shortest path to the nectar, and since she
is in such haste, the nectar guides are her good friends, helping her to
save time.
CELLS.
[Illustration: [Cells]]
[Illustration: [Cells]]
Cells are a matter of importance.
To be sure there are cells and cells, and some are much more important
than others.
For instance, there are prison cells, more’s the pity, and anther cells
and honeycomb cells and ovary cells and many more like them. All these
are small, hollow spaces with walls around them.
But there is another kind of cell, more important than all these others
put together, and they are not hollow and do not always have a wall.
Perhaps you are not very much interested in cells, but you had better be
in these we are going to talk about, for they have a great deal to do
with football games and dancing and going to parties and picnics. In
fact, without them there could be no football and no dancing and no
parties nor picnics.
All these things depend upon cells. So we may as well begin at once to
find out what they are.
These cells that we are going to talk about are alive. They are made of
protoplasm. You do not know what protoplasm is? I can tell you it is
time you did then, for if it had not been for protoplasm you would not
be in the land of the living. The protoplasm made you; so if you are not
interested in it, _I_ think you ought to have been a cabbage or a squash
or a liriodendron or some other thoughtless vegetable not expected to be
interested in protoplasm.
Like a good many other interesting things, protoplasm cannot usually be
seen by the naked eye; it is in such small quantities that it takes a
microscope to find it. And when you have found it, so far as its looks
are concerned, it would hardly seem to pay for the trouble, for to the
eye it is nothing but a colorless, jelly-like substance. It looks more
like the white of an egg than anything else. But remember it is not safe
to judge protoplasm or people by looks alone.
Napoleon was small, and he was not handsome; yet if you had seen him,
you would have seen the greatest man living in the world at that time.
So when you look at protoplasm you see something very much more
wonderful than it seems. In fact, the great Napoleon himself owed his
physical life to protoplasm, as did also Shakespeare and Plato, and
every person who has ever lived, for protoplasm is the only living
matter in the world.
You cannot understand that all in a minute, but you begin to see that
protoplasm is _rather_ important, and as well worth knowing about as the
latest fashion in bicycles or sleeve patterns.
Sometimes a bit of protoplasm lives all by itself. It is just a little
speck of colorless, jelly-like substance. Yet it can do a number of
things. One little creature, which is only a bit of protoplasm, has a
name much larger than itself. We call it “Amœba.”
[Illustration: [Cells]]
Rather a pretty name, on the whole, and very uncommon. I doubt if you
know a single person by that name.
It is a name, too, that everybody ought to know.
Well, as I told you before, and shall probably tell you a great many
more times, for I do not want you to forget it, the amœba is only a bit
of protoplasm.
Yet it can go about. You watch it some fine day under your microscope
and see it travel. It runs out a little, thin bit of its body, so
[Illustration: [Cells]] and then the rest of the body sort of pulls
itself up to that. In this way, by putting out little finger-like
projections and drawing the rest of the body up to them, it can move
quite a distance if you give it time enough. You can imagine so
changeable a creature as the amœba can scarcely be found twice of the
same shape, and how its friends recognize it is more than I can tell.
Suppose you were in the habit of changing your shape whenever you moved,
being long and thin one minute, short and thick another, having fourteen
arms one day and none the next? How _could_ you expect people to know
you when they met you?
But perhaps the amœba has an unsocial nature and does not care whether
it is recognized or not.
Because it changes its shape so often the amœba has received its pretty
name. For “amœba,” you must know, comes from a Greek word meaning
“change.”
It is sometimes called “Proteus” for the same reason. Of course you know
all about Proteus, the sea god who lived at the bottom of the ocean and
paid homage to the great god Neptune, who was ruler of the seas. Proteus
took care of the sea calves, and he had a queer way of changing his
shape whenever he chose. He used to go to sleep on the rocks while the
calves were sunning themselves, and because he was very wise and could
help people who were in trouble, they used to go there and catch him.
But he was not as friendly as he was wise, and would never tell anything
unless forced to; and when he found himself a prisoner, he would at once
change his form, and so try to escape by frightening his captors. He had
a pleasant habit of all at once changing into an enormous serpent and
opening a mouth full of frightful teeth; then, if _that_ did not
frighten badly enough, he would all at once turn into a bull or a raging
fire or a fierce torrent. He has been known to change into a dozen
dreadful things in as many minutes, so no wonder his name has come to
mean “something that changes.” And no wonder the amœba is called
“proteus,” not that it indulges in any such outrageous transformations
as the sea god, for it never does anything worse than change the shape
of its own little jelly-like body.
Although it can move along, I do not think it would amount to much in a
race, as it only moves a few inches in the course of a day; still that
is a good deal, considering its size.
A great deal depends upon size in this world.
You could go as far in ten seconds as a snail could in as many hours.
The distance would not count for much as far as you are concerned, but
it would be a good day’s work for the snail. So when an amœba travels a
few inches, that counts for as much in its life as a long day’s walk of
a good many miles would in yours, or as a few hundreds of miles on a
railway train.
The amœba can do more than travel. If you touch one it will shrink
together, showing that this little bit of protoplasm has a sort of
_feeling_ power.
When it is hungry it eats. For an amœba can get as hungry as anybody.
Hunger does not depend upon size. You can get as hungry as an elephant,
although you cannot eat as much. You would starve to death, too, as soon
as an elephant, perhaps sooner. An amœba no doubt gets as hungry as you
do, and it certainly would starve to death if it did not have something
to eat.
How can it eat without a mouth? Just as easily as it can travel without
feet. You do not know protoplasm if you think it cannot eat when it is
hungry. Very likely the reason it travels about is because it wants to
find something good to eat. It does not care for roast turkey and
cranberry sauce, nor for apple pie and plum pudding.
_That_ is not what it is looking for. It is looking for some tiny speck
of food smaller than itself.
It lives in the water, of course. It would dry up if it were out in the
air. You should think it would _melt_ in the water? Well, it does not,
any more than a jellyfish melts. When it comes to some little speck of
dead plant or animal, or, for all I know, to some living speck small
enough, it proceeds to eat it.
[Illustration: [Cells]]
It glides over it in the way you know about, and wraps the food speck up
in its body. Then it draws out all the good part of the food into its
own substance and goes on, leaving behind the waste particles.
Do you not think that is a good deal for an amœba to be able to do? But
it can do more than this; it can divide itself in two and make two amœbæ
out of one.
The little amœba is called a “cell.” After awhile you will see why. The
whole amœba is just one cell.
As to whether it is a plant or an animal you will have to ask the amœba,
for I cannot tell you. Some think it is a plant and some say it is an
animal.
I do not think it makes much difference which you say it is.
A bit of protoplasm living by itself is called a “cell.”
Many plants and animals have, like the amœba, only one cell. Very often
the little one-celled being has a thick outside wall. The protoplasm
changes part of the food into a hard substance, that is, it builds
itself a wall.
Very often cells live together in colonies instead of living alone. In
such cases, the first cell divides into two cells, but the two stay
together instead of entirely separating. Then each of these two cells
divides again, and the four cells stay together, and so it goes on until
a large body is built up of many cells.
The truth is, plants are only collections of cells which have agreed to
work together. Where there is but one cell, it has to do all sorts of
work; but where there are many, some do one kind of work, some
another,—just as Robinson Crusoe, living all alone on the island of Juan
Fernandez, had to do all sorts of things for himself: make his own shoes
and clothes, get his own food and cook it, build his own house, and
gather his own wood. But in a town one set of men makes shoes, another
chops wood, another raises vegetables and grain, another grinds the
grain, and another bakes the bread; then they all exchange with each
other, and everybody has enough—or ought to have.
So in the plant made of many cells. One set of cells makes hard walls to
protect the plant. Another set draws up water from the earth for all the
cells in the plant, for living things require a great deal of water.
Another set takes gas from the air and changes it into food. Another set
makes tubes for the sap to flow through. Other sets do other things.
Each set of cells does something for the whole plant.
If you look at a leaf or a bit of skin from a stem under a microscope,
you will see they are built up of cells, as a house is built of bricks.
Only the cells are not placed regularly like the bricks in a house, and
they are not solid like bricks. The walls of these cells are sometimes
hard and sometimes soft, sometimes tough and sometimes tender; but the
walls were all built by the protoplasm that lived in them. Sometimes the
protoplasm leaves the little house it has built and goes somewhere else.
Then the empty, wall-surrounded space is left like a cell of honeycomb
before the honey is put in, or an anther cell after the pollen has
fallen out and left nothing in it.
Before microscopes were as perfect as they are now, these empty spaces
with their surrounding walls were discovered. Even where the cells
contained protoplasm the microscope was not strong enough to reveal it,
so only the cell walls were seen.
[Illustration: Some of the cells in one plant.]
It was soon known that plants were built up of these little
compartments, and because they resembled cells in being small and shut
in by walls, they were called “cells.” After awhile it was discovered
that the living part of the plant was the colorless, jelly-like
protoplasm which lived in the cells. Yet later, particles of wall-less
protoplasm were found building up plants and animals. What were these
soft little protoplasmic atoms to be called?
The plant was really built up by them, and only part of them had walls,
so they were called by the name the people had already given to the
walled spaces which they supposed built up the plant, and so got the
name of “cells,” which is not at all an appropriate name.
There is nothing quite so easy as to be mistaken, you see, and the
botanists, having seen that the plant was built of little compartments,
and never suspecting the presence of the living protoplasm lurking in
some of them, had called the compartments “cells”; later, when the
protoplasm was discovered to be the real builder, the old name was kept.
So you see how the amœba came to be called a “cell.”
There are a great many different kinds of cells in one plant.
But every living cell has very much the same powers as the amœba, though
in many of them some one power is developed at the expense of all the
rest. In this way different sets of cells are able to perform different
kinds of work, and do it very well indeed.
The amœba is not the only single-celled creature. There are a great many
different kinds of single-celled plants or animals, and some of them
take very curious and beautiful forms, with streamers floating about
them.
Such are not protean, like the amœba; they do not change their shapes.
Plants are not the only things that have cells. Animals, too, are built
up of them. Animal cells are usually softer than plant cells, because
they very often have no hard walls. Bone cells of course have hard
walls, and there are others, but most of the animal cells are without
walls.
So you see all living things are built of cells, and the living part of
the cells is the protoplasm.
You yourself are built up of millions of cells, and without the help of
protoplasm you would not be living, for protoplasm made your cells, and
protoplasm is the only thing in you that is alive. Your muscles are made
of muscle cells, and the protoplasm in them moves, and when the muscle
cells all move together, that moves your arm or your leg or your head or
some other part of your body.
Since your muscle cells devote themselves to moving, they do not try to
do much else; so other cells digest the food which the blood carries to
the muscle cells. Yet other cells build a good thick skin to protect the
soft muscles, and yet another set of cells _thinks_ for the muscles, and
tells them where and when and how to move. Each set of cells has its own
work.
Your brain is made up of nerve cells, and the protoplasm in them in some
way enables you to think and feel. Your bone cells are hard and
resisting, your sinew cells strong and flexible. So each part of your
body is made up of different kinds of cells.
But what has all this to do with football and parties and picnics you
would like to know?
[Illustration: [Cells]]
Why, a great deal, to be sure. If it were not for cells and protoplasm
there would be no people.
And how could you have football games and picnics without people, _I_
should like to know?
POLLEN CELLS.
[Illustration: [Pollen]]
In the dark little dungeon cells of the anthers, the pollen grains lie.
Hundreds, and sometimes thousands of them, are packed in there as
closely as they can be. But they do not mind it, not in the least. They
grow and get ripe, and as soon as this happens, their prison door opens
and out they pour.
They are funny little things, not at all what they seem to be. For you
would think they were just little specks of dust of almost no shape at
all. But that is your fault, or rather the fault of your eyes.
You see your eyes were not meant to look at things so tiny as pollen
grains. You can see a common ball or even a small shot very well indeed;
but when it comes to pollen grains you are as blind as a mole. You will
have to put on your spectacles to see _that_, I can tell you, and very
powerful spectacles they will have to be, too. The best spectacles for
you to look through are the ones we call a microscope. Just put your eye
to that tube and you will see what you will see, for there are pollen
grains at the other end—pollen grains from several kinds of flowers;
there are some in the corner from our friend the morning-glory. And now
you know what I meant when I said you could not see a pollen grain; for
those little specks of dust have all at once become large and important
objects. Some are round and some are not, and all are creased or pitted
or ridged or covered with little points or marked in some other way. Now
you see why they stick so easily to the hairs on the bee or the
butterfly or whatever comes visiting the flowers for nectar. They are
not smooth, but all roughened over by these ridges and points.
And this is not the end of it. You have not yet seen a pollen grain. You
have only seen the outside of one.
For it has an inside. You think it is too small to have anything inside
of it?
I can tell you things _much_ smaller than that have something inside of
them. The truth is, these things seem so small because we are so large.
If we were as small as they, they would not seem small at all. They
would seem a very ordinary size indeed, and we would expect them to have
an outside and an inside.
The truth is, pollen grains are hollow. They are as hollow as the baby’s
rubber ball. But they are not _empty_. The baby’s rubber ball is not
empty; it is full of air. These pollen grains are not full of air. If
you were to see what is in them, you might not think it very important,
but that would be a great mistake, for they are full of—protoplasm!
The truth of the matter is, the pollen grain is a _cell_; it has a wall
outside and is made of protoplasm inside.
Protoplasm, you remember, is the material out of which every living
thing is made. You are made from protoplasm yourself; flowers are made
from it, too, and leaves and birds and _everything that lives_.
So you see if a pollen grain is filled with protoplasm, that is rather a
serious matter.
This pollen grain, small as it is, has a tough outer skin. It is not as
tough as leather, but it is tough for so small a grain, and is strong
enough to keep the protoplasm from running out.
The protoplasm in the pollen grain is what the ovule needs to nourish it
and make it able to grow. The ovule, too, is a cell filled with
protoplasm, and the protoplasm of the pollen and of the ovule must
somehow come together before the ovule can do any more growing.
You know how the bees and butterflies and all sorts of insects carry the
pollen from flower to flower and dust the stigmas with it. You may think
that when a pollen grain is safely landed on a stigma then the rest is
easy enough. But if you suppose the pollen grain can pass through the
style you are _very_ much mistaken. It cannot even pass through the
stigma. It is true, the tissues of both style and stigma are rather
loose, and that the style is sometimes hollow. But, as far as I know,
the pollen _never_ passes through. Small as it is, it is too large to
get through the tiny openings in the stigma, and then, you know, the
stigma is sticky and holds it fast.
Here is an interesting state of affairs! The ovule cell is waiting for
protoplasm, and the pollen cell is anchored safe and fast at the stigma.
But you may be sure there is a way out of this difficulty.
[Illustration: [Pollen]]
To begin, the pollen grain has two coats, a tough outer one and a
delicate inner one. There are openings, or at least weak places, in the
outer coat, and after the pollen has lodged on the moist stigma, the
protoplasm inside swells and comes bulging through these weak places.
The inner coat is forced out, as though some _extremely_ small fairy had
stuck her finger through the wall from the inside and pushed out a part
of the inner lining. Well, this finger-like part that comes through the
wall does not break open, but begins to grow. It grows longer and longer
until a tube is formed, a tube so small that only the microscope can
enable us to see it.
This tube pushes its way through the stigma into the style; there it
continues to grow like a long root, only it is _not_ a root, and it is
hollow; and the protoplasm from the inside of the pollen grain runs down
this tube.
[Illustration: [Pollen]]
You can guess what happens next. The tube grows and grows; it finds
plenty of nourishment in the tissue of the style, which is made of
material suitable to feed it. Of course, it grows down the style into
the ovary, because the style opens into the ovary.
When it reaches the ovary it finds its way to an ovule, and goes in at a
little door which the ovule keeps open for it.
Now, you see, there is an open path between the pollen grain and the
ovule, and the protoplasm from the pollen grain which has run down the
tube enters the ovule. Here it passes out of the tube by breaking
through the delicate wall, and unites with the protoplasm of the ovule.
Thus the ovule is fertilized. It is nourished and strengthened, and at
once begins to grow into a seed.
Meantime the shell of the pollen lies on the stigma, a little dried-up,
empty thing. Its work is done. Thanks to the bee or the butterfly or
some other flower-loving friend, it has been taken to the right place,
and all that was living in it, its protoplasm, goes on living in the
little ovule.
The pollen grains the bees carry home have a very different fate. They
are crushed and soaked and kneaded with honey and fed to baby bees.
But the flowers are willing the bees should have some to live on, and so
each flower makes thousands more than it needs. You see, if it did not
give the bees something to eat, they would not come and they could not
live on honey alone; they, too, need the protoplasm in the pollen to
nourish them.
Some kinds of flowers use their own pollen. They do not need the bees
and do not want them. So they keep their pollen shut up tightly and do
not make any honey to coax the bees to come. But nearly all flowers wish
to have other pollen than their own. And this they can only get by the
help of other people’s wings, as they have none of their own.
[Illustration: [Flower]]
THE POLLEN.
[Illustration: [Flower]]
What does the pollen do?
It helps the ovule change to a seed.
It feeds the bees and the wasps and the flies.
But above all, it helps the ovule change to a seed.
THE ANTHERS.
[Illustration: [Anthers]]
Anthers, anthers, full of pollen,
Cunning cupboards of the bee,
Stamen flour amply hiding,
What have you for me, for me?
What have you for me?
[Illustration: [Anthers]]
Pollen have I, plenty of it,
Pollen for my darling bee;
Pollen every day I blossom
For my bee, but none for thee,
For thee, none for thee.
OVULE CELLS.
[Illustration: [Ovule]]
You will be glad to know that the little ovules at the heart of the
morning-glory and of all other flowers are single cells.
They have an outside wall and are filled with protoplasm.
When a pollen cell is formed from the inside of the anther, it separates
and is no longer connected with anything. This is not the case with the
ovule. It is fastened to the ovary by a little stem, for it will stay
there and grow; and it must have a way to get food from its parent
plant. It gets the food through this little stem.
You know what happens when the flower opens.
The bees bring pollen, and the protoplasm of the pollen joins that of
the ovule. As soon as this happens the ovule begins to change. We say it
_grows_. It gets the food to grow on from the mother plant through the
little stem which is fastened to the inside of the ovary.
The protoplasm in the ovule first divides and makes two cells instead of
one. These two cells do not entirely separate from each other. They stay
together to do their work. Soon each of them divides into more cells.
These cells again divide, and this continues until a great many cells
are formed. Meantime the ovule has increased in size as well as
complexity, and its cells do several different kinds of work. In the
morning-glory, for instance, some build a hard outer wall about the
young plant; this is the seed-case. Other cells form two little leaves;
others make a little stub of a stem. So the change goes on until the
single-celled ovule becomes a many-celled seed with a young plant rolled
up under its walls. If you open a morning-glory seed you can see this
little baby plant, only you will have to soak the seed first to soften
the food that is stored about the young plant.
The cells made this food to nourish it, and it stays dry and hard until
the rain moistens it in the spring, when it gets soft, like boiled
starch, and is then ready for the little plant to use. When the ovules
grow on one plant and the pollen comes from another, the seeds will
contain the protoplasm of two different plants.
Now protoplasm remembers the plant it came from, and tries to make the
new plant like it.
The ovule protoplasm tries to make the seed remember the plant it grows
on, and the pollen protoplasm tries to make the pollen remember the
plant it comes from.
So if the pollen comes from a plant bearing white flowers, it wants the
seeds to grow into white-flowered plants. But if the ovules which
fertilizes it grow on a pink-flowered plant, they try to make the seeds
grow into pink-flowered plants. Now what happens? Very likely some of
the flowers will be white and some of them pink. Some will take after
the plant the pollen came from and some after the one the ovule came
from. But sometimes the flowers will be a mixture of both plants and
will be pink and white.
[Illustration: [Ovule]]
The ovule is the mother part of the plant and the pollen is the father
part, and sometimes the seed-children take after the mother, sometimes
after the father, and sometimes after both.
This is very strange and we cannot quite understand it. How can the
protoplasm remember the exact shade and color of the plant it came from?
How can it make seeds that grow into plants just like the old plants?
Protoplasm, you are a great, a very great mystery!
By knowing about pollen and ovules we are able to help form a great many
lovely new flowers and fruits.
We get variegated flowers by fertilizing a flower of one color with
pollen from a flower of another color.
When we do this we must cover over the plant with a piece of netting
just before it blossoms, so the bees and butterflies cannot get ahead of
us and fertilize the plant. Then we must put a bit of pollen from one
flower on the stigma of the flower we want to experiment with.
We must always use the pollen from the same kind of a plant, however.
It would be of no use to put nasturtium pollen on a morning-glory
stigma, for instance, for it could not affect the ovule in the least.
The protoplasm knows in some way its own plant and will not fertilize
any other.
This is a very good thing, otherwise we might have a funny mixture of
all sorts of plants.
Many delicious fruits have been produced by fertilizing one plant with
pollen from another.
New varieties of grapes and berries are constantly obtained in this way.
If you live on a farm or have a garden, you might try to develop some
new kinds of berries or fruits. You might not succeed, but it would do
no harm to try.
[Illustration: [Ovule]]
CHLOROPHYLL.
[Illustration: [Leaves]]
Chlorophyll is plant green.
That is what the word means.
We are so used to seeing green leaves that we think very little about
it.
It probably never has occurred to most of us that the green coloring
matter of plants can be of much importance. Yet it is one of the most
important things in the world.
Like many other things, it is not what it seems. It is not merely a dye
as one might suppose, but much more than that.
We cannot really see what it is without a microscope, and when we look
at a piece of green leaf through the microscope we are surprised to find
the leaf is not green at all.
It is colorless like glass, but in the cells just behind the skin cells
we see little roundish green bodies packed away. These are the
chlorophyll grains, and when there are a great many of them close
together they show through the skin and make the whole plant green.
The skin protects them, you see, and yet it is transparent and allows
the light to get to them, which is a matter of great importance to the
chlorophyll grains, for they are hard workers, but cannot do a single
thing without sunlight.
[Illustration: [Cells]]
Chlorophyll grains lie just behind the skin cells in all parts of the
plant that look green. The cells they lie in are often long with their
short ends towards the skin. Leaves contain several layers of
chlorophyll cells. The inner ones are not long like the outer ones, and
do not contain so many chlorophyll grains. In the illustration, _a_, _a_
represent the upper and lower skin and _b_ the cells containing
chlorophyll. The under side of a leaf usually has fewer chlorophyll
grains in its cells, for the light is not so bright there, and
chlorophyll needs plenty of light.
Sometimes the cells in the middle of a leaf, that is, halfway between
the upper and lower surfaces, have no chlorophyll at all.
Now what _do_ you suppose is the work the chlorophyll grains have to do?
You never could guess, so I may as well tell you at once. If it is not
making sugar, it is something very like it. To begin at the beginning,
which is a long way from sugar, but which will certainly bring us to it,
I must tell you that these little round green chlorophyll people have a
strong attraction for carbon dioxide, which you know is a gas and is
always found in the air. You know, too, we breathe it out as an
impurity. Probably you did not know it had anything to do with sugar,
but it has a very great deal to do with it.
The chlorophyll grains attract carbon dioxide as strongly as a magnet
attracts bits of iron. The carbon dioxide in the air goes through the
pores in the leaf skin, right through everything to the cell where the
chlorophyll lies. You know carbon dioxide is made of carbon and oxygen.
The plant needs a great deal of carbon, for nearly all its hard parts
are made of it. Wood for one thing is nearly all carbon.
As soon as carbon dioxide comes where chlorophyll is, the chlorophyll,
which of course is chiefly made of protoplasm, tears it to pieces. It
pulls the carbon away from the oxygen and the oxygen rushes out through
the pores back into the air. But the carbon stays behind.
You see oxygen is a gas and carbon is a solid. When carbon and oxygen
unite in a certain way, they make another gas, our carbon dioxide.
It is very queer that carbon should have the form of a gas when united
with oxygen, and I cannot explain it here. You must just remember that
it is so.
When the oxygen flies away into the air again and leaves the carbon
behind, the work of the chlorophyll has but just begun. Raw carbon is of
no use whatever,—no more use than carbon dioxide, which we know is good
for nothing to the plant or else the chlorophyll would not tear it to
pieces.
But if the chlorophyll can only get a little water, something worth
while will happen. This it can always do, as the roots take good care to
send it plenty.
Water, you know, is made of two gases, hydrogen and oxygen, united
together.
Here, you see, gases unite and make a liquid. Well, chlorophyll has a
way of its own of uniting the carbon it took away from the carbon
dioxide with the hydrogen and oxygen it gets from the water and forming
a solid, which the plant cannot live without.
Now what do you suppose this new solid is? Probably you _never_ could
guess.
It is _starch_, just _starch_!
Chlorophyll makes starch out of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.
Sometimes it makes sugar and oil out of them, but its work is most
generally starch-making.
The carbon, you remember, it gets from the carbon dioxide of the air,
and the hydrogen and oxygen from the water the roots send it.
[Illustration: [Leaves]]
The strangest thing about all this is, chlorophyll is the only thing
that _can_ make starch.
Perhaps you do not think starch worth making such a fuss about. But wait
a moment.
There is more to starch than you ever dreamed of. Really and truly, if
it were not for starch you would not be alive to-day, and I would
not,—in short nobody would.
All our lives depend upon starch. So when we come right down to the
truth, our lives depend upon chlorophyll, because that makes all the
starch there is in the world.
You do not think our lives depend upon starch? Wait and see.
Chlorophyll makes starch. Never forget that as long as you live. Forget
your own name if you want to, but do not forget that chlorophyll makes
starch.
You see starch is the raw material of which plants are made.
After the chlorophyll has made starch, the starch is dissolved, or
_melted_ you would likely say, and so is carried all over the plant in
the sap. Some parts of the plant change the starch into sugar; for sugar
is made of the same things as starch, only in it the carbon, hydrogen,
and oxygen are put together a little differently, just as you can make
several kinds of cake from flour, butter, sugar, milk, and eggs by
stirring them together differently and mixing them in different
proportions.
You cannot make cake without flour, sugar, eggs, and milk, and usually
butter. But if you have these ingredients you can make a great many
kinds of cake.
Starch is the material of which the plant makes a large part of its
substance.
Some parts of the plant that need sugar make it from the starch, and we
find more or less sugar in all plants. There is, as you know, a great
deal in the nectar of flowers, but other parts of the plant need it too,
so sugar is a matter of importance to plants as well as to people. But
sugar, remember, is made generally from starch, no matter in what part
of the plant we find it.
[Illustration: [Leaves]]
The sweet sap in the sugar maple is made from starch; so is the sweet
juice of the sugar beet and of the sugar cane. All the sugar we use,
excepting that in homeopathic pills, is made from starch. The sweet
juice of fruits, berries, apples, peaches, oranges, contains sugar,
which the plant has made from starch. In green fruit the starch has not
yet been changed into sugar, so it is not pleasant to the taste.
Some parts of the plant need thick walls, like wood or bark, and these
are made by the protoplasm from starch; they are not sugar, however, but
a very tough, firm substance so unlike sugar that you wonder how it can
be made of the same materials. But it is, for starch is the substance
from which both are made.
There are other things in the plant besides starch, and there are things
which are not made from starch; for instance, there are acids and
minerals of different kinds and there is protoplasm, but the greater
part of every green plant is formed from starch.
Some plants make more starch than they need at once, so they store it
away for future use, just as people raise extra supplies of wheat and
corn, and store them away until they want them.
The potato plant, for instance, stores a large quantity of starch in the
potatoes underground. A potato is nearly all starch, and the sweet
potato stores up sugar as well as starch in its underground parts.
The potatoes have a reason for this, and, if let alone, would use up the
starch and sugar another season; but we do not let them alone, as you
know. We too need starch, and so we dig up the potatoes and eat them
instead of leaving them for the plant.
A great many plants store up starch in their seeds that the young plant
may have food enough to start growing. All our grains do this. Wheat,
rye, oats, barley, rice, corn, and all other grains are only the seeds
of plants which have been stored full of starch. Peas and beans are also
starch-filled seeds. Cabbages store food made from starch in their big
thick leaves. Beets store sugar and other starch-food materials in their
thick roots; so do carrots and parsnips and turnips. Onions store it in
their bulb leaves underground.
[Illustration: [Leaves]]
You begin to see now how important starch is to our lives. Nearly all
the vegetables and grains and fruits we eat are composed almost entirely
of starch or the materials of starch. Even meat is made from starch, for
what do the animals we kill for meat live on?
Why, plants of course, and chiefly the starch they find in plants.
So now we are just where we started,—we see we really do owe our lives
to starch, and we owe starch to chlorophyll, so of course, we owe our
lives to chlorophyll. I wonder if we shall think of this next time we
look at the green leaves everywhere in the fields and woods.
I wonder if these green leaves will not look more beautiful than ever
when we think of the work they are doing.
ROOT CELLS.
Roots do their work underground as a rule.
[Illustration: [Roots]]
You might prefer not to be a root, if you had your choice; you might
prefer to be a leaf or a flower.
I have never heard that the roots complained of their work, however. For
one thing, it is easier. All they have to do is to hold the plant fast,
suck up juices from the earth, and in some cases store away food
material,—that is, if they are regular, well-behaved, everyday,
underground roots.
Sometimes, however, roots come out of the ground and do all sorts of
things,—cling to walls and hang in the air and perform in other
unroot-like ways; but these are not what we are talking about. We are
talking of roots, such as those of the morning-glory and nasturtium and
geranium, which stay underground and behave themselves.
Since it is dark where they live, they have no chlorophyll grains, and
do not have to make starch. They merely use up the starch that comes to
them from above.
Since they are not blown about by the wind, they do not need
complicated, stiff, supporting tissues like tree trunks. On the whole,
they are rather a simple people. They are made of cells, of course. But
there are not so many kinds of cells in them as in the stems and leaves.
They have skin cells, but no pores. Out of their skin cells grow their
most interesting and important parts. These are called root hairs. They
are made of cells lying next each other, like other hairs, but they do
all the sucking up of food materials for the whole root. These root
hairs draw the water and other food out of the soil for the use of the
plant, and the rest of the root only stores it up and conducts it to the
stem and leaves above and anchors the plant to the ground.
The root’s work as an anchor is important, as you can imagine.
Just suppose that plants had no strong roots twisting around stones and
bits of earth underground and holding them fast! What a time there would
be whenever the wind blew.
Even a light breeze would be worse than a cyclone at present, for it
would send the wheat in the wheatfields flying before it.
All the plants would go hurry-skurry wherever the wind blew—excepting
the morning-glories and others that were twined about trellises or
fences or rocks; and even they would be blown all out of shape.
And when a strong wind came, if the trees had no roots to anchor them
_they_ would go hurry-skurry in the direction in which the wind blew,
even if they were balanced so that they could not fall over; and we
should see the forests sliding about the country and probably right on
our houses, knocking them down, so we would not be able to have any
houses, but would have to live in caves. It is a very good thing for us
that the plants are held fast by their roots.
Well, the root hairs do the most important work of the plant after all.
It is they who go poking their noses through the soil, and with their
cells draw up water and potash and nitrogen and sulphur and iron and
many other things which have become dissolved in the water. They are
even able to dissolve rocks and such delicacies for themselves.
Now a growing root tip is a very delicate thing. You could not expect it
to go pushing its tender tip through the hard earth without some kind of
protection. And it does not: it wears a cap. This cap fits over the tip
of the root and is hard. The cap is not alive, that is, the outside of
it is not. The growing part of the root tip is just behind the cap.
The root tip grows by adding on new cells and so pushes the root cap
ahead of it. The hard root cap finds its way between the particles of
earth and so opens a channel for the growing root tip behind it.
The cap wears off on the outside as the bark does on a tree, and, like
that, is continually renewed from the inside where the cells are alive.
[Illustration: Root hairs. Root cap.]
SKIN CELLS.
[Illustration: [Skin]]
Skin covers over and protects what is underneath. It is thin compared
with what it covers, but it is important, as we discover when we lose a
piece of our own skin. A fluid substance or even blood oozes out, and
the spot where the skin is off is very painful.
Plants have a skin too, and it does for them what our skin does for us.
It is tough and protects the soft inner parts and keeps the sap from
oozing out.
Skin, of course, is built up of cells. These cells generally lie close
together, touching each other, except at certain spots, where there is
an opening.
Skin cells are usually long and wide, and their outer walls, as you
would expect, are thicker than the inside walls. The protoplasm builds
up hard material on the outside to protect the rest of the leaf or stem.
Leaves and young stems and roots and flower parts all have skin.
The skin is alike in all in a general way, just as all houses are alike
in a general way. They all have a roof, walls, partitions, doors, and
windows, though these are of different sizes and arranged differently in
different houses to suit the needs of the people who live in them. So
with plants. The skin cells are different in size and shape and
thickness in different plants to suit the needs of the plants, though in
all there is a general resemblance.
[Illustration: [Skin cells]]
Here is a row of skin cells (_a_) with other cells (_b_) back of them.
See how thick the skin cells are on the outside (_c_). They are very
tough there too. _d_ is an opening between two cells, and all is
magnified several hundred times.
[Illustration: _a_]
Sometimes there are several layers of skin cells where the plant needs a
particularly thick skin; _a_ in the illustration is an example of such a
skin.
But it would not do to have an air-tight skin, even for a plant.
Our own skins are full of holes, or pores, as you know, to let out the
extra water and other waste materials in what we call perspiration. The
plants need such an arrangement as much as we do. So in their skin we
find pores. You see the plant needs a great deal of water. The water is
used in making the substance of the plant. It is also used in the sap to
carry food about from place to place. Sap contains a great deal of water
in order that it may flow easily. This water cannot all be used by the
plant, and when it comes up from the roots in the sap a large part of it
has to be got rid of by the leaves.
If the skin were solid, the water could not escape. But you know what
protoplasm can do.
If the skin needs pores, it will make them. And this is how it does it.
If you peel off a bit of skin from the under side of a leaf and put it
under the microscope, you will see something like this.
[Illustration: [Pores]]
The round forms are the pores. The crooked lines between are the edges
of the cell walls, and you are looking at them right through the outer
wall of the skin, which is transparent like glass, otherwise you could
not see the edges of the partitions.
Let us look at these pores, or stomata as we must call them, if we want
to talk like botanists.
One of the stomata is called a “stoma”; stoma comes from the Greek and
means a “mouth,” or “opening.” These little mouths, or stomata, are made
of two cells lying close together. These cells reach through the skin
into an open space back of it.
There are open spaces between many of the inner plant cells, and there
is always one behind a stoma. There are very few spaces between skin
cells, excepting, of course, the openings between the two cells of a
stoma. The two cells which make a stoma are called “guard cells,”
because they guard the opening into the plant.
They are shaped, you see, something like half-moons. When the plant is
full of water these half-moons swell up and their edges are drawn
apart—so. [Illustration: _x_]
This, you see, makes an opening (_x_) into the plant. This little mouth
through the skin opens into the space back of the skin, and this space
connects with other spaces all through the plant. Through these stomata
all parts of the plant can communicate with the outer air. The extra
water and other waste materials pass out through the open stomata and
air and other gases pass in and out.
Now, if the air outside is very dry and the earth is dry so that the
roots are not able to send up much water, these wise little guard cells
do not swell up and separate.
They are too good gatekeepers for that. They straighten out, their edges
meet—so—[Illustration: [Cell]] and the opening is closed.
Now the water cannot so readily escape and the plant will not wither so
soon. In dry climates the stomata are often surrounded by hairs which
prevent too rapid evaporation; these hairs are often thick enough to
make the plant look woolly. In fact, many plants have hairs upon those
parts of the leaves where the stomata are found; they not only prevent
too rapid evaporation, but also keep the rain or dew from getting into
the stomata and closing them up. They hold off the water so that it
cannot wet that part of the leaf.
There are a great many stomata on one leaf,—on some kinds as many as
thousands to a square inch.
Usually, among land plants, there are more on the under side of the
leaf, and in very dry places all are on the under side. The sun shining
on the upper side would often cause too great evaporation, so the
stomata are found underneath. In very hot, dry air there will be a
little evaporation, even when the stomata are closed.
But when we come to look at leaves that lie on the surface of the water,
like water lily leaves, of course the stomata are all on top, as that is
the only part of the leaf the air can reach.
Many water plants have their stomata above, for you see there is no
danger of their water supply running short.
It is very important for a plant to keep its pores open and it is quite
ingenious in contriving ways to do this. Perhaps hairs are most
frequently used.
They often cover the under side of the leaf where the stomata are
thickest, or are found in lines along the leaf, when the stomata are
distributed in this way.
[Illustration: _a b_]
But, you say, rain cannot get to the under side of the leaf. No, but dew
can. Dew wets the under side of the leaf quite as much as the upper
side, for dew does not fall, as some people think, but is deposited all
over the surface of a cool object like a leaf, for dew is nothing but
the vapor in the air which is deposited in the form of water at night.
To see better how the stomata work, here is a side view of one closed
(_a_) and one open (_b_).
Stomata, you see, are the doors to the plant through which things pass
in and out. Not only water goes out through them, but also other waste
substances, such as oxygen and carbon dioxide.
You must not suppose because so many things go _out_ at the doors that
nothing goes in; for air passes in and also carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide passes out from the plant and in from the air! That seems
curious, but you must remember the plant has to use its stomata for both
lungs and mouths,—lungs to breathe out impure air, which contains carbon
dioxide, and mouths to take in carbon dioxide, which is one of its
principal foods.
Besides stomata, plant skin has other kinds of special cells. These
other cells form hairs or prickles or scales or glands. The hairs,
prickles, and scales form on the outside of the skin, as you can see by
the illustration.
[Illustration: [Hairs]]
On the side of a regular skin cell the protoplasm builds a small cell;
this grows long and divides and makes two; these may again divide, and
so on until the plant has as long a hair as it needs. Sometimes the hair
is made of but one long cell.
Hairs, as we know, protect the plant from too great evaporation and from
changes of temperature; they also keep the dew and rain from settling in
the stomata and filling them up so they cannot do their work.
[Illustration: [Hairs]]
Here is a picture of four stomata, growing about a hollow filled with
hairs. These hairs prevent the outside water from running in and wetting
the stomata.
Prickles and some kinds of hairs and scales protect the outside of the
plant from animals. When the animals bite the plant, these things stick
into their mouths and they are glad to let it alone.
If you want to be sure that prickles and hairs protect the outside of a
plant, go take hold of a nettle!
Madam Nettle does not wish to be taken hold of nor eaten nor touched by
cows or sheep or anything else.
[Illustration: [Hairs]]
So her skin has hairs on it that sting. The hairs are very sharp and
they are hollow. There is a poisonous juice inside, something the
protoplasm has made; and when the sharp end of a hair sticks into your
finger, the little turned-up end breaks off, and the poisonous juice
gets into the wound and irritates and causes the finger to swell a
little.
There is a way to take hold of a nettle so that it cannot sting. The
little poison-filled hairs all point _up_, as you see in the picture. So
if you stroke the nettle or draw your hand over it from root to tip, it
cannot hurt you. Your hand presses the hairs flat against the stem and
they cannot stick into you.
[Illustration: [Hairs]]
Sometimes hairs branch and make a thick network, like felt, over the
leaf. They do this in the mullein, and here is a picture of mullein
hairs very highly magnified.
Prickles and scales are made of cells as hairs are.
All parts of the plant above ground and sometimes the roots are covered
with skin, but only the parts above ground are covered with hairs or
prickles. Some plants are abundantly supplied with these protections;
others manage to get along without them.
Plants very often have glands in their skins. These glands are merely
cells which take certain things from the sap and pour them out on the
outside of the plant.
Glands secrete their fluids inside the skin cells, and these fluids
finally break through the outer wall of the skin cell and so get to the
surface, or else they pass through stomata specially provided for them.
They sometimes cover the surface of the plant with a sticky substance,
as is the case with young birch twigs.
Glands also secrete the gum or resin which covers up the winter buds and
keeps out the rain, and which makes the young leaves of the cherry shine
so.
Some plants secrete wax which covers leaves or stems or fruits. Bayberry
berries are covered with white wax, of which fragrant candles can be
made.
Bayberry grows abundantly all along the New England coast, and friends
of Thoreau used to make these fragrant candles as Christmas presents.
Whenever Thoreau went to visit them, he insisted upon having a bayberry
candle to go to bed by.
The _bloom_ on cabbage leaves and on plums and other fruits is made of
tiny scales of wax.
[Illustration: BAYBERRY.]
Wax is a very good substance to keep the plant dry. You may be sure the
plant knows this and often uses it about the stomata. You see, the
object is to allow water to pass freely _out_ of the stomata by
evaporation, but not, as a rule, to pass _into_ them. So the clever
plants often have wax instead of hairs as a protection to the stomata.
It would not do at all to let the stomata get closed up, so they are
always protected in some way. Sometimes little projections grow out of
the skin, close to the stomata. The raindrops fall upon these little
knobs and stay there, instead of settling down into the stomata. You
see, the pegs are _very_ small, and when the rain falls on them there is
a layer of air below them which the water cannot displace, and which
prevents it from going any farther.
If you want to know just where the stomata are situated in a leaf,
plunge it in water, then shake the drops off and notice what part of the
leaf has not been wet. Wherever the leaf is dry, there are the stomata.
In many plants, as, for instance, the jewelweed, it is quite impossible
to wet the leaf. Soak it in water for an hour, and when you take it out
it is dry! The parts that cannot be wet usually have a silvery,
glistening appearance. Put the leaf in water and notice where it
glistens; there are the stomata,—sometimes all over the under side of
the leaf, sometimes in lines or patches, sometimes on both sides of the
leaf.
Wax, gum, and resin are not the only things plant glands secrete. There
are the glands in the flower cups that secrete nectar. In some plants
this breaks through the delicate plant skin and runs into and fills up
the little hollows or horns we call nectaries. In others the nectar is
provided with stomata by means of which it can escape from the interior
of the plant.
You may be surprised to learn that the flower is not the only part of
the plant that can secrete nectar!
In some plants the stipules do it, and in some even the stems.
This is not to call visitors to the flowers, but perhaps to keep them
away. Where ants trouble the flowers, certain kinds have invented this
very clever way of stopping the unwelcome visitors. They do not want the
ants to take the honey from the flowers, so they secrete honey on the
leaves or stems, and the ants take that instead of traveling on to the
flowers.
Of course each living skin cell contains protoplasm. The protoplasm lies
in a thin layer against the walls and builds, builds, builds, until the
skin is thick enough.
When a good thick wall has been built, the protoplasm passes out through
tiny openings in the inner wall into the inside cells, where it goes to
work doing something else. The skin cells are then empty of protoplasm;
they are only filled with air, and we say they are _dead_ cells. Their
hard walls are a good protection to the plant. In stems there is often a
layer of thick cells behind the skin cells which also protects. These
are called cork cells.
All very young plants have their stems covered with living skin.
Older plants, particularly woody ones, have their stems covered with the
tough, dead skin. And trees have finally a thick layer of dead cork
cells. In tree trunks the skin cells have disappeared entirely. The skin
protected the young shoot; then its empty cells finally peeled off, as
the cork cells formed underneath and made a thick bark. The bark then
does the work of the skin. It protects the stem. It becomes very thick
sometimes, as layers are constantly added beneath. The outside of the
bark keeps peeling and scaling off.
Of course there are no stomata in bark. We find them only in the living
skin. Bark does not need stomata, as it does not regulate the water
supply. The young green parts of the plant do that by means of their
covering of living skin. Living skin is usually transparent like glass.
It is tough and yet transparent. You see, the light must get through it
to the cells which lie behind it.
There is usually no green color in skin. Sometimes there are other
coloring materials, though not as a rule.
The living skin covers the leaf or stem or other part of the plant like
a window of tough glass. Even where the skin is several cells thick, the
light can pass through, just as it can through thick glass.
[Illustration: [Flower]]
TUBE CELLS.
[Illustration: [Tube Cells]]
The top of a tree is a long way from the roots. Yet the leaves must have
food from the roots, and the roots must have food from the leaves.
[Illustration: [Tube Cells]]
It is not an easy matter to move all this food material up and down, you
may be sure.
I wonder how _you_ would manage it?
Why, you say, if I had to raise sap from under the ground to the top of
the tree, I should certainly build some pipes and have a pump at the
top.
That is the way the plant has decided. So pipes there are, plenty of
them,—pipes or tubes of many sizes and shapes.
You know how cells grow, lying next each other. Well, tube cells are
long and contain protoplasm in the beginning. They lie end to end. But,
you see, it would not be very easy for the sap to pass through
_millions_ of cell walls on its way up.
So when the protoplasm has built a row of cells with good thick walls,
it passes out through thin places or openings it has left in the walls.
The end partitions between the tube cells are thin and break away, and
lo and behold! we have a long, strong tube with nothing in it but air.
Up this tube the sap creeps or down it the sap runs. A great many of
these tubes, which are as fine as hairs or much finer in some cases, are
needed in a plant. They run all through the stems and out into the
leaves. They are collected into bundles, and form part of the veins and
the framework of leaves. I do not know what the plant would do without
them.
But what makes the sap run _up_ the tubes?
Now you are asking questions! It took a long time for people to find
that out, for there is more than one reason why the sap runs up.
For one thing, the root cells keep drawing in water and other things,
and the fluid already in is pushed up by that behind; so there is a sort
of pump at the bottom of the plant, you see,—a force pump. The sun
shining on the leaves and stems evaporates the water above, and the
water below then easily takes its place; so there is a sort of suction
pump at the top.
Then the tubes are so _very_ fine that the fluid in them tends to move
up, just as water will soak up into a towel if the fringe happens to get
into the water; for you know that if you hang a towel so that the fringe
dips into a basin of water, after awhile the whole towel will be wet, as
a result of what we call capillary attraction. For all these reasons the
sap creeps up the stems through the tubes the cells have made.
Every plant has these tubes, from the tiniest weed in the garden to the
tallest forest tree. Although so small, they are often very prettily
marked by lines and dots.
STRENGTHENING CELLS.
Plants need something more than cells of working protoplasm and
something more than tubes, just as we need more than flesh and blood
vessels.
[Illustration: [Strengthening Cells]]
We would be in a sad plight if we had no bones to keep us in place, and
plants would be in a sad plight if they had no—well, not exactly
_bones_, but something to serve the same purpose.
Think of the weight a tree has to bear. You could not _begin_ to lift
the crown of a large tree, yet the tree trunk has to hold it up in the
air. Not only that,—it has to hold on to it when the wind blows, which
is a much harder task. Even small bushes and tender garden plants have
quite a weight to bear and quite a task to keep their leaves and stems
from being blown away. They could _never_ hold on to them if it were not
for the wood and other tough cells they have,—never in the world.
These wood cells and other tough cells are made by protoplasm, of
course.
The protoplasm builds them very much as it does the tube cells, long and
slender, as you see in the picture at the beginning of the chapter, and
then when the hard, tough walls are all done, the protoplasm slips out
and leaves the strong framework of tough fibres to do its duty. This
framework is not only strong, it is elastic, so it can bend easily. If
it were not, the first strong wind or the first thing that happened to
bend the plant would snap it off short.
You cannot break wood easily, and, if you do succeed, it always bends
more or less first. Some wood bends more easily than others, as you
know. A willow twig can be tied into a knot, it bends so easily.
Nearly all land plants have these stiffening cells. They run out of the
stems down into the leaves and help make their framework of “veins.” The
tubes and the strengthening fibres run along in bundles side by side.
You see this saves space. If the tubes and strengthening fibres each
took a different road, that would not leave much space for the
chlorophyll and other working cells. But all the tubes and fibres are
closely packed together and run lengthwise, through the stem. All around
these long fibres are placed the other cells which are not long and do
not form tubes or fibres. Most of those other cells in the leaf contain
chlorophyll. They contain protoplasm, and do the work of transforming
food materials into plant material.
[Illustration: [Strengthening Cells]]
WE AND THE PLANT PEOPLE.
[Illustration: [Flower]]
We live and the plants live. Probably neither we nor the plants spend
much time thinking about what we owe to each other.
The plants are excusable for this, for they are not great thinkers, at
least so far as we know.
But we owe so much to them, we ought to stop and think about it once in
a while. We are indebted to them not only for the food we eat, but for
the air we breathe.
We know about chlorophyll and the starch it makes, and how this starch
is stored up in potatoes and wheat and corn and rice and all sorts of
food grains and vegetables.
We know, too, how the roots suck up substances from the earth which we
need in our bodies, and how they are stored away with the starch or
sometimes by themselves. We know, in short, how all the food we eat is
made first or last by the plants. Not only do we owe our food to the
plants, but all animals do.
You see, animal cells are not able to take carbon dioxide and water and
ammonia and other gases and minerals and work them up into living cells.
The plants have to do this for them; and then the animals eat the
plants, for animal cells are able to work starch and sugar and plant
protoplasm over into animal protoplasm, which can build all sorts of
animal cells. So all the animals in the world get their food from the
plant world. If the plants were to stop living, all the animals in the
world would soon starve to death. The word “animals,” you know, means
every living thing that is not a plant; in this sense flies and bees and
oysters and caterpillars are animals as well as dogs and cats and such
large creatures. Last of all, we ourselves are animals.
So the animal world would be in a sad predicament if anything should
happen to the plants.
But there is more to thank the plants for than food. That is a pretty
large item certainly; but what do you think of having to thank them for
the air we breathe as well? Yet this we shall have to do if we begin
thanking them at all.
You know about oxygen, of course. It is one of the gases that make up
the air; and I may as well remind you that air is composed principally
of oxygen and nitrogen gases,—about four times as much nitrogen as
oxygen, but the oxygen is the most important to us. We do not use the
nitrogen in the air at all probably. It serves the purpose of diluting
the oxygen, which would be too strong for us if it were not mixed with
nitrogen. But what we do use is the oxygen.
That goes into our lungs, and some of it does not come out again. It
passes into the lung cells and from them into the blood, and is carried
by it all over our bodies to all the millions of cells.
We need a great deal of oxygen, and if the supply should be cut short we
would die.
All animals need oxygen; even the worms in the ground and the fishes and
oysters in the water must have it. So great quantities are being used up
all the time.
Now, you know, when the plants pull carbon dioxide to pieces, they keep
the carbon and return the oxygen to the air. In this way we get it to
breathe.
But there is more than this to the matter in hand. We are all the time
breathing out carbon dioxide as an impurity; so are all the millions
upon millions of animals in the world.
The air might in time contain enough carbon dioxide to kill us if there
were not some way of getting rid of it. You know what that way is.
The plants use it up. So by giving oxygen into the air and taking out
carbon dioxide, the plants keep the air fit for us and all animals to
breathe.
[Illustration: [Flower]]
But there is more than this we have to thank them for.
They shade the earth and regulate the rainfall and the water supply.
Where forests grow there are always streams of water, and the large
water courses are kept full the year round.
The Mississippi River depends upon the far-away forests for its broad
stream.
The spreading crowns of the trees shade the earth and prevent the water
which falls as rain or dew from evaporating rapidly. It collects into
streams and flows through the land, keeping the earth fresh and
beautiful.
More than this,—large forests cause the rain to fall and the dew to
collect. Their leaves condense the moisture in the air and cause it to
fall as rain or be deposited as dew.
When people recklessly cut down the forests in a country, the water
courses dry up, and even the largest rivers are affected.
When the spring rains fall over a country whose trees have been cut
away, the water rushes down the little streams all at once and causes a
terrific flood in the large rivers. It soon drains away; then the rivers
fall lower and lower until they nearly dry up. This state of affairs is
a great calamity, because the people can no longer raise crops on the
land near where the old forests stood, for it is parched and dry months
at a time.
Moreover, boats laden with coal and grain and all sorts of things can no
longer pass up and down the rivers, because the water is too low.
People ought to think of these things and not destroy too much forest
land. After awhile we shall have to go to work and plant trees instead
of cutting them down or burning them; but it takes a long time for trees
to grow, and a wiser way would be for us to take care of those we have.
You have heard a great deal about plants eating and the good they do us
by eating the carbon dioxide in the air. They take this in through their
leaves, and you remember they take in all their other food
materials—water, nitrogen compounds, sodium, potassium, magnesium, and
many other substances—through their roots.
But they do more than eat; they also breathe.
They breathe everywhere over the surface of their bodies where there are
stomata or where the skin is not too thick for the air to penetrate it.
And I must tell you they breathe just as we do,—that is, they take in
air, use the oxygen, and give off the carbon dioxide.
It seems rather inconsistent of them to take in carbon dioxide as food
and throw it off as a waste at the same time, but that does not trouble
_them_; they do not care whether they are consistent or not. And it is
true they take in carbon dioxide and give off oxygen, and take in oxygen
(in the air) and give off carbon dioxide, in one breath as it were.
You see, it is different parts of protoplasm at work that does this; one
part—that in the chlorophyll bodies—is attracting carbon dioxide,
breaking it up, and casting out oxygen. Other protoplasm in the cells
outside the chlorophyll bodies attracts and uses the oxygen, while the
carbon dioxide comes to the stomata from different parts of the plant as
a waste material, just as it comes to the cells of our lungs to be cast
out.
So plants, by breathing, make the air a little impure, but they destroy
or break up so much more carbon dioxide than they make that on the whole
they act as powerful purifiers of the air.
When we think of the great forests of the tropics, all overgrown with
luxuriant vegetation, we may remember that those tangles of vines and
trees and strange growths are our friends no less than the grass and
bushes in our dooryard.
For there is a carrier always at work bringing the pure air to us and
carrying away the impure air which we create. This carrier is the air
currents. The great winds sweep about the earth, bearing the oxygen from
the forests to the crowded cities, and sweeping away the carbon dioxide
from the cities to the fields and woods. The winds, too, stir up the
water where the water plants and fishes live, and help keep it full of
air for the things in it to breathe; the tides and currents help, so as
far down in the water as there are living things, you may be sure there
is air for them to breathe. There would not be air enough for you,
because you need so much; but for them there is plenty.
Swirling around the earth go the winds, carrying the oxygen to the
people and the carbon dioxide to the plants, for the plants are as glad
to get the carbon dioxide we breathe out as we are to get the oxygen
they give off.
And we are glad, when we come to think about it, that we are able to
give them something in return for all they give to us.
You see, we need each other,—plants and people, and the winds are
friends to us both.
[Illustration: [Flower]]
WHAT ARE THE FLOWERS MADE OF?
[Illustration: [Flower]]
I think flowers are “made of sugar and spice and everything nice.” At
least, if it is not that, it is something very like it, as I have good
reason to believe.
What flowers and all other parts of the plant are made of depends upon
protoplasm; and if protoplasm can make sugar and spice and build up
flowers that way, we should like to know it.
We _do_ know about sugar and how the little green chlorophyll people run
their starch factories in all the green parts of the plant,—under the
skin of stems sometimes as well as of leaves, for wherever a stem is
green, we may be sure chlorophyll is at work making starch in it. And we
know how the protoplasm in the different cells changes the starch into
sugar.
We know, too, how wood and other tough substances are made of starch.
But there is something else in plants as important as starch and very
different,—the protoplasm. Protoplasm itself is not made entirely of
starch; it requires materials not found in starch.
These materials are nitrogen, sulphur, and phosphorus.
Nitrogen is the most important, and this the plant gets chiefly through
the roots.
Nitrogen is found in the earth combined with hydrogen and other
substances. The protoplasm tears to pieces these nitrogenous substances
which the roots suck up, and so enables the plant to take the nitrogen.
The other two substances which the protoplasm needs, sulphur and
phosphorus, the plant gets partly from the air and partly from the
earth.
Sulphuric acid exists in _very_ small quantities in the air and goes in
through the stomata, attracted, no doubt, by the protoplasm inside. But
other sulphurous and phosphorous compounds are taken up by the roots.
So we see protoplasm is complicated. It contains carbon, hydrogen,
oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, and phosphorus united in a very complicated
way.
Although protoplasm itself is made only of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen,
nitrogen, sulphur, and phosphorus, it can make use of a great many other
things. When the protoplasm of certain cells wants to build hard, tough
walls, it uses potash and soda or even silica, which you know glass is
made of. Just draw a blade of sedge grass through your fingers if you
want to feel the silica in it. You will probably cut your fingers, but
that will help make you remember about silica. Then the protoplasm uses
iron to color the petals and other parts of the plant. It uses magnesia,
too, and salt and lime and a number of other materials for building
walls or making dyes or something else.
Every material in our own bodies is found in plants, and sometimes the
plants have materials that we do not have.
Of course materials are put together differently in plants from what
they are in us. When Mother Nature combines her carbon, hydrogen,
oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus, magnesia, iron, and all the other
things to make a plant, she does not go to work as she would if she were
going to make an animal.
Just what the difference is it would be difficult to tell, but there
_is_ a difference.
Plants contain a good deal of sugar as a rule, and if you remember
cloves you will admit that at least _some_ flowers are made of spice,
for cloves are the dried flower buds of the clove tree.
Cinnamon is the bark of a plant, and if you are acquainted with orange
trees you will be willing to say they are “made of sugar and spice and
everything nice,” for the whole tree, wood, bark, stems, leaves,
flowers, and fruit, is fragrant and spicy.
Oil is another common substance in plants, and it is made from the
materials of starch which, as we know, are carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen;
cotton-seed oil, olive oil, and castor oil we are all familiar with.
All nuts contain a great deal of oil, and the skin of a fresh-picked
orange is so full of it that it runs down our fingers when we cut the
orange.
All the things in a plant—starch, sugar, oils, spices, wood,
bark—everything is made by the wonderful protoplasm in the cells.
Starch and the food taken up by the roots pass through all parts of the
plant by the sap tubes, and as the sap goes along, each living cell
draws into itself the substances from the sap that it needs, and these
it combines into the things it wants to make. Some of the cells in an
orange skin, for instance, attract out of the sap the materials to make
the fragrant, stinging oil that fills the fresh skin, while other cells
attract the materials to build the white cottony covering inside the
outer skin, and so the cells in each part of the plant take out what
they need to build with.
[Illustration: [Flower]]
WHAT BECOMES OF THE FLOWERS?
Early in the spring the snowdrops and crocuses peep out, and then they
go away.
We do not think much about it, for other flowers have come in their
places.
Spring beauties and bloodroots shine in the woods, and then they go
away. But the mandrakes have come with their umbrella leaves, and then
the columbines and roses ask for a welcome.
After awhile we can find no more mandrakes and columbines, only yellow
apples and brown seed-pods.
[Illustration: [Leaves]]
[Illustration: [Leaves]]
Jack-in-the-Pulpit jumps up quite early in the summer, and then we
cannot find him, only in the late summer we sometimes come across little
clusters of bright red berries lying on the ground.
We would scarcely suspect them of having any relation to Jack, yet they
are his berries. But what has become of Jack?
In the autumn the rose leaves fall off, and there is left only red stems
and red berries.
The morning-glory vine wilts and turns black at the first frost; it
sinks to the ground and we see it no more, or else its stems linger
brown and hard for a time, but in the end it all disappears. What has
become of it?
And the nasturtiums—what a wreck the frost makes of them! The leaves are
wilted and black; the stems, too, are soft and lie flat on the ground.
Why, you say, the frost has killed them. But that does not at all tell
what has become of them. Besides, the frost did not kill the snowdrops
and crocuses and blood roots and spring beauties nor Jack-in-the-Pulpit
nor the umbrella leaves of the mandrakes. Yet they are all gone. All we
can find of Jack and the mandrakes are red berries and yellow apples.
Not a sign of the snowdrops or spring beauties or crocuses is left.
If you will just step down with me under the earth a few inches I will
show you something.
Make believe you are a gnome or a fairy and can see as well in the dark
earth as anywhere else and come along. Now look about.
Did you ever dream of anything so cunning in all your life? Everywhere
and everywhere old mother earth is packed full of little white and brown
bulbs.
[Illustration: [Flower]]
There they are as snug as peas in a pod, thousands of them, in every
direction as far as you can see.
And besides these bulbs, there are thick, fleshy root stems, red and
brown and yellow, everywhere and everywhere. Do you want to know who
they are?
They are our little friends of the early summer,—snowdrops and crocuses
and spring beauties and dogtooth violets; mandrakes, too, and
Jack-in-the-Pulpit.
These bulbs and thick roots are full of plant food; and this is where
the plant has gone to. It has curled up, so to speak, in these bulbs and
roots and gone to sleep till next spring. Then it will wake up. It will
hardly wait for the snow to go off before it pushes out a bud. The
snowdrop does not wait, but sometimes blossoms right under the snow. In
a few days the woods that looked so dead and bare are as gay as you
please. That is because the plants sleeping in the bulbs and thick
underground stems have waked up. They have eaten the rich food stored up
there and have grown like magic. Up into the sunshine they spring; they
wave sweet flowers; they call the little insects that have ventured out
to come and taste their nectar and bring them pollen.
Their leaves are green and delicate, but they work hard, for the plants
have used up the food in the bulbs or in the thick underground stems,
and the leaves and roots must make new bulb material or store away more
food in the thick underground parts.
It is spring, and the air is moist and warm. It rains often, and the
plants have all the water they need.
What fun it must be to come out in the world! What joy to unfold bright
flowers in the shadowy woods! They dance on their stems and ripen their
seeds; before the slow roses have thought of opening their eyes, the
bulb people and the underground-stem people have done all their work of
growing. The seeds are ripe and ready to be scattered; new bulbs are
packed full of plant food, and fresh food is stored in the thick
underground stems. The bulb people and the underground-stem people have
had a good time.
They were up early in the summer and saw the sweet, fresh world; their
leaves worked hard, and their work is all done now.
They are tired and want to sleep. They fear the heat and dryness of the
summer. They do not want to be crowded by the other plants that are
beginning to look out everywhere.
“We will go to sleep and let the other plants have our places; we have
had our share of the air and the water and the dear sunshine,” they seem
to say. “We have caught the sunbeams and stored them away in our bulbs
and roots, and we will now rest.”
[Illustration: [Flower]]
So they go to sleep. They open the channels from the leaves to the bulbs
and the underground stems, and then all the living part of the leaves
passes quickly down into the part that lies underground. There is only
left the hard framework of the leaves. This is not alive; it never was
alive. The living part of the leaf built it for a house to live and do
its work in; now the house is empty: the living part has run down into
the bulb or the underground stem. The part of the leaf that is left soon
falls to pieces, as any old abandoned house will do. It falls on the
ground; the rain soaks it, and it crumbles apart. It changes into food
for other plants. It is not lost; it is taken up by other plants and
again built into good plant material.
[Illustration: [Seed-pods]]
So it is with the seed-pods; when the seeds fall out, the part that is
left behind is not alive. All the living part has gone out of the dry
pods down into the bulbs or the underground stems; and the pods, too,
crumble to pieces and make good food for other plants.
But the seeds are alive. They lie in the earth and wait for the time to
come when they may wake up and make new plants with young bulbs or thick
underground stems.
But how about the roses? Do they not die in the fall? Why, what are you
thinking of? Do they not wake up next spring and cover their stems with
leaves and flowers? Dead bushes could not do so.
You see how it is. The leaves work all summer long. They store up food
in the roots and the stems. When the frost comes and pinches them, they
know it is time to stop work and go to sleep for the winter. They have
roots down in the ground. And now you know as well as I do how they
manage it.
When the leaves have done their work and fed the flowers and the stems
and the seeds, and when the stems and the roots are stored full of food,
the leaves stop working. The green little cells that made them so bright
all summer go away; the living part of the plant and the rich juices
find their way into the roots and stems. Only the dead frames of the
houses that the living parts of the leaves built in which to do their
work are left. They are dry and lifeless; they never were alive. The
living protoplasm has left them and unhinged them so that they soon fall
off.
You know what becomes of them. They change into a great many substances.
The little particles in them let go of each other and unite with other
particles. In this way gases are made which go out into the air, but
some parts are solid minerals which the roots took out of the earth to
build the frame of the leaves. All these minerals fall back into the
earth for the roots to use again next year.
So you see the leaf frame simply changes back again into the gases and
minerals of which it had been made by the leaves and the roots.
As the protoplasm withdraws from the leaves of the rose bushes and of
many other plants, particularly the trees, the resting time of the plant
is announced by the most brilliant colors, the result of certain changes
going on within the leaf. These bright colors that make our autumn woods
so entrancing are not dependent upon the frost, as many think, but upon
certain changes going on within the leaf itself as it ripens, just as
fruit, when it ripens, takes on glowing colors. The bright autumn leaves
are ripe leaves getting ready to fall. Why do you suppose leaves fall?
It is better that they should; the sooner they fall, the sooner they
will be converted into leaf mould to feed other plants. So the plants
have a way of gathering their ripe harvest of leaves.
The falling of the leaf is not an accident, nor is it dependent upon the
wind; when the time comes, the leaves go down, wind or no wind, though
doubtless the wind helps them. When they are fully ripe, the leaves let
go! The cells that connect the leaf stem with the branch shrivel and
shrink until the leaf is entirely separated from the parent plant; when
this happens, the leaf falls. The ripe leaf is less juicy than the young
leaf; its juices have departed and left the stiff, lifeless framework
and the hardened skin, with the emptied cells beneath, to find their way
to the earth.
But while the trees and bushes, the bulbs and underground stems store
away the living part of the plant, what about the morning-glories and
nasturtiums? They do not send their living part into roots or stems, for
they do not grow again another year. What now becomes of them?
They die, you say. I do not say that. I say they change. Of course the
seeds live on. The morning-glory seeds, and the seeds of all the plants
that grow wild in a climate like ours, are not hurt by the cold.
You very well know that some of the life of the plant is folded up in
the seeds. But the vines and leaves seem to be hurt by the cold. They
fall limp to the ground. They change. The little particles of which they
are made let go of each other; they unite with other particles in new
ways. They float off in the air as gases.
These gases are carried about by the wind and meet new plants, which
build them into their leaves and stems.
Part of the particles in the frosted vine do not become gases; they let
go of other particles and sink down as minerals, to be taken up by plant
roots another season. Other parts lie on the earth in the form of rich
vegetable mould, which is also taken and built into new plants. So when
our morning-glory or nasturtium vine disappears, it is not lost; it has
only changed its form.
Instead of being a nasturtium, its particles may find themselves built
into a dozen different plants.
So what we call death is only change. Not an atom of any plant is lost.
Besides, if no plants changed back again into gases and minerals, there
could be no growth and no flowers in the world. There would be no
material to make new plants, and no room for new plants to grow.
[Illustration: [Flower]]
There would be no room for seeds to sprout and no need of seeds, so the
plants, which never do anything that is not necessary, would not make
any seeds; and if there were no seeds, there would be no flowers. What a
dreary earth it would be if plants never changed—if they never, as we
say, died! The same old plants living forever,—no flowers, no opening
buds, no tender spring green, no bright autumn colors.
It is good that the plants die, or change, as I prefer to call it.
NOTHING BUT LEAVES.
[Illustration: [Leaves]]
After all, that is what a rose is,—nothing but leaves; and what a violet
is and a lily and a nasturtium and a honeysuckle and all the flowers you
can name.
You do not believe it? That is because you know so _very_ little about
leaves. When you know more, you will believe it, see if you do not.
Perhaps when you know where the flowers came from and how they came to
be flowers at all, you will change your mind about several things.
Anyway, there is one thing you do know, because you have studied
geography and about the stars and about the earth’s crust and all that.
You know that once upon a time there were no flowers in all the round
old earth. You do _not_ know it? Why, of course you do. You know that
once upon a time there was no life on the earth, at least not what we
call life now. It was so hot _nothing_ could live, not even a
salamander, which they say lives in the fire, although, of course, this
is not true, and it could no more live in the fire than you could.
Well, we are told that once the earth was about as hot as the sun is
now,—just a mass of blazing gases and melted rocks and metals.
You would not have known it if you could have seen it, and, what is
more, you would not have wanted to see it; you would have been afraid to
come near enough.
You could not have found Lake Michigan on it nor even the Atlantic Ocean
nor the Rocky Mountains, and the reason you could not have found them
is, they were not there. There was no Lake Michigan and no Atlantic
Ocean and no Rocky Mountains.
You see, they had not been made yet. All the water and minerals were
bubbling and seething and whirling around in the most awful storms. You
would have wanted to get as far from the earth in those days as you
possibly could; not even the North Pole was cool enough to rest upon
with any comfort.
This went on for a few millions of years probably, but the earth was all
the time getting a little cooler, until it got so cool that things began
to harden and the dry land to appear. But mother earth was in a state of
terrific excitement even then, and every once in a while would heave
such a sigh that an earthquake or volcanic eruption would break forth.
But as old earth, or young earth I suppose it was then, grew older and
calmer, it settled more and more into its present form. It got so cold
and old after awhile that it became wrinkled, like the skin of an apple
in the late fall. You know how that is. Only mother earth was a very
large apple and her wrinkles were very deep, and in fact they made the
great mountain ranges.
You need not believe all this unless you want to, but it is true,—that
is, the wise people, who know more than you and I ever will, say so.
But what has all this to do with leaves?
It has as much to do with leaves as the fire in the stove has to do with
the boiling of the tea kettle.
Of course, while the earth was in this overheated state, nothing could
grow on it. But it kept getting cooler and cooler, until at last life
began to appear. Just exactly what this first life looked like I do not
know. Nobody does, because, you see, nobody was living then to tell
about it and write it down. But very likely queer mushy plants were the
first to come along, and they were about all leaf. So far we may be
pretty sure.
After awhile plants with stems and leaves grew up and flourished.
They were queer enough, no doubt, for there are pictures of some of them
which the rocks took and kept for us, and people often break open a rock
nowadays and find these old plant pictures.
[Illustration: [Leaves]]
They are what we call fossils, and now I have no doubt you know all
about it; if you do not you will some day,—that is, if you care to.
From what the rocks tell us, and for other reasons, we feel pretty sure
that the earlier plants had only leaf and stem, but no flowers. And the
very first leaves were not like the leaves we see in the woods and
gardens about us, for they were probably large and mushy and had no
veins to speak of. If you had picked one up it would have been flabby
and squashy, and you would have been glad to put it down again. But
nobody ever did pick one up, because nobody was there.
The earth was not ready for us yet. It was all soft and swampy or hard
and cheerless, and we had to wait until these queer pioneer plants
gradually changed into other plants and made the earth fit to live on.
But these flabby old friends of ours went to work with a will to get
things in shape for us to come. Their green leaves and stems, where they
had any, ate the gases in the air and stored them up as plant material.
Then they died. They did us as much good by dying as by living, for only
part of their substance went back as gases into the air; the rest went
into the ground and began to make soil for other plants to grow in.
So Mr. Flabby Leaf was a very good life starter.
[Illustration: [Fern]]
One thing we are quite sure of, and that is, these earlier plants did
not have any seeds. When new plants came from the old ones, they merely
sprouted out from the leaves or the roots, as a certain fern that grows
in Fayal and other places does to-day. It is fun to raise this fern in a
window box and watch the young ferns sprout out of the edge of the
leaves of the old fern. After they get two or three tiny green leaves
and the cunningest little curled-up frond, just like a big fern, off
they tumble down to the ground, where they strike root and grow as
calmly as though they had come the regular plant way and sprouted from a
seed.
They do come the regular way the very early plants did, instead of
coming the way modern plants do, for in some such way the earlier
plants, no doubt, reproduced themselves.
They had no flowers and no seeds. Leaf and stem did it all. You see,
these first plants were simple people, not complicated at all, and so
each part of the plant was able to do all its own work. But after awhile
the plant world became more complex; the earth grew drier, for one
thing. The first plants lived in the water, no doubt, and so everything
was much easier for them; at least they could always get plenty of
water, which is a matter of great importance with plants.
No water, no plant. Then, too, the earth cooled more and more, and from
being uniformly warm and moist, which was just the best conditions for
plants to live without taking any trouble about it, the air was
sometimes colder and contained less moisture.
So the plants that grew on the land had to invent ways of getting and
keeping an extra amount of water, and even those that lived in the water
had to look around and find a way of protecting themselves against
changes of temperature.
[Illustration: [Leaves]]
As the earth grew cooler and drier, and the changes from hot to cold at
the different seasons became more marked, the plants that grew on the
prairies and mountain sides, where it was very hot and damp at one
season and very dry or very cold at another, had to find ways to protect
themselves against these changes. So the leaves and stems began to be a
little more particular about their work. The leaves may have said, “We
will do one kind of work in one part of us and another kind of work in
another part. We will have stiff veins and ribs to protect us from being
blown to pieces, and we will have our sap flow through veins, instead of
soaking all through us everywhere. And we will have a thick skin to
breathe through and to protect us from the sun when it is too hot.”
So some lived on the hot plains with small, thick, hard leaves, and
others lived in the damp shady woods with large, thin, tender leaves.
Thus, you see, there came about a division of labor. Not all at
once,—oh, no! but so gradually, so very gradually that, had you been
watching these plants grow from year to year, you could no more have
seen any change than you can see a blade of grass grow to-day, although
you know it _does_ grow. Perhaps the plants on the edge of a swamp were
the first to change.
Perhaps the water receded and so gradually left them higher and drier.
As they got less water, they would have to do one of two things,—change
to suit the new state of affairs or give up trying and die. Very likely
a good many died; the water may have receded too rapidly, or they could
not see just how to change. But others did see, and they stiffened their
flabby leaves with ribs and veins and made for themselves a thicker
skin, and so lived on. They survived because they were the fittest to
survive. And now you know the meaning of that very celebrated saying,
“the survival of the fittest”; whatever plant or animal can adapt itself
the best to the place it lives in is the fittest, of course, for that
place, and so it survives or lives on.
No doubt, in those early days, new plants grew out of the old ones just
anywhere as the baby plants grow out of the leaf of the Fayal fern I
told you about.
But as life grew more and more difficult, as the plants had to contend
with too much heat at one time and too great cold at another, with now a
season of moisture and now one of great dryness, their leaves, as you
know, began to change and divide up the work. A part of the leaf
breathed for the plant; another part ate for it; another part protected
it. Nor was this all. Some leaves did one kind of work and some another,
as time went on.
[Illustration: [Cactus]]
When animals came upon the earth they ate the plants, and so the plants
had to partly protect themselves to keep from being entirely destroyed.
Thus some plants changed part of their stems or leaves into sharp
thorns, as we see to-day in the hawthorns and cactuses. Some, like the
mullein, covered their leaves with a disagreeable wooly substance that
stuck to animals’ mouths and made them avoid the plants. These wooly
coverings served two purposes,—regulated evaporation and protected from
the attacks of animals. Some, like the aconite, manufactured a
poisonous, disagreeable juice, while others, like the nettle, clothed
the stems with stinging hairs.
There are many, many ways by which plants have changed their leaves and
stems in order to protect themselves from being eaten, and all this came
about very, very gradually.
While these things were happening, other things were happening too.
Wherever there is life there is change. Living things keep changing all
the time.
The little fern that drops from the leaf of its parent is, in a general
way, like the parent, but it is not exactly like its parent; it is
_itself_ and has some peculiarities of its own. You see, it changes a
little from the parent form or, as we say, varies. Every living thing
has this power to vary within limits. No doubt, the power of variation
was much greater in early times, and animals and plants were able to
change much more then than now.
As time went on, things sort of settled down, as it were, and stopped
changing so rapidly.
But way back in the early ages the plants changed a good deal. And all
they had to work with, you will remember, was just stem and leaves,—not
another thing. But that was enough. They could change stem and leaves
into thorns, as we know, and they could do something else. They could
change leaves into pistils.
When the leaves divided their work, some plants devoted certain of their
leaves to the task of making new plants. Ferns show this up to this very
day.
Look at a clump of ferns in the woods any time in the middle of the
summer or later, and you will see that some of the fern leaves have
little dark spots on their backs. Sometimes these dots are on their
margins, sometimes on the ribs, and sometimes scattered everywhere over
the back of the leaf.
These dots are little cups filled with a fine dust, which falls on the
ground and finally gives rise to more ferns. It is sometimes called fern
seed, but the bits of dust are not exactly seeds. In the end they answer
the same purpose, however. Well, suppose one of these fern leaves with
the dots growing on it should curl over backwards until its edges met,
and suppose the little grains should become true seeds, then we would
have a very good ovary with the ovules inside.
Fern leaves do not act in this way; they are too old-fashioned. But some
of the leaves in flowering plants do. They just roll up into a pistil,
with young plants, in the form of seeds, growing inside.
And to this day that is all a pistil is,—a leaf, or a whorl or circle of
leaves, rolled together, with seeds growing along the inner part. Of
course, in time, these pistil leaves changed very much, and to-day we
find all sorts of pistils, and by just looking at them, we would never
suspect they were leaves or ever had been. And they are not leaves any
more, and they themselves never have been leaves; but long ago the
pistils of their ancestors were leaves or parts of leaves, and they have
inherited and improved upon these pistil leaves, as a boy improves upon
a willow twig and makes it into a beautiful carved whistle that does not
look at all like a willow twig, and yet that is just what it is at
heart. So you see, one of the most important parts of the flower is,
after all, “nothing but leaves.”
After seeing how the pistil, with its seed-children, is modified leaves,
you will not be surprised to learn that stamens, too, are merely
modified leaves. Anyway, whether you are surprised or not, that is just
what they are. Tender little leaves folded a part of themselves together
into little rooms or cells, and on the inside of these cells the pollen
grains grew.
[Illustration: [Cactus]]
Now the plant was all fitted out. It had flowers, not very beautiful
ones, to be sure, as they had nothing but pistils and stamens. Still
they were flowers, and flowers are flowers whether they are bright or
not.
Pistils and stamens were enough at first. But times change. Each plant
tried every possible means to make strong seeds, so it could live in the
crowded world. It did not wish to be crowded out, you see. So when it
discovered the value of cross-fertilization, it began, so to speak, to
invent ways to bring this about.
The insects with wings came to it and brought it pollen, so it learned
to coax the insects to come oftener. It made quantities of pollen, so
the insect could eat what it would and still leave enough for the plant.
It, no doubt, had several rows of stamens, as a wild rose or a cactus
flower has to-day. But it soon found out a good use to put some of these
stamens to.
It wanted the bees to see and come, so it changed some of its stamens
into petals.
The anthers ceased to grow, and they and the filaments spread out broad
and bright. So, you see, petals, too, are nothing but leaves,—very much
changed leaves, true, as they were first leaves, then stamens, and then
petals, but that does not prevent their having come from leaves after
all.
If you want to see how it is done, look at a water lily next time you
get a chance.
Unless it is a very unaccommodating lily indeed, you will be sure to see
stamens changing into petals.
Some of the inside petals are small with an anther at the tip.
Of course flowers do not go through all these changes every time they
bloom now. They used to way, way back, when things were in a general
state of change, but after awhile they found out just how to do it, and
so out of the tiny buds at once made pistils and stamens and petals and
sepals.
For sepals, too, came from stamens. The plants made all these new forms
out of the materials of their leaf buds and wrapped them all together
into a flower bud; so when this opened, there were the parts all ready
to go to work without any more shifting around.
The calyx was ready to protect, the corolla to call the bees and
butterflies, the stamens to make pollen, the pistils to make ovules.
Sometimes flowers forget and go back to the old ways of doing things;
and if we are lucky enough to find such a flower, we can see just how it
happened.
Sometimes roses behave in this peculiar way, and the flower goes back to
leaves.
I used to know a bush whose roses did that. The pistils were leafy and
also the stamens, and sometimes a branch grew right out of the middle of
a rose as it does out of a leaf bud. Of course it was a very
ugly-looking thing, neither flower nor leaf, but it was very
instructive.
What do you suppose double flowers are?
Very often they are only flowers whose stamens have changed into petals.
A double rose has fewer stamens than a single rose, and sometimes _all_
the stamens are changed, and the rose has not a grain of pollen to help
itself with. What becomes of its seeds? It does not have any, as a rule.
Where flowers become very double, the vitality goes to make petals
instead of essential organs, as stamens and pistils are called, and such
flowers often set no seeds.
Then how do they continue the life of the race?
Sometimes simply because somebody takes care of them. Almost always
double flowers are cultivated ones. People take them and tend them, give
them rich soil to grow in, water them, and, if necessary, keep them
warm. Such plants seem to grow lazy and helpless, as rich people who
pamper themselves a great deal always do. They have all they want
without any effort of their own, and so they cease to be
self-supporting; they cannot even raise their own children, but live and
die seedless. Such plants, if left to themselves, would quickly die, as
they would be crowded out by sturdier growths, or else they would change
their habits at once and become good seed-setting, industrious plants
once more, with a tendency to stop having double flowers.
There are one or two things about corollas that I am sure you would like
to know. One is, how did the flowers manage to change stamens into
corollas? Another is, how did they manage to give them such bright
colors?
About corolla-making,—if you are determined to know that, you will have
to take yourself off to that far-away time when there were no flowers.
Then, in course of time, while changing about and trying to get fitted
to their surroundings, the plants, as you know, rolled some of their
leaves into pistils and stamens. But still they had no petals.
[Illustration: [Corolla]]
The pistils and stamens were flowers, however,—as much flowers as they
would ever be, no matter how much corolla they might develop.
A corolla does not make a flower; by this time you know the important
part of a flower is the pistil and stamens, and so, even to-day, some
flowers, as the elms and some maples, have no petals at all. When such
maples are in bloom, you will see gay fringes decorating the trees. This
fringe is made of the long pedicels with the stamens at the end. The
stamens swing in the breeze, and the pollen is blown to the stigmas
which are often in flowers on different trees.
Now, as plants grew and adapted themselves to their surroundings, they
produced more seeds than could by any chance find room in the earth to
grow. So every little seed that fell had to fight its way with a host of
other seeds and plants. A defective seed or a weak one would stand no
chance at all. The others would crowd it out. We know how that is in a
garden. The delicate flowers have to be helped or the strong weeds would
kill them. We pull up the weeds and let the flowers have the whole
garden to themselves. But in the woods and fields each plant has to take
care of itself and struggle up as best it can.
This fight of the plants for a place to grow in is called the struggle
for existence. Now, whatever would help a plant in the struggle for
existence would, of course, be of great benefit to that plant. As we
know, cross-fertilization is a very great help; it makes stronger and
better seeds, and the plants whose seeds were regularly cross-fertilized
would be the ones to survive.
Where pistils and stamens are forming, there is a great deal of
nourishment brought to that part of the plant, and substances are being
changed there. Very often sweet juices are present. Long ago when
insects, in flying about, smelled these sweets they doubtless would go
and eat them, and they would also eat the pollen. As they went from
flower to flower looking for food, they would carry pollen sticking to
their legs or bodies, and so would sometimes fertilize the flowers.
The seeds from such flowers would be strong and would have the best
chance to survive. The plants that grew from these seeds would also
inherit the tendency to secrete sweet juices near the flower.
In probing for sweets, the insect would irritate the parts it touched,
and this would cause an extra flow of sap there and very likely the
manufacture of more sweet juice; so the nectary came to be developed.
You can understand how this might be by recalling how the skin of your
hand changes when you first try to do some new and hard work, like
rowing a boat.
After you have rowed a little while your hand is blistered. The constant
rubbing of the oar in one place has irritated it, just as you can
imagine the tongues of the insects rubbing against the delicate flower
tissue would irritate it. Wherever a place on the skin is irritated, the
blood flows to that spot; and so in the plant, where it is irritated,
there will likely be a collection of sap. After the blood has flowed to
the place on your hand which was rubbed by the oar, the spot becomes red
and inflamed and pains you, and finally the skin separates in the form
of a blister and a new skin forms underneath; and if you keep on rowing,
your hand does not keep on blistering, but actually makes a new kind of
skin to protect the rubbed places, and what we call a “callous” or hard
spot is formed. The skin is many times thicker here than elsewhere, and
was formed on purpose to protect the place. So we can understand how
irritation might change a plant organ and in time form a nectary.
But how about petals, you are asking. Well, imagine yourself in those
old times when plants made their first flowers out of pistils and
stamens only.
These primitive flowers were probably not very showy. Primitive flowers
means _first_ flowers,—flowers that lived way back in the beginning of
plant life.
They had no petals, but they secreted juices which the insects liked.
Those early insects were queer fellows, too, not very much like our
insects, except that they were fond of sweets and liked to eat the
tender parts of the flowers, just as our insects do to-day. They ate
nectar when they could find it and did not disdain pollen, which, it is
to be feared, they sometimes ate, anther and all; and, what is worse,
they in all probability frequently dined on pistil, which was very bad
for the plant.
Now imagine one strong plant secreting a good deal of nectar. The
insects would be likely to eat this and let the pollen and pistil alone,
only in getting to the nectar, they would be apt to dust the pistil with
pollen from another plant which they had been visiting and would also
brush off some pollen against their bodies.
Thus the strong plant with the abundant nectar would be cross-fertilized
and would keep its pistil unharmed. It would be very likely to develop
good strong seeds that would grow and again bear strong flowers with
plenty of nectar. Now, remember the essential organs—that is, stamens
and pistil—seem to find it a little easier to change than other parts of
the plant; so it would not be surprising if in time some of the stamens
were to become different. You see, the insects in visiting the flowers
would irritate them more or less walking over them and clinging to them,
and they would be likely to undergo change for this reason; and if it
happened that in some flower a row of stamens got too full of sap to
know what to do with themselves and so spread out a little broader and
more leaf-like and kept their yellow stamen color or bleached-out white,
that flower would be seen far and near and the insects would go straight
to it, for insects have the sharpest kind of eyes for seeing bright
colors a long way off. You see what would happen; all the flowers whose
stamens had done so would be abundantly cross-fertilized,—that is, all
their seeds would get fresh pollen from another strong plant, and the
plants growing from these seeds would inherit the tendency of their
parents to form petal-like parts from some of the stamens. The flower
could well afford to lose part of its stamens for this purpose. Of
course as time went on, these stamens, which were half petals, might
develop more and more in the direction of signals,—that is, might become
more and more perfect petals, finally losing all trace of their old life
as stamens.
Of course no one can say that is just the way it came about, but it is
likely that in some such way it happened, for there are proofs of it
which you may like to read when you grow older.
So, you see, flowers _are_ nothing but leaves after all,—very much
changed leaves, to be sure, but yet just leaves.
Sometimes when plants and animals have changed into a new form, they
change back again. We know some plants which once had petals but which
have again lost their petals and gone back to a form which has no
petals. Such backward changes we call retrogression, and it is sometimes
difficult to find out whether a flower with no petals is a primitive
form which for some reason has not changed or whether it is one which
has changed and gone back again. Usually, though, we can find traces of
petals and sepals in flowers which have retrogressed.
You see, a flower depends upon its surroundings for its shape. If its
surroundings (and of course this includes its insect visitors) are such
as to favor its growth in the line of petals, it does so. But if for
some reason it becomes easier for it to grow and be fertilized in some
other way, perhaps by making abundance of light pollen which is blown by
the wind, as in the maple trees, then it may gradually lose its petals,
as it depends less and less on insects and more and more on the wind for
cross-fertilization. Nothing in life stands still; it is always
moving,—going on or going back. And this, we know, is just the same in
human life.
[Illustration: [Corolla]]
We cannot stand still; we must keep growing wiser and stronger and
better, or else we must do the opposite.
SIGNS OF OTHER TIMES.
[Illustration: [Flower]]
In the beginning flowers seem to have had their petals all separate from
each other. Some do still, and these we call polypetalous, because
“poly-” means many, and they have many petals. But other flowers, like
our morning-glory, have no separate petals; all are grown together into
a tube with a bright border.
But this tube and border tell us a little story if we are able to hear
it.
They tell us of the time when the morning-glory had several petals. More
than this, they tell us just how many it had. If we were to guess we
should probably say five, because it seems so fond of the number five,
with its five nectaries, five nectar guides, five stamens, and five
sepals.
If we guessed five we should guess just right. There is no doubt but
that once upon a time the plants from which our morning-glories are
descended had five separate petals. The morning-glories themselves
manage it differently now, but it took them a long time to do it. They
were working away, long before the great pyramids of Egypt were built,
to get their five petals united into one piece. But it is done, and they
have learned how to twist the flower up tightly in the bud and then
unroll it in all its glory.
[Illustration: [Flower]]
They never have five petals now, but they still bear traces of it.
Look at the little notch on the border, halfway between two nectar
guides. Does that tell us anything?
Count the notches. Five, you see.
Look at the line that runs from the notch down to the bottom of the
flower.
The corolla looks as though it had been folded along those lines. You
can easily see five long creases ending in a notch. The flower is folded
along these lines in the bud, but we think the lines have yet another
meaning.
Carefully tear the corolla down the lines; you see, a very little
pressure does it. Now we have the corolla in five parts, like five
petals, only it is so weak it can no longer hold itself up. Once upon a
time we think it grew this way, with five separate petals, only the
petals stood up then, for they must have been stiffer and perhaps were
not so long. It was long, long ago, oh, very long ago, that it had its
five petals. Then the edges of the petals began to grow together, and
they kept on doing this until, in course of time, the whole length of
each petal had grown fast to the next one, all except that little tiny
spot where the notch is.
We are glad our morning-glory kept this little notch and the line where
the sides of the petals grew together, for that is what tells us the
story of long, long ago when all the petals were separate.
When finally they were grown together, the corolla did not need to be so
stiff, for its shape helped to make it firm, and then it no longer used
good material to make stiffening for the petals, for that would have
been a waste of plant sap, and plants do not like to waste materials.
When they find they can get along without something they have been used
to having, they stop making it. Life is too short and too precious to
waste a bit of it. Our flower only kept the stiffening in the corolla
along the paths where it wished the bees to go to its honey cups and
where, when folded, it could best protect the bud.
The morning-glory, you see, is as wise as it is beautiful.
[Illustration: [Flower]]
WHY ARE THE FLOWERS SO LARGE AND BRIGHT?
Why are the flowers so large and bright?
[Illustration: [Flower]]
We cannot say that they were always so. It is probable they were not.
But good Mother Nature has watched over them as they came upon the
earth, and she has lovingly made them so large and bright.
How could she do this? Let us see. Here is a tangle of plants. They all
bear flowers and all set seeds. Some are stronger and more beautiful
than others. The seeds fall to the ground. Those from strong and
beautiful plants are larger and stronger than the others. After a while
the seeds sprout. Not all do this, however. The very weakest do not
sprout. Dear Mother Nature has other work for them. “You are not suited
to struggle in the earth with the strong seeds, dears,” she whispers and
lays them to rest. They do not wake up; the materials in them change.
These materials let go of each other; they depart from the seed; some as
gases float off in the air; others as minerals sink in the earth. The
gases and the minerals are not lost. They join some other plant and help
to make it strong.
“It is better to help another than to try to grow yourselves,” Mother
Nature whispers to these little seeds that could not sprout. And they
are happy. They are glad to change into gases and minerals and help
another plant to grow.
Many of the seeds sprout, but not all grow up and blossom. There is not
room in the earth for all the seeds to grow; there is not food enough in
the air to feed so many. Mother Nature with her kind eye looks over the
growing plants.
She smiles and shakes her head at those trying to grow in shady places.
“No, dears,” she whispers, “there is other work for you to do.” Then the
shaded seedlings do not try any more to grow into plants. They give up
the materials they have collected to the little brothers and sisters who
have started in the good ground and the sunlight.
They fade away, but they are happy, for they, too, are doing their work.
The materials in them let go of each other. They change into gases and
float off in the air, or to minerals and other substances and sink to
the ground. These gases and solid substances pass into other plants and
help make them strong.
“It is better to help another than to do poor work alone, dears,” Mother
Nature whispers, as she lays them to rest.
Then she visits all the weak plants, and all those in poor soil or in
too much light or too much shade, and lays them to rest. Their materials
go to nourish the strong plants, who are doing good work in the world
and growing in beauty. Not all the plants that live to blossom are good
alike. Some are better than others, but Mother Nature lets them grow if
they are strong enough and can find food. At last the blooming comes.
The flowers do their best. The strong ones make large, bright flowers
full of color and full of sweetness. Mother Nature smiles at them and is
pleased. The weaker flowers do their best; they are not so bright nor so
large. Mother Nature smiles at them, for she loves them, too, and she
will tell them what to do. The bees come and fly to the brighter
flowers; they have rich, abundant pollen and rich nectar. The bees know
this; they do not care so much for the duller, smaller flowers.
When the bees do not come, Mother Nature whispers to the little flowers,
“Never mind, dears, there is work for you to do.” So they are happy,
though their ovules get no pollen and they set no seeds. They are happy
to do the work dear Mother Nature has for them to do.
[Illustration: [Flower]]
The strong flowers set their seeds; they are strong, and they have been
well fertilized. The weak flowers set few seeds; they are not strong to
make many seeds, and they have not been well fertilized. So year by year
and century by century Mother Nature watches her plants and encourages
the strong to grow and helps the weak to find other work.
And this is why the flowers are so bright.
Mother Nature selects those that are to grow and blossom and sends the
rest to help them. This is what we call natural selection, and this is
what makes the earth so beautiful. Only the best continue to grow; the
others are glad to help them.
HOW MOTHER NATURE MAKES NEW FLOWERS.
Once upon a time there lived a little plant in a marshy place. We will
call it Primus, not because that was the very first form of the plant,
for it was not, but because that was its form when we first saw it.
It had five small yellow petals, five small stamens, and an ovary.
When its seeds were ripe, along came a great wind and blew them away
from the marsh upon the dry land at the edge.
Poor little seeds, they were out of their familiar wet marsh and they
could not grow. But they did their best. Some of them managed to sprout,
but soon they found the earth too dry and the sun too hot; so they said,
“We will turn to other work; we will help the other plants and not try
to grow ourselves.”
So they changed into gases and minerals and other substances. But a few
of the seeds continued to grow.
They blossomed and bore seeds, but they were not just like the plants in
the marsh. Mother Nature had helped them get a tougher skin and taught
them how to shut tightly their pores in dry weather, so that the water
within them could not escape.
You see, they were already different from their parents, though you
might not have noticed it if you had seen them, the difference was so
slight. The seeds of these new plants sprouted the next season. They did
not have a hard time to grow. They knew just what to do, and the best
and strongest of them grew a few hairs to help cover up the pores, so
the water would not go out too fast.
It happened to be a very hot, dry season, and all the plants but these
hairy ones stopped growing. They changed into gases and minerals and
other substances to help the other plants. The hairy people got through
the dry season very well. They set a good many seeds, and these seeds
sprouted. The new plants remembered about the hairs and had plenty of
them. Some were covered all over with a soft down.
And it was well they were, for it was a _very_ hot, dry season, and all
but the downy ones stopped growing and changed into minerals and gases
and other substances to help the others. The seeds of the downy plants
blew far over the dry land, far away from the marsh; but they had
learned to live in the dry soil, and if you had found these downy
people, you would hardly have known they were descended from the smooth,
juicy, large-leaved marsh plants. Their stems were hard and tough and
their leaves stiff and small. We can no longer call them Primus, they
are so changed.
Let us call them Secundus. Secundus had small yellow flowers, like the
marsh plants it was descended from. But one day some of the seeds of
Secundus blew into the edge of a wood where the soil was rich and the
air damp. This just suited the Secundus seeds, and they grew into very
thrifty plants indeed. They had so much sap and grew so luxuriantly that
their petals were twice as large as was usual with Secundus petals.
These fine showy flowers also possessed a great deal of nectar, they had
so much sap. Of course the bees came to them, and they were well
fertilized. They set many seeds. The next year these strong seeds were
able to grow even when their neighbors were not, and the plants that
came from these seeds also had large showy flowers.
These stronger plants held their own, you may be sure, and at last there
was more of them than of the small-flowered plants. It was well for them
this was so, for there came several bad seasons when nothing was just
right for these plants. It was cold and stormy, and only the very
strongest lived through it. But _they_ managed to survive, and their
flowers were large and showy.
All the weaker plants with smaller flowers were killed out, and only
these large-flowered ones remained. They were _very_ different from
their ancestors the marsh plants, and we shall have to call them
Tertius.
One day some of the seeds of Tertius were blown into a new kind of soil;
they sucked up the juices of this new soil, and lo! some of their
flowers opened white instead of yellow. It so happened that the
white-flowered plants were stronger than the others. The bees liked
them, too; for, being so strong and full of sap, they made plenty of
honey. So these white-flowered ones increased in numbers very greatly.
At last only the white ones could be found; the yellow ones had
gradually given way before them until no yellow ones were left.
So we will call the white-flowered people Quartus.
Quartus lived a long time, each year bearing seeds, the strongest and
best of which grew up and bore flowers.
One day some of Quartus’ seeds were blown into a hot, sandy place; this
almost killed them, but some of them managed to grow.
Their leaves were smaller and stiffer than ever before, but they had a
great many of them, and their flowers were large and white. They grew to
like the sandy soil, and what they got from it changed their sap in some
way so their petals were delicately tinged with pink. The bees liked
these pink flowers; perhaps their honey was a little richer; perhaps
they could see them better. However that may be, the bees almost
deserted the white-blossomed plants and visited the pink ones. So the
white flowers set few seeds and the pink flowers many. When the seeds
sprouted, the pink ones were the strongest, because in their change of
color there was somehow added a change in strength; they were stronger
than the white flowers. They grew fast and took the materials from the
earth and the air; and when the white flowers saw this, they said, “It
is their turn now,” so they changed into gases and minerals and other
things and helped the pink flowers to grow.
Soon there were no more white flowers to be seen; they had stopped
growing, and only the pink ones kept on, so we shall have to call these
pink flowers Quintus.
But a great danger threatened Quintus. Cows and goats and sheep bit off
their leaves. They ate so much of them that many plants were killed
outright. Only the stiffest and hardest were left to blossom and set
seed. The seeds of these plants with the stiff leaves and stems grew
into other stiff-stemmed and stiff-leaved plants. The cattle browsed the
tenderest of these and again left the stiffest. This went on for many
years, the plants growing stiffer and harder each year. Some of them got
so stiff and hard that they threw out prickles all over their stems.
These prickly ones were not eaten, and in time you would have found them
grown into woody bushes with prickly stems.
We shall have to call these Sextus.
Sextus spread all over the sandy plains. Hardly any other plant was to
be seen. The strong Sextus seeds sprouted and took the materials in the
earth and the air, and the other seeds that happened to be blown among
them did not grow; they changed into gases and minerals and other
substances and helped the Sextus plants to grow.
One day some Sextus seeds blew upon good, rich, damp soil, and there
they sprouted and grew. They had plenty of water, and there were no
cattle to disturb them; so those with the fewest prickles were the best
off, because they could use the food material to make larger flowers
instead of prickles. So the plants with fewer prickles had larger
flowers and better seeds, and these seeds sprouted and grew, and the
others gave way before them. In the course of time these plants growing
on the rich soil lost their prickles, and their flowers were large and
very deep pink; in fact, some of them were a bright red.
These bright red flowers attracted the bees, and so they lived on and
set seed. These we must call Septimus.
For some reason some of the seeds of the Septimus flowers developed
unusually thrifty plants.
These plants had flowers with petals so full of sap they overlapped, and
finally, just because they were so full of the growing spirit, the edges
of the petals grew together.
Finally, the flowers with the edges grown together were the most
successful. The tube their flowers made kept the nectar for the bees,
and the bees liked to go into these red bells. You see what had
happened: the flowers were no longer polypetalous. Their petals had
grown together; they were gamopetalous. Their corollas formed snug
tubes, something like a morning-glory corolla, for the bees.
We shall have to call these people Octamus.
And we will not follow them any farther, only be sure they kept on
changing ever and ever. Whenever the seeds fell in a new soil, they had
to change or die. The reason they could change so is because no two
things are ever just alike, and out of a great many plants some might be
fitted to survive in the new surroundings. These would live, and their
descendants would be like them, but they would be different from their
ancestors.
In some such way, no doubt, the many different kinds of flowers have
come into existence.
If you ask me for the exact name of our plant that has changed so many
times, I cannot tell you, for I do not know.
But that, we believe, is Mother Nature’s way of making new flowers.
TONGUES AND TUBES.
[Illustration: [Flower Tube]]
A flower tube is a most convenient and safe place to keep stamens and
nectar. If it is protected by scales or hairs or a sticky juice, as is
often the case, the ants and other small insects are given a gentle but
convincing hint to keep out. They might readily infer their presence is
not wanted, and though it may hurt their feelings a little, they have
nothing to do but obey.
Some flowers like ants and little crawling insects, but they have open,
spreading corollas with the nectars easily reached; but you may be sure
a flower with a tube is no friend to them.
Its tube says “keep out” as plainly as though it had put out a printed
sign, and then a tube is a sign anybody in the insect world can read, no
matter what language he may speak or whether he knows his letters.
But tubes are not intended to keep _all_ visitors away,—far from it.
They are as much an invitation to one kind of insect as they are a
request to “keep off these premises” to another. If you happen to be a
large insect with a long tongue, you will be sure to find a welcome in
many a flower with a tube. And no doubt, if you are fond of honey and
are industrious about collecting it, you will find that the flower whose
nectar you like the very best and which you visit the oftenest has a
tube just the same shape and size as your tongue; and what is more, it
will be in the most convenient position for you to reach it.
It seems to be _your_ flower, and no doubt it is, for flowers have a way
of making their tubes to fit the tongues of those who love them best.
Not that they do _all_ the fitting, for no doubt the tongues also grow
to fit the flowers.
Of course other insects with similar tongues can get the honey too, and
a good many, whose tongues are quite different, can reach more or less
of it; but the bulk of the honey is for the favorite visitor. He can
reach clear to the bottom of the nectary, and in some cases, where the
favorite insect has a very long and very slender tongue, the spur, or
tube, will be so long and slender that none but that particular kind of
insect can get the honey at all.
Everybody who lives in New England, and a good many who do not, knows
the white azalea, often called swamp honeysuckle.
Swamp honeysuckle and the large night-flying moths are great friends.
The azalea has provided honey for the fellows, and protects it, too,
against other visitors, all but the bees and humming birds. The humming
birds are welcome, and the bees have a way of coming whether they are
welcome or not.
If you go just at dark to where the azaleas are blooming, you will not
see the moths, but you will hear them. The chief sounds in the woods are
the rustling of twigs and leaves in the breeze, the calling of frogs
from the ponds, the noises of the insects, and the voices of the
night-flying birds. Then all at once there comes another sound,—a steady
buzz-z-z that draws nearer and nearer until it seems to be close to your
ear. This is the moth come to visit the honeysuckle. And, no doubt, the
honeysuckle is glad to feel the breeze of these fanning wings and feel
the long tongue enter the tube, for the moth’s body touches the
out-reaching stigma and leaves there pollen from some other flower whose
honey it has enjoyed. From the stamens it detaches pollen grains to
carry to another flower; and this, too, no doubt, gives happiness to the
azalea, for it makes its pollen, not for its own use, but for the sake
of its azalea friends.
[Illustration: [Azalea]]
You see, the azalea has long, upturned filaments that reach far out of
the tube, and the style is yet longer, so that only a large insect or a
humming bird, collecting honey while on the wing, can really give pollen
to the stigma.
Bees alight back of the anthers and take the honey. If they want pollen
they collect it from the stamens without touching the stigma, except
once in a while by accident, as it were. So however much the majority of
flowers may love and respect the bee, our azalea has no liking for her.
Besides, the bee has a bad habit of biting a hole in the flower tube and
getting the honey that way. This would be a thoroughly disreputable
performance on the part of any insect, and if bees are not ashamed of it
they ought to be.
The azalea does several things for the moth it loves. It may be its
beautiful white color is for his sake; anyway, if the flower were not
white the moth would not be likely to find it, since he flies abroad
after the birds have gone to rest,—that is, in the evening, when it is
dark in the damp thickets where the honeysuckle loves to grow. Azalea
has a sweet white corolla with a long, slender tube containing nectar
that moth or humming bird can reach, but which bees cannot reach. Watch
a bee try some time. If the flower is between you and the light, you can
see the bee’s brown tongue through the flower tube; she appears to be
standing on her toes and reaching in as far as she can; she darts out
her tongue to its full length, and you can see it wriggling and
straining to get to the abundant honey low down in the flower tube. But
there is no use trying; the tongue is too short and the tube too long.
The honeysuckle tube was not made to fit the bee’s tongue, and the bee
can get only the outer rim of the honey. Perhaps this is why the bee so
often breaks in the back way.
Besides being white, the azalea flowers grow in clusters, which makes
them yet more visible in the dusk. They exhale a delicious and
far-reaching perfume too, and this is a note of invitation to the moths.
[Illustration: [Honeysuckle]]
Instead of writing a note on a sheet of perfumed paper, the honeysuckle
simply sends the perfume without the paper, and the moth understands the
message and knows the white azalea “requests the pleasure” of his
company that evening, and he puts on his best manners, since he cannot
change his clothes, and goes.
The white azalea is so _very_ sweet and so pretty, it would not be
strange if other uninvited guests than bees were to visit it. No doubt,
the ants and bugs and gnats and flies would be glad to, but the azalea
has a very inhospitable way of receiving such would-be guests. All over
the outside of the lower part of the white tube and running in a line to
the very tips of the petals are tiny white hairs with black tips.
These are azalea’s body guard. Each tip exudes a drop of sticky liquid.
Fine, sticky hairs cover the stems and the leaves too; so the
unfortunate insect that tries to crawl up to the flower is sure to get
wings and legs hopelessly entangled and stuck together.
Only large fellows, like bees, who are strong enough to pull themselves
free and clean off their legs, are able to defy this body guard. You
will sometimes meet our sweet azalea covered on the outside with little
marauders who wanted to steal her honey but could not, because the body
guard caught them and stuck them fast.
Not all flowers with tubes have succeeded as well as azalea in keeping
their honey for the visitors who can do them the most good. Yet many
have tried.
Look at the morning-glory, for instance; it has hairs at the entrance to
the nectaries which the ants cannot readily pass, but which the bees can
push aside. The openings to the nectary are large enough readily to
admit the tongue of a bee, and the distance into the nectar is about the
length of a bee’s tongue; but there are no sticky guards to preserve the
honey, for the bees and small beetles and other tiny insects often crawl
into the tube and eat the honey and even devour the flower itself.
[Illustration: EVENING PRIMROSE.]
Tropæolum has a fine large tube full of rich honey for bees and humming
birds. This tube no doubt corresponds to some tongue or bird-bill in her
own South America. But in our country the bees answer very well. The
bumblebee is fond of Tropæolum honey and fertilizes the flower, while an
occasional ruby throat may be seen taking a sip.
Jewelweed’s horn is a humming bird tube and a bee tube, too. The flowers
are so delicately balanced on tiny stalks that wingless insects would
not find an easy entrance.
Pelargonium, too, has a tube suited to some long and slim-tongued
visitor. In her own native land in far-away Africa she probably loves
the butterflies that live there, who also love her, and so they have
grown tongue and tube to fit each other. For the flower is not the only
one to change: the insect changes to suit the flower at the same time
that the flower changes to suit the insect. They grow to fit each other.
Wherever you see a flower tube you may be sure there is somewhere a
tongue to fit it.
GLOSSARY.
L. = Latin. A.-S. = Anglo-Saxon.
A.
=Acheloüs=, _n._ A river god with whom Hercules wrestled. Like
Proteus, Acheloüs could change his shape; he became a serpent and a
bull, but Hercules vanquished him nevertheless and tore off his
horn, which became the horn of plenty.
=Alternate=, _a._ L. _alter_, another; one following another. Said of
leaves standing singly at the nodes of a stem; also of stamens that
stand between the petals, and of petals that are placed between the
sepals.
=Amalthea=, _n._ In Greek mythology, the nurse of Jupiter, probably a
goat.
=Amœba=, _n._ From a Greek word meaning “change”; the name of one of
the lowest forms of life; a bit of living protoplasm capable of
existing as a single cell and of changing its form at will.
=Ancestors=, _n._ L. _antecessor_, a foregoer; forefathers; those from
whom animals or plants are descended.
=Animal cells=, _n._ The cells or minute divisions which make up the
animal body.
=Animals=, _n._ All living things which are not plants are animals. In
the lower forms of life it is impossible to decide whether certain
living things are animals or plants.
=Anther=, _n._ From a Greek word meaning “flower”; that part of the
stamen containing the pollen.
=Anther cells=, _n._ The hollow spaces in the anther where the pollen
is kept.
=Aristocrat=, _n._ From two Greek words meaning “best” and “rule”; one
belonging to the best in a community; one among those fit to rule.
=Aristocratic=, _a._ Like an aristocrat.
=Axil=, _n._ L. _axilla_, little armpit; the angle formed between the
upper side of a leaf and the stem or branch to which it is attached.
=Azalea=, _n._ The name of a plant. The “swamp honeysuckle” is not a
honeysuckle, but is an azalea.
B.
=Barb=, _n._ L. _barba_, a beard; a tuft of hairs; a sharp point
projecting backward from the point of a fish hook or arrow or any
other sharp-pointed instrument. The barb prevents the instrument
from being readily withdrawn.
=Bark=, _n._ The outer covering of the stems and roots of woody
plants.
=Beak=, _n._ The bill of a bird; the long, projecting point in the
fruit of the geraniums.
=Bloodroot=, _n._ An early spring flower. A pretty, delicate, white
flower opens on a stem that comes up from the ground, and the roots,
when wounded, yield a blood-red sap.
=Boer=, _n._ D. _boer_, a farmer; a peasant; the name of the Dutch
colonists of South Africa. They are principally farmers and cattle
raisers. They have had many difficulties with the English settlers,
in some of which blood has been shed.
=Bract=, _n._ L. _bractea_, a thin plate of metal; gold-leaf. Used of
small, usually thin, leaf-like parts, and often found near a flower
or flower cluster.
=Bulb=, _n._ L. _bulbus_, a bulbous root; an onion; the name of the
underground, scale-covered part of hyacinths, etc.
C.
=Cactus=, _n._ From a Greek word meaning “a prickly plant”; a group of
plants which usually grow in dry places and have prickles or thorns
instead of leaves. The prickly pear grows wild in northern
latitudes, and others, such as the night-blooming cereus, are often
seen in hothouses.
=Callous=, _a._ L. _callosus_, hard-skinned, thickened and hardened.
Applied to a hard place on the skin, usually the result of friction.
=Calyx=, _n._ From a Greek word meaning “to cover”; the outer set of
envelopes which form the perianth of a flower. If the perianth has
but one set of envelopes it is called the calyx.
=Capillary attraction=, _n._ The force which causes liquids to
disperse through fabrics or tissues. If one end of a towel be placed
in a bowl of water, the whole towel will be wet in course of time.
=Carbon=, _n._ L. _carbo_, a coal; a substance very widely distributed
and existing under various forms. Coal is one form of carbon,
graphite another, the diamond a third. One atom of carbon combined
with two of oxygen form carbon dioxide.
=Carbon dioxide=, _n._ A heavy gas, found as an impurity in the air.
It is breathed out by animals and plants, and absorbed and used as a
food by plants.
=Castor oil=, _n._ The oil obtained from the seeds of the castor-oil
plant. Used as a medicine and also in dyeing cotton certain colors.
=Cell=, _n._ L. _cella_, a small room; a case or cup in which
something is held, as anther cell, ovary cell, honeycomb cell; also
the protoplasmic particles of which plants and animals are built up.
=Candelabrum=, _n._ L. _candela_, a candle; a candle stick; any
branched candlestick. A candelabrum rests on a post, while a
chandelier is suspended. Candelabra is the plural.
=Chasm=, _n._ From a Greek word meaning “a yawning hollow”; a wide,
deep cleft.
=Chlorophyll=, _n._ From two Greek words meaning “light green” and
“leaf,” leaf-green; the green coloring matter of vegetation.
=Columbine=, _n._ L. _columba_, a dove; a flowering plant which gets
its name from the fancied resemblance of its petals and sepals to
the heads of doves round a dish.
=Complexity=, _n._ L. _com_, together, _plectere_, to weave; formed by
a combination of simple things.
=Convolvulaceæ=, _n._ The name of a family of plants to which belong
the morning-glory and bindweed.
=Cornucopia=, _n._ L. _cornu_, horn, _copia_, plenty; horn of plenty.
=Corolla=, _n._ L. _corolla_, a little crown; a garland; the floral
envelope within the calyx, very often bright colored.
=Cotton-seed oil=, _n._ An oil expressed from the seeds of the cotton
plant and, when purified, used instead of olive oil.
=Crete=, _n._ An island to the south of Greece.
=Crocus=, _n._ An early spring flower.
=Cross-fertilization=, _n._ The fertilization of the ovules of one
flower by the pollen of another.
=Cross-fertilized=, _a._ Fertilized by the pollen from another plant.
D.
=Dew=, _n._ The moisture of the air when condensed on any cold
surface. Dew does not _fall_; it is formed wherever moisture in the
air comes in contact with a substance colder than the air. Hence
there may be dew on the under as well as the upper side of a leaf.
=Dissolve=, _v._ L. _dis_, apart, _solvere_, loose; to separate the
solid particles of a body in a liquid; to melt. Sugar dissolves in
water.
=Double flowers=, _n._ All those whose petals are numerous. Sometimes
the stamens are changed into petals, as in double roses, and
sometimes even the pistils have become petals.
E.
=Evaporation=, _n._ The conversion of a solid or liquid by heat into
vapor. Most often used in reference to the conversion of water into
vapor. The warm air of summer causes a rapid evaporation of water
from the leaves of plants.
F.
=Fayal=, _n._ One of the Azores Islands, west of Portugal.
=Ferns=, _n._ A division of flowerless plants.
=Fertilize=, _v._ L. _fertilis_, fruitful; to make fruitful or
productive, in the flower, by introducing the pollen to the ovule,
enabling them in union to become a seed.
=Filament=, _n._ L. _filum_, a thread; the stem of an anther, often
thread-like in form, though it varies greatly; any thread-like part.
=Flower=, _n._ L. _flos_, a flower; the part of a plant consisting of
pistil, stamens, corolla, and calyx. Sometimes the corolla is
wanting; sometimes both calyx and corolla are wanting. Since pistils
and stamens are the most important part of the flower, an organ
containing them only is called a flower. Sometimes a flower consists
of only stamens or only pistils, as in some kinds of maple.
=Force pump=, _n._ A pump in which a liquid is moved by pressure
behind instead of being lifted, as is the case in the ordinary pump.
=Fossil=, _n._ Animal or vegetable forms which have been long buried
in the earth and so preserved; the _forms_ or traces of animal or
vegetable structures which have been preserved in rock.
=Fruit=, _n._ The matured ovary and all it contains or is incorporated
with. Sometimes the calyx forms part of the fruit, as in the apple.
G.
=Gamopetalous=, _a._ From two Greek words meaning “marriage” and
“leaf” or “petal”; having the petals united or grown together. Where
a flower has the corolla in the form of a tube it is called
gamopetalous. Several petals are believed to be united into one
piece.
=Geranium=, _n._ From a Greek word meaning “crane’s bill”; the name of
a plant, so called because of the long, projecting beak of the
seed-vessel.
=Gland=, _n._ Certain cells upon or near the surface of a plant that
secrete, or take from the sap, certain substances. The nectary is a
gland that secretes a sweet juice.
=Great pyramids of Egypt=, _n._ Three large pyramids at Ghizeh, near
Cairo, in Egypt. The largest one is the largest work of man’s hands
in the world. The pyramids are very interesting structures, and are
probably the tombs of the ancient rulers of Egypt.
=Guard cells=, _n._ The curved cells that guard the entrance to the
stomata, or breathing pores, of leaves.
H.
=Hairs=, _n._ Fine, thread-like outgrowths from the skin of plants or
animals.
=Halberd-shaped=, _a._ Shaped like a halberd, or old-time battle-ax.
The bases of certain leaves are called halberd-shaped from their
form.
=Hawthorne=, _n._ A small tree with thorny stems. The fruit consists
of small bright red berries called “haws.”
=Heart=, _n._ The principal organ for the circulation of the blood in
man and other animals.
=Hercules=, _n._ In Greek and Roman mythology, a mighty hero, the god
of strength and courage. He performed many feats of strength, chief
among which are those known as the twelve labors of Hercules.
=Honeycomb cells=, _n._ The wax cells made by bees for storing the
honey.
=Hyacinth=, _n._ The name of an early spring flower; also of a
precious stone.
=Hydrogen=, _n._ From two Greek words meaning “water producing.” It is
a very light, invisible gas, and when chemically united to oxygen,
two parts of hydrogen to one of oxygen, the result is water.
I.
=Imbricated=, _a._ L. _imber_, rain, _imbrex_, a hollow roof tile to
shed rain; _imbricare_, to cover with roof tiles; lying over one
another, or lapping, like tiles on a roof. Applied to sepals that
overlap over a bud.
=Included=, _a._ L. _in_, in, _claudere_, to shut, close; confined
within something. Said of the stamens when they do not project
beyond the mouth of the corolla.
=Inherit=, _v._ L. _in_, in, _heres_, heir; to take by descent from an
ancestor. Plants, like people, inherit their characteristics from
their parents.
=Iron=, _n._ A very abundant and very important metal. In small
quantities it enters into the composition of plants and animals.
=Irritate=, _v._ L. _irritare_, to excite; to excite to action.
Rubbing irritates the skin and causes extra blood to flow to the
spot and thus redden it. Rubbing may also irritate plant tissues and
cause an extra flow of sap to the part irritated.
J.
=Jack-in-the-Pulpit.= The name of a plant that blooms in early summer.
The flowers have no corollas or calyxes, but grow clustered together
on a long spike. The spike of flowers is surrounded by a large
overarching bract.
=Juan Fernandez=, _n._ An island, west of Chili, in South America. It
is said to be the island where Robinson Crusoe lived.
=Jupiter=, _n._ In Roman mythology, the chief of the gods. The eagle
is his favorite bird, and he is often represented with a sheaf of
thunderbolts in his hand.
K.
=Knead=, _v._ To press or squeeze until thoroughly mixed.
L.
=Levant=, _n._ The name given to a section of country east of Italy
and bordering upon the Mediterranean Sea.
=Lime=, _n._ A substance found in the earth and forming the hard part
of bones, and also found in the composition of plants.
=Liriodendron=, _n._ From two Greek words meaning “lily” and “tree”; a
North American tree, also called the tulip tree. Its green and
yellow flowers look a little like a tulip.
=Lungs=, _n._ Two spongy organs in the chest by means of which the air
is used to purify the blood in breathing.
M.
=Magnesium=, _n._ A metal, very abundant in sea water and in the
earth’s crust. Also found in the composition of animals and some
plants.
=Mandrake=, _n._ A plant with umbrella-like leaves and a yellow, juicy
fruit as large as an egg.
=Microscope=, _n._ From two Greek words meaning “small” and “view”; an
instrument which magnifies and renders visible bodies too small to
be seen by the naked eye.
=Moth=, _n._ An insect resembling a butterfly. Moths have no knobs on
their antennæ, or “feelers,” and butterflies have.
=Mullein=, _n._ A tall, stout weed with thick, wooly leaves.
N.
=Naiads=, _n._ In Greek and Roman mythology, water nymphs. Beautiful
young goddesses presiding over springs and streams.
=Nasturtium=, _n._ L. _nasus_, nose, _tortus_, convulsed; the name of
a plant, so called because of its acrid juice that causes a stinging
sensation at the back of the nose when it is tasted.
=Nectar=, _n._ The drink of the gods on Mt. Olympus. The honey of
flowers.
=Nectaries=, _n._ The receptacles in which the nectar of flowers is
collected; also the gland which secretes the nectar.
=Neptune=, _n._ In Roman mythology, the god of the sea.
=Nettle=, _n._ A weed armed with stinging hairs.
=Nitrogen=, _n._ A colorless, odorless, tasteless gas, forming about
three-fourths of the air and necessary to the formation of all
living bodies, whether plant or animal.
=Nitrogenous substances=, _n._ Substances in which nitrogen is one of
the constituents.
=Node=, _n._ L. _nodus_, a knot; the part of a stem which bears a leaf
or leaves. It is often a little larger than the rest of the stem.
O.
=Octavus=, _n._ L. _octavus_, eighth; given in this book as a name to
a suppositional plant.
=Oil=, _n._ From a Greek word meaning “olive oil.” An inflammable,
greasy liquid extracted from certain vegetables, as olives, cotton
seeds, nuts, etc.
=Olive oil=, _n._ The oil expressed from the fruit of the olive tree.
=Orient=, _n._ L. _oriens_, rising, as the sun; the East, the part of
the horizon where the sun rises; Eastern countries, particularly
Turkey, Persia, Egypt, India, China, etc.
=Ovary cells=, _n._ The cells which build up the ovary.
=Ovule=, _n._ L. _ovum_, an egg; a little egg. Applied to the
rudimentary seeds of plants, which, upon fertilization and growth,
become true seeds.
=Ovule cells=, _n._ The cells of which the ovule is formed.
=Oxalis=, _n._ From a Greek word meaning “acid”; a well-known plant,
one form of which is called “wood sorrel.” It is called oxalis
because of its acid juice.
=Oxygen=, _n._ One of the gases that compose the air and which is
essential to life. It is also found in composition in the tissues of
plants and animals.
P.
=Pelargonium=, _n._ From a Greek word meaning “a stork”; a member of
the Geranium Family, so called because of the beaked seed-pods.
=Petal=, _n._ From a Greek word meaning “a leaf”; one of the leaves of
a corolla.
=Phosphorus=, _n._ From a Greek word meaning “Lucifer, the morning
star”; a solid substance which is luminous in the dark. It is found
in composition in the bodies of animals and plants.
=Pioneer=, _n._ L. _pes_, a foot; in military terms, one of a company
of foot soldiers who march before an army with implements to clear
the way. Hence, whoever or whatever leads or prepares the way for
others coming after.
=Pistil=, _n._ L. _pistillum_, a pestle; the seed-bearing organ of a
flower, composed generally of three parts, ovary, style, and stigma,
and called pistil because of its shape, which often resembles a
pestle.
=Plant cells=, _n._ The cells of which plants are built up.
=Pollen=, _n._ L. _pollen_, fine flour; the dust or grains of
fertilizing material found in the anthers of flowers.
=Pollen cells=, _n._ The grains of pollen; each grain is a separate
cell.
=Polypetalous=, _a._ From two Greek words meaning “many” and “leaf.”
Said of a flower having two or more separate petals.
=Potash=, _n._ A combination of potassium, carbon, and oxygen. Potash
in various forms is found in all plants.
=Potassium=, _n._ A substance found in combination with other things
in the earth’s crust, and in the form of potash, an important factor
in the substance of plants and animals.
=Potato=, _n._ One of the edible tubers of the potato plant. The
potato is a swollen underground stem, the eyes being the nodes. The
potato contains a large amount of starch and is a valuable food. The
potato plant is a native of the Andes. It was taken to England from
Virginia in 1856.
=Prickles=, _n._ A.-S. _prica_, a sharp point; small, sharp-pointed
growths from the bark of plants.
=Primitive=, _a._ L. _primus_, first; pertaining to the beginning or
origin of a thing. In botany, beginning to take form, applied to an
organ or structure that is just beginning to assume form.
=Primus=, _n._ L. _primus_, first; a name given in this book to a
suppositional plant.
=Probing=, _n._ L. _probare_, to test, examine; examining by means of
a long, pointed instrument or probe. The bee or butterfly probes for
nectar with its long tongue.
=Protean=, _a._ Pertaining to Proteus; readily assuming different
shapes.
=Proteus=, _n._ In classical mythology, a sea god who had the power of
assuming different shapes. He could become a serpent or a cloud or a
bull or anything he chose to become.
=Protoplasm=, _n._ From two words meaning “first” and “form.” A
substance resembling the white of an egg in appearance, composed of
carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, and phosphorus. It is
the foundation of all living forms.
=Protoplasmic=, _a._ Consisting of protoplasm.
Q.
=Quartus=, _n._ L. _quartus_, fourth; the name given in this book to a
suppositional plant.
=Quintus=, _n._ L. _quintus_, fifth; the name given in this book to a
suppositional plant.
R.
=Rain=, _n._ A.-S. _regn_, rain; the water falling in drops through
the atmosphere. Water rises as vapor from the moist earth and the
sea; it is then condensed by coming in contact with the cold upper
air, and falls to the earth as rain.
=Reproduced=, _pp._ L. _re_, again, _producere_, to produce, to bring
forth; produced again, having formed new plants or animals from
those already existing.
=Retrogressed=, _pp._ Went backward.
=Retrogression=, _n._ L. _retro_, backward, _gradi_, to go; the act of
going backward.
=Rhea=, _n._ In classical mythology, the wife of Saturn and mother of
Jupiter.
=Ribs=, _n._ The bones that form the framework of the chest in the
higher animals; the timbers that form the framework of a ship; the
stiff fibres that form the framework of a leaf.
=Robinson Crusoe=, _n._ A story written by Daniel Defoe and published
in 1719. The adventures of Robinson are said to have been suggested
by the life of Alexander Selkirk, who was shipwrecked and lived for
four years on the desert island of Juan Fernandez.
=Root=, _n._ The part of a plant that usually grows down into the
soil, fixing the plant and absorbing nutriment.
=Root cap=, _n._ The hard cap which covers and protects the growing
tip of a root.
=Root hairs=, _n._ The fine filaments growing from the skin of young
roots that absorb the nutriment for plants.
=Rubythroat=, _n._ The name of the North American humming bird, so
called because of the bright red feathers on its throat.
S.
=Salamander=, _n._ A kind of lizard, formerly supposed to be able to
live in the fire.
=Salt=, _n._ One of the most important substances in the world. It is
necessary to the existence of animals and is one of the constituents
of many plants.
=Sap=, _n._ The juice of plants. It is to them what the blood is to
animals.
=Saturn=, _n._ In classical mythology, the father of Jupiter.
=Scales=, _n._ A.-S. _scealu_, a scale, husk; in botany, a small,
rudimentary leaf, scale-like in form. Scales cover the leaf buds and
sometimes the flower buds; they also constitute some bulbs.
=Scape=, _n._ L. _scapus_, shaft, stalk; the long, leafless peduncle
which starts from the ground and bears flowers at the top, as in the
hyacinth.
=Sceptre=, _n._ L. _sceptrum_, a staff to lean on; a sceptre; a staff
of office; the staff of kingship.
=Secrete=, _v._ L. _secernere_, to separate; to form from the
materials of the sap or the blood a new substance. The organ that
secretes is called a gland.
=Secundus=, _n._ L. _secundus_, second; the name given in this book to
a suppositional plant.
=Seed=, _n._ The fertilized and matured ovule of a flower.
=Seed-coat=, _n._ The outer covering to a seed.
=Seedlet=, _n._ A little seed.
=Sepal=, _n._ L. _separ_, separate; one of the separate leaves that
form the calyx.
=Septimus=, _n._ L. _septimus_, seventh; the name given in this book
to a suppositional plant.
=Sextus=, _n._ L. _sextus_, sixth; a name given in this book to a
suppositional plant.
=Shrub=, _n._ A woody, branching plant, smaller than a tree.
=Silica=, _n._ L. _silex_, flint; a substance found very abundantly in
the earth’s crust. It is very hard, and when melted forms glass; it
is found in solution in some springs and is taken up by certain
plants and deposited on or near the surface.
=Skin=, _n._ The outside covering of an animal or plant.
=Skin cells=, _n._ The cells of which the skin is made up.
=Snowdrop=, _n._ An early spring flower cultivated in gardens; it
sometimes blossoms under the snow.
=Soda=, _n._ A compound of sodium, carbon, and oxygen; found in the
composition of some plants.
=Sodium=, _n._ One of the elements of common salt, and also found in
the tissues of plants and animals.
=Sorrel=, _n._ A.-S. _sūr_, sour; a kind of plant with acid leaves.
=Sphinx=, _n._ In Greek mythology, a monster with the head of a woman,
the wings of an eagle, and the claws of a lion; she sat on a rock
and proposed a riddle to all who passed and killed those who could
not guess it. The Egyptian sphinx has no wings and is not the same
as the Greek monster; it is generally placed in rows in avenues
leading to temples, and the largest and most famous Egyptian sphinx
is the Great Sphinx near the great pyramids of Ghizeh; it held a
temple between its paws.
=Spring beauties=, _n._ Pretty, delicate, and early spring flowers.
=Spur=, _n._ A pointed instrument worn on the heel to goad a horse;
any sharp projection formed like a horseman’s spur.
=Stamen=, _n._ L. _stamen_, thread, string, fibre; the floral organ
containing the fertilizing pollen. The stamen, like the pistil, is
believed to be a modified leaf.
=Starch=, _n._ A substance composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen,
forming one of the principal elements in plants and necessary as
food to animals.
=Stiffening cells=, _n._ The woody cells and other tough-walled cells
that serve to keep the shape of a plant.
=Stigma=, _n._ The structure at the top of the style where the pollen
is received.
=Stipules=, _n._ L. _stipula_, a stalk, stem, blade; the small,
leaf-like appendages at the base of the petiole of leaves.
=Stoma=, _n._ From a Greek word meaning “mouth-opening”; a small
opening in the skin of leaves and young stems leading to the air
cavities within the plant; a breathing pore.
=Stomata=, _n._ The plural of “stoma.”
=Strengthening cells=, _n._ The cells with tough or hard walls that
serve to give firmness and support to plant tissues.
=Suction=, _n._ L. _sugere_, to suck; the process of sucking.
=Sulphur=, _n._ A solid substance found in the earth’s crust in
certain places; it is one of the constituents of protoplasm, and
although occurring in it in very small quantities, it is essential.
=Sulphuric acid=, _n._ Oil of vitriol, a combination of hydrogen,
sulphur, and oxygen. Sulphuric acid is found in the earth and in the
air in very small quantities, and is the source from which plants as
a rule derive their sulphur.
T.
=Tertius=, _n._ L. _tertius_, third; the name given in this book to a
suppositional plant.
=Thoreau=, _n._ Henry David Thoreau, an American author of the present
century, wrote a number of delightful books on nature.
=Tissue=, _n._ L. _texere_, to weave; a woven fabric; the cellular
fabric of plant structures.
=Tropæolum=, _n._ From a Greek word meaning “a turning,” hence, a
turning of the enemy, a defeat; finally, the sign of a defeat, a
trophy; the name of a plant, so called because of the shield-shaped
leaves, many shields together suggesting trophies taken from the
enemy.
=Tube cells=, _n._ The cells that build up the tubes of plants.
=Tuber=, _n._ L. _tuber_, a bump, swelling; a thickened portion of an
underground stem. The potato is a tuber; it stores up starch for the
use of the growing plant.
=Tubular corolla=, _n._ A tube-shaped corolla. The red honeysuckle has
a tubular corolla.
=Tunic=, _n._ L. _tunica_, a tunic; the name of a garment worn by the
Romans; a loose flowing robe; hence, any garment; a name given to
the scaly coverings of bulbs like the onion and hyacinth.
=Tunicated=, _a._ Having a tunic.
U.
=Underground stems=, _n._ Stems that grow beneath the surface of the
earth and look more or less like roots. They can always be
distinguished from roots by the presence of nodes.
V.
=Variegated=, _a._ L. _varius_, various, _agere_, to make; marked with
different colors.
=Veins=, _n._ L. _vena_, a blood vessel; the blood vessels or channels
through which the blood flows to the heart; the stiff, thread-like
tubes forming the framework of leaves, petals, sepals, etc.
=Vine=, _n._ L. _vinea_, a grape vine; a plant with a stem too long
and flexible to stand alone.
W.
=Water=, _n._ A well-known liquid composed of two parts of hydrogen to
one of oxygen.
=Wax=, _n._ A.-S. _weax_, wax; a thick, sticky substance made by bees
for constructing their cells; substances resembling beeswax in
consistency.
=Whorl=, _n._ A ring of organs from the same center.
=Wood cells=, _n._ The cells of which wood is built up.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
4. Enclosed bold or blackletter font in =equals=.
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