The Romance of Plant Life
by G. F. Scott Elliot · English · Gutenberg #45930 · 669,926 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Romance of Plant Life
Author: G. F. Scott Elliot
Release date: June 10, 2014 [eBook #45930]
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Language: English
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[Illustration: A LIVING BRIDGE
Such a bridge is described by Sir J. D. Hooker in his _Himalayan
Journals_.]
THE ROMANCE OF
PLANT LIFE
INTERESTING DESCRIPTIONS OF
THE STRANGE AND CURIOUS IN
THE PLANT WORLD
BY
G. F. SCOTT ELLIOT
M.A. CANTAB., B.SC. EDIN., F.R.G.S., F.L.S., ETC.
AUTHOR OF
"A NATURALIST IN MID AFRICA," "NATURE STUDIES--PLANT LIFE"
ETC.
WITH THIRTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS
PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
LONDON: SEELEY & CO. LIMITED
1907
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
THE ACTIVITY OF VEGETABLES
PAGE
Plants which move--Sensitive Plant--A tourist from Neptune--The
World's and the British harvest--Working of green leaves--Power
of sunshine--Work done by an acre of plants--Coltsfoot,
dandelion, pansies, in sunshine and in cold--Woodsorrel and
crocus--Foxglove--Leaves and light--Adventures of a carbon
atom--The sap--Cabbages and oaks requiring water--Traveller's
tree--The water in trees--An oasis in Greece--The associate life
of its trees and flowers 13
CHAPTER II
ON SAVAGES, DOCTORS, AND PLANTS
Savages knew Botany--First lady doctors and botanical
excursions--True drugs and horrible ornaments--Hydrophobia
cure--Cloves--Mustard--Ivy--Roses and Teeth--How to
keep hair on--How to know if a patient will recover--Curious
properties of a mushroom--The Scythian lamb--Quinine: history
and use--Safflower--Romance of ipecacuanha--Wars of the spice
trade--Cinnamon, logwood, and indigo--Romance of pepper--Babylonian
and Egyptian botanists--Chinese discoveries--Theophrastus--Medieval
times--The first illustrated book--Numbers of plants
known--Discoveries of painters and poets 27
CHAPTER III
A TREE'S PERILOUS LIFE
Hemlock spruce and pine forests--Story of a pine seedling--Its
struggles and dangers--The gardener's boot--Turpentine of
pines--The giant sawfly--Bark beetles--Their effect on music--Storm
and strength of trees--Tall trees and long seaweeds--Eucalyptus,
big trees--Age of trees--Venerable sequoias, oaks,
chestnuts, and olives--Baobab and Dragontree--Rabbits as
woodcutters--Fire as protection--Sacred fires--Dug-out and
birch-bark canoes--Lake dwellings--Grazing animals and forest
destruction--First kind of cultivation--Old forests in England
and Scotland--Game-preserving 40
CHAPTER IV
ON FORESTS
The forests of the Coal Age--Monkey-puzzle and ginkgo--Wood,
its uses, colour, and smell--Lasting properties of wood--Jarrah
and deodar--Teak--Uses of birch--Norwegian barques--Destruction
of wood in America--Paper from wood pulp--Forest
fires--Arid lands once fertile--Britain to be again covered by
forests--Vanished country homes--Ashes at farmhouses--Yews
in churchyards--History of Man _versus_ Woods in Britain 55
CHAPTER V
FLOWERS
Man's ideas of the use of flowers--Sprengel's great
discovery--Insects, not man, consulted--Pollen carried to set
seed--Flowers and insects of the Whinstone Age--Coal Age
flowers--Monkey-puzzle times--Chalk flowers--Wind-blown
pollen--Extravagant expenditure of pollen in them--Flower of the
pine--Exploding flowers--Brilliant alpines--Intense life in
flowers--Colour contrasts--Lost bees--Evening flowers--Humming
birds and sunbirds--Kangaroo--Floral clocks--Ages of flowers--How
to get flowers all the year round--Ingenious contrivances--Yucca
and fig--Horrible-smelling flowers--Artistic tastes of birds,
insects, and man 68
CHAPTER VI
ON UNDERGROUND LIFE
Mother-earth--Quarries and Chalk-pits--Wandering atoms--The
soil or dirt--Populations of Worms, Birds, Germs--Fairy
Rings--Roots miles long--How roots find their way--How they do the
right thing and seek only what is good for them--Root _versus_
stones--Roots which haul bulbs about--Bishopsweed--Wild
Garlic--Dandelion, Plantain--Solomon's Seal--Roots throwing
down walls--Strength of a seedling root 82
CHAPTER VII
HIGH MOUNTAINS, ARCTIC SNOWS
The life of a cherry tree--Cherries in March--Flowering of
gorse--Chickweed's descendants--Forest fires in Africa--Spring
passing from Italy to the frozen North--Life in the
Arctic--Dwarfs--Snow-melting soldanellas--Highland Arctic-Alpine
plants--Their history--Arctic Britain--Edelweiss--An
Alpine garden 97
CHAPTER VIII
SCRUB
Famous countries which were covered by it--Trees which are colonizing
the desert--Acacia scrub in East Africa, game and lions--Battle
between acacia and camels, etc.--Australian half-deserts--Explorers'
fate--Queen Hatasu and the first geographical
expedition recorded--Frankincense, myrrh, gums, and odorous
resins--Manna--Ladanum--Burning bush--Olives, oranges, and
perfume farms--Story of roses--Bulgarian attar of roses--How
pomade is made--Cutting down of forests and Mohammed 107
CHAPTER IX
ON TEA, COFFEE, CHOCOLATE, AND TOBACCO
English tea-drinking--Story of our tea--Assam coolies--Manufacture
in India and China--Celestial moisture--Danger of tea--The
hermit and his intelligent goat--Government coffee and
cafés--Chicory--Chocolate--Aztecs--Kola and its curious
effects--Tobacco--Sir Walter Raleigh--Great emperors and
tobacco--Could we grow tobacco?--Story of a Sumatra cigar--Danger
of young people smoking tobacco 120
CHAPTER X
ON DESERTS
What are deserts like?--Camel-riding--Afterglow--Darwin in
South America--Big Bad Lands--Plants which train themselves
to endure thirst--Cactus and euphorbia--Curious shapes--Grey
hairs--Iceplant--Esparto grass--Retama--Colocynth--Sudden
flowering of the Karoo--Short-lived flowers--Colorado Desert--Date
palms on the Nile--Irrigation in Egypt--The creaking
Sakkieh--Alexandria hills--The Nile and Euphrates 131
CHAPTER XI
THE STORY OF THE FIELDS
What was Ancient Britain?--Marshes and bittern--Oak forest--Pines--Savage
country--Cornfield--Fire--Ice--Forest--Worms--Paleolithic family--The
first farmers--Alfred the Great's first Government agricultural
leaflet--Dr. Johnson--Prince Charlie's time--Misery of our
forefathers--Oatmeal, milk, and cabbages--Patrick Miller--Tennyson's
_Northern Farmer_--Flourishing days of 1830 to 1870--Derelict
farmhouses and abandoned crofts--Where have the people gone?--Will
they come back? 143
CHAPTER XII
ON PLANTS WHICH ADD TO CONTINENTS
Lake Aral and Lake Tschad--Mangrove swamps of West Africa--New
mudbanks colonized--Fish, oysters, birds, and mosquitoes--Grasping
roots and seedlings--Extent of mangroves--Touradons
of the Rhone--Sea-meadows of Britain--Floating pollen--Reeds
and sedges of estuarine meadows--Storms--Plants on
ships' hulls--Kelps and tangles in storms--Are seaweeds
useless?--Fish 156
CHAPTER XIII
ROCKS, STONES, AND SCENERY
An old wall--Beautiful colours--Insects--Nature's chief aim--Hard
times of lichens--Age of lichens--Crusts--Mosses--Lava flows
of great eruptions--Colonizing plants--Krakatoa--Vesuvius--Greenland
volcanoes--Sumatra--Shale-heaps--Foreigners on railway
lines--Plants keep to their own grounds--Precipices and
rocks--Plants which change the scenery--Cañons in America 166
CHAPTER XIV
ON VEGETABLE DEMONS
Animals and grass--Travellers in the elephant grass--Enemies in
Britain--Cactus _versus_ rats and wild asses--Angora kids _v._
acacia--The Wait-a-bit thorn--Palm roots and snails--Wild yam
_v._ pig--Larch _v._ goat--Portuguese and English gorse--Hawthorn
_v._ rabbits--Briers, brambles, and barberry--The bramble
loop and sick children or ailing cows--Briers of the
wilderness--Theophrastus and Phrygian goats--Carline near the
Pyramids--Calthrops--Tragacanth--Hollies and their ingenious
contrivances--How thorns and spines are formed--Tastes
of animals 177
CHAPTER XV
ON NETTLES, SENSITIVE PLANTS, ETC.
Stinging nettles at home and abroad--The use of the nettle--Sham
nettles--Sensitive plants--Mechanism--Plants alive, under chloroform
and ether--Telegraph plant--Woodsorrel--Have plants
nerves?--Electricity in the Polar regions--Plants under electric
shocks--Currents of electricity in plants--The singing of trees
to the electro-magnetic ear--Experiments--Electrocution of
vegetables 191
CHAPTER XVI
ON FLOWERS OF THE WATER
The first plant--Seaweeds in hot baths--Breaking of the meres--Gory
Dew--Plants driven back to the water--Marsh plants--Fleur-de-Lis--Reeds
and rushes--Floating islands--Water-lilies--_Victoria
regia_--Plants 180 feet deep--Life in a pond, as seen
by an inhabitant--Fish-farming--The useful Diatom--Willows
and Alders--Polluted streams--The Hornwort--The Florida
Hyacinth--Reeds and grass-reeds--The richest lands in the
world--Papyrus of Egypt--Birds and hippopotami--Fever and
ague 200
CHAPTER XVII
ON GRASSLANDS
Where is peace?--Troubles of the grass--Roadsides--Glaciers in
Switzerland--Strength and gracefulness of grasses--Rainstorms--Dangers
of Drought and of swamping--Artificial fields--Farmer's
abstruse calculations--Grass mixtures--Tennis lawns--The
invasion of forest--Natural grass--Prairie of the United
States, Red Indian, Cowboy--Pampas and Gaucho--Thistles
and tall stories--South Africa and Boers--Hunting of the
Tartars--An unfortunate Chinese princess--Australian shepherds
herds 213
CHAPTER XVIII
POISONS
Poisoned arrows--Fish poisons--Manchineel--Curare--A wonderful
story--Antiaris--Ordeals--The Obi poison--Oracles produced
by poisons--Plants which make horses crazy and others that
remove their hair--Australian sheep and the Caustic Creeper--Swelled
head--Madness by the Darling Pea--Wild and tame
animals, how they know poisons--How do they tell one another?--The
Yew tree, when is it, and when is it not poisonous? 226
CHAPTER XIX
ON FRUITS
Bright colours of fruits--Unripe fruits and their effects--An
intemperate Fungus--Oranges--Prickly pear and the monkey--Strong
seeds--Bill-of-fare of certain birds--A wood-pigeon and beans--Ants
and seeds--Bats, rats, bears, and baboons--The rise in
weight of a Big Gooseberry--Mr. Gideon and the Wealthy
Apple--Crossing fruits--Breadfruit and banana--Dates--Figs--
Olives--Pineapples by the acre--Apples and pears--Home and Canadian
orchards 240
CHAPTER XX
WANDERING FRUITS AND SEEDS
Ships and stowaway seeds--Tidal drift--Sheep, broom, migrating
birds--Crows and acorns--Ice--Squirrels--Long flight of birds--Seeds
in mud--Martynia and lions--The wanderings of
Xanthium--Cocoanut and South Sea Islands--Sedges and floods--Lichens
of Arctic and Antarctic--Manna of Bible--The Tumble
weeds of America--Catapult and sling fruits--Cow parsnips--Parachutes,
shuttlecocks, and kites--Cotton--The use of hairs
and wings--Monkey's Dinner-bell--Sheep-killing grasses 254
CHAPTER XXI
STORY OF THE CROPS
Bloated and unhealthy plants--Oats of the Borderers, Norsemen,
and Danes--Wheat as a wild plant--Barley--Rye--Where was
the very first harvest?--Vine in the Caucasus--Indians sowing
corn--Early weeds--Where did weeds live before cultivation?--Armies
of weeds--Their cunning and ingenuity--Gardeners' feats--The
Ideal Bean--Diseased pineapples--Raising beetroot and
carrot--Story of the travels of Sugar-cane--Indian Cupid--Beetroot
and Napoleon 269
CHAPTER XXII
PLANTS AND ANTS
Meaning of Plant Life--Captive and domesticated germs--Solomon's
observations denied by Buffon but confirmed by recent writers--Ants
as keepers and germinators of corn--Ant fields--Ants
growing mushrooms--Leaf-cutting ants--Plants which are
guarded by insects--The African bush--Ants boarded by Acacias
and by Imbauba trees--Ants kept in China and Italy--Cockchafer
_v._ ant--Scale insects--A fungus which catches worms 281
CHAPTER XXIII
THE PERIL OF INSECTS
The Phylloxera--French sport--Life history of the
Phylloxera--Cockchafer grubs--Wireworm--The misunderstood
crows--Dangerous sucklings of greenflies--"Sweat of heaven" and
"Saliva of the stars"--A parasite of a parasite of a
parasite--Buds--The apple-blossom weevil--Apple-sucker--The
codlin moth and the ripening apple--The pear midge--A careless
naturalist and his present of rare eggs--Leaf-miners--Birds
without a stain upon their characters--Birds and man--Moats--Dust
and mites--The homes of the mites--Buds, insect eggs, and parent
birds flourishing together 290
CHAPTER XXIV
RUBBER, HEMP AND OPIUM
Effects of opium--The poppy-plant and its latex--Work of the
opium-gatherer--Where the opium poppy is grown--Haschisch of the
Count of Monte Cristo--Heckling, scotching, and retting--Hempseed
and bhang--Users of haschisch--Use of india-rubber--Why
plants produce rubber--With the Indians in Nicaragua--The
Congo Free State--Scarcity of rubber--Columbus and
Torquemada--Macintosh--Gutta-percha 301
CHAPTER XXV
ON CLIMBING PLANTS
Robin-run-the-Hedge--Bramble bushes--Climbing roses--Spiny,
wiry stems of smilax--The weak young stem of a liane--The
way in which stems revolve--The hop and its little harpoons--A
climbing palm--Rapidity of turners--The effect of American life
on them--Living bridges--Rope bridges in India--The common
stitchwort--Tendrils--Their behaviour when stroked or tickled--Their
sensibility--Their grasping power--The quickness with
which they curve and their sense of weight--Charles
Darwin--Reasonableness of plants--Corkscrew spirals--The pads
of the Virginian Creeper--The ivy--Does it do harm?--Embracing
roots--Tree ivy 313
CHAPTER XXVI
PLANTS WHICH PREY ON PLANTS
The kinds of cannibals--Bacteria--Spring flowers--Pale, ghostly
Wood-flowers--Their alliance with fungi--Gooseberries growing on
trees--Orchid-hunting--The life of an orchid--The mistletoe--Balder
the Beautiful--Druids-Mistletoe as a remedy--Its parasitic
roots--The trees it prefers--The _Cactus Loranthus_--Yellow Rattle
and Eyebright, or Milk-thief, and their root-suckers--Broomrape
and toothwort--Their colour and tastes--The scales of the
toothwort which catch animalcula--Sir Stamford Raffles--A flower a
yard across--The Dodder--Its twining stem and sucker-roots--Parasites
rare, degenerate and dangerously situated 327
CHAPTER XXVII
PLANTS ATTACKING ANIMALS
Brittle Star _v._ algæ--Fungus _v._ meal-worm--Stag-headed
caterpillars--Liverwort _v._ small insects--Natural
flower-pots--Watercups of Bromeliads--Sarracenia and inquiring
insects--An unfortunate centipede--Pitcher plants: their crafty
contrivances--Blowflies defy them and spiders rob
them--Bladderwort's traps which catch small fry--Hairs and their
uses--Plants used as fly-papers--Butterwort _v._ midges--Its use
as rennet--Sundew and its sensitive tentacles--Pinning down an
insect--Suffocating and chloroforming the sundew--Venus' fly-trap
which acts like a rat-trap--Have plants a nervous system? 340
CHAPTER XXVIII
MOSSES AND MOORS
Peat-mosses and their birds--Moorlands--Cotton-grass--Scotch
whisky--Growth of peat-moss--A vegetable pump--Low-lying
and moorland mosses--Eruptions and floods of peat--Colonizing
by heather and Scotch fir--Peat-mosses as museums--Remains
of children and troopers--Irish elk--Story of the plants in
Denmark--Rhododendrons and peat--Uses of peat--Reclaiming the
mosses near Glasgow 353
CHAPTER XXIX
NAMES AND SUPERSTITIONS
Giving names the first amusement--Curious and odd names--A spiteful
naturalist--The melancholy Bartzia--Common names--British
orchids--Dancing girls and columbines--Susans--Biblical names--Almond,
apple, locust--Spikenard--Tares--Effects of darnel--Daffodil--Acanthus
leaf--Ghost-disturbing branches--Elder or bour tree--Its powers and
medicinal advantage--Danewort--Mandrake--How to pull it up--The
insane root--Its properties--Plants which make bones pink--The
betel nut--Henna--Egyptian and Persian uses--Castor oil--Leeks,
onions, and garlic--Ancient use of them 363
INDEX 375
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACE PAGE
I. A SENTINEL PALM IN THE ANDREAS CAÑON, CALIFORNIA 24
II. THE GARDEN OF EDEN 32
III. A GIANT DOUGLAS FIR 40
IV. A DRAGON TREE IN THE CANARY ISLANDS 48
V. SHOOTING THE HOZU RAPIDS IN JAPAN 52
VI. A FOREST FIRE 66
VII. THRASHING CORN IN CHILE 83
VIII. WISTARIA IN KAMAIDO PARK, JAPAN 98
IX. GATHERING OLIVES IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE 108
X. THE EGYPTIAN QUEEN HATARU'S EXPEDITION 113
XI. WEIGHING THE DAY'S WORK 120
XII. A TOBACCO PLANTATION IN CUBA 127
XIII. GIANT CACTUS NEAR ACONCAGUA VALLEY, CHILE 134
XIV. THEN 146
XV. AND NOW 147
XVI. A RICEFIELD IN CHINA 160
XVII. CULTIVATED BAMBOO IN A CHINESE PLANTATION 178
XVIII. CALTHROPS 185
XIX. A LEAF RAFT 205
XX. FELLING OF GIANT TREES IN CALIFORNIA 215
XXI. A BUSHMAN DIGGING UP ELEPHANT'S FOOT 220
XXII. PINEAPPLES AS A FIELD CROP 240
XXIII. BANANA CARRIERS IN JAMAICA 248
XXIV. A COCOANUT GROVE IN CEYLON 259
XXV. COTTON-FIELDS IN GEORGIA, U.S.A. 265
XXVI. RICEFIELDS IN THE CEYLON HILLS 272
XXVII. SUGAR CANE IN QUEENSLAND 279
XXVIII. GATHERING RUBBER IN TEHUANTEPEC 304
XXIX. A LIVING BRIDGE 313
XXX. IN A KENTISH HOP GARDEN 316
XXXI. CINNAMON PEELING IN CEYLON 331
XXXII. FUNGUS IN CATERPILLAR 340
XXXIII. AN ARCTIC ALPINE PLANT 354
XXXIV. LAKE DWELLINGS IN EARLY BRITAIN 359
THE ROMANCE OF PLANT LIFE
CHAPTER I
THE ACTIVITY OF VEGETABLES
Plants which move--Sensitive Plant--A tourist from Neptune--The
World's and the British harvest--Working of green leaves--Power
of sunshine--Work done by an acre of plants--Coltsfoot,
dandelion, pansies, in sunshine and in cold--Woodsorrel and
crocus--Foxglove--Leaves and light--Adventures of a carbon
atom--The sap--Cabbages and oaks requiring water--Traveller's
tree--The water in trees--An oasis in Greece--The associate life
of its trees and flowers.
When we remember either the general appearance or the way in which
a cabbage or a turnip appears to exist, it does not seem possible
to call them active. It is difficult to imagine anything less
lively than an ordinary vegetable. They seem to us the very model
of dullness, stupidity, and slowness; they cannot move even from
one field to the next; they are "fast rooted in the soil"; "they
languidly adjust their vapid vegetable loves" like Tennyson's Oak.
In fact one usually speaks of vegetating when anybody is living a
particularly dull, unexciting kind of life in one particular place.
And it even seems as if the books, which are supposed to give us the
best information about the study of plants, and which are not very
attractive little books, quite agree with the ordinary views of the
subject.
For one finds in them that plants differ from animals in being
"incapable of motion." This, of course, just means that an animal, or
rather most animals, can walk, swim, or fly about, whilst plants have
roots and do not move from one spot to another. But it is not true to
say that plants cannot move, for most plants grow, which means that
they move, and in some few cases, we find that plants behave very
much in the same way as animals do when they are touched or excited
in any way.
We shall have to speak about tendrils, roots, and insect-catching
plants later on. But it is perhaps the Sensitive Plant which shows
most distinctly that it can shrink back or shrink together when it is
bruised or roughly handled.
It will be described in its place, but just to show that this plant
can move of its own accord, it is only necessary to hold a lighted
or burning match about an inch or so below the end of a long leaf.
If one does this then all the little leaflets begin to fold up, and
finally the main stalk droops; soon afterwards other leaves higher
up the stalk begin to be affected in the same way, and fall limply
down one after the other. It is supposed that this movement frightens
a grazing animal, who will imagine there is something uncanny about
the plant and leave it alone. There are many respects in which this
reaction of the Sensitive Plant resembles that found in animals. It
does not take place if the plant is chloroformed or treated with
ether; the leaves also get "fatigued" if too often handled, and
refuse to rise up again.
There are, however, only a very few plants in which an immediate,
visible answer to a stimulus can be detected. But all plants are
at work; they have periods of rest which correspond to our sleep,
but during their ordinary working hours they never slacken off, but
continue vigorously active.
The life of man is so short that it is difficult to realize all
that is being done by the world of plants. It is necessary to get
beyond our human ideas of time. That is most conveniently done by
considering how our plant world would strike an inhabitant of the
planet Neptune. Our theoretical Neptunian would be accustomed to a
year of 60,127 days (164 of our years); we will suppose that three of
our years are a Neptunian week, and that ten of our days are about
three-quarters of a Neptunian hour, whilst two earth-hours would be a
minute to him.
If such a being were to observe our earth, he would be astonished
at the rapidity of our vegetable world. The buds would seem to him
to swell visibly; in the course of an hour or two, the bare boughs
of the trees would clothe themselves with the luxuriant greenery of
midsummer. Hops would fly round and round their poles, climbing at
the rate of a foot a minute. Bare places, such as the gravel heaps
near a sandpit, or the bare railroad tracks at a siding, would be
perhaps in one week entirely covered by rich grass and wild flowers.
In six Neptunian months a forest of graceful larches would spring up
to a height of seventy or eighty feet.
So that, if one thinks Neptunially, the activity of plants can be
easily realized.
The truth is that we are so familiar with common annual events, such
as the regular harvest every year, that we never seem to realize what
it means. There are some 1,400,000,000 human beings on the earth
to-day, and they entirely depend on the work done every year by
cultivated and wild plants.
Even in one of the least agricultural of all civilized countries,
such as Great Britain, the cultivation of plants is still the largest
national industry. In 1897 we grew enough corn to give a ration of
1lb. per diem to every inhabitant for 68 days, and we manage to get
a large amount from every acre (28 to 33 bushels per acre). In most
other countries the relative importance of land and of agriculture
generally is very much greater than it is in Britain.
Moreover, it seems at first sight as if all this harvest had been
made out of nothing at all. Plants do take in a small amount of
mineral matter from the earth, but these minerals form but a very
little part of the bulk of a tree or any vegetable substance.
A piece of wood can be burnt up in a fire and very little indeed of
it is left. A few ashes will indeed remain, which are the minerals
taken in from the earth, but all the rest has vanished into the
atmosphere. The water which was contained in the wood has become
steam and is evaporated; the woody matter consisted chiefly of
compounds of a chemical substance, carbon, which also becomes an
invisible gas (carbonic acid gas) in a fire and goes back into the
atmosphere.
When the piece of wood was formed in a growing tree, it is easy to
see where the water came from: it was taken in by the roots. Just
as flowers drink up the water in a vase, and wither if they do not
receive enough, so all plants suck up water by their roots. The
carbonic acid gas is taken into plants through their leaves and is
worked up into sugar, starch, wood, and other matters inside the
plant.
But there is another very interesting point about the way in which
wood is burnt in a fire; heat and light are obtained from a wood
fire. Where did that heat and light come from?
If you walk in summer, under a tree in full leaf, it is much cooler
than it is in the sunshine outside. This shows what happens: the
sunshine has been taken up or absorbed by the leaves of the tree. It
does not pass through the foliage, but the heat and light are stopped
by the leaves.
The light and heat which were used up by the leaves in making wood,
sugar, and starch come back again when that wood or starch is burnt.
So that the burning up of a bit of wood is just the opposite to the
formation of that wood in sunshine in a living tree. The important
point is that it is the sunshine which is used by plants to make
all these refractory bodies, such as water, carbonic acid gas, and
others, unite together to form sugar, starch, and wood.
As the earth revolves upon its axis, sunlight falls successively on
every acre of land. Almost everywhere it is intercepted by green
foliage. Each leaf of every plant receives and absorbs as much as it
can, and, for so long as the light lasts, its living particles are
hard at work: water or sap is hurrying up the stem and streaming out
of the leaves as water vapour. Carbonic acid gas also is hurrying
into the leaves; inside these latter first sugar and then starch is
being manufactured, so that the green cells become filled with starch
or sugar.
So soon as the light fails, the work begins to slacken. When darkness
sets in, the starch changes to sugar and passes down the leaf-stalk
into the stem, where it is used up in growth, in the formation of new
wood or in supplying the developing flowers or young buds.
Next morning when the sunlight touches the plant all its little
living cells set to work again, and another day's task is begun. It
is very difficult to understand what is going on inside the leaf. If
you were to imagine a square yard of leaves all taking in sunshine
and making starch as they do in fine weather; then if you weighed
all these leaves, and then weighed them again one hour after they
had been in the sunshine, of course that square yard of leaf surface
should be heavier, because a certain amount of starch has been formed
in it. The amount actually made in one hour has been estimated by
Dr. Horace Brown as 1/500 lb. So that 100 square yards of leaves
working in sunshine for five hours might make one pound of starch.
But one can estimate the activity of plants in another way. Look at
the amount of work done by the Grass, etc., on an acre of pasture
land in one year. This might entirely support a cow and calf during
the summer; all the work done by these animals, as well as all the
work which can be done on the beef which they put on, is due to the
activity of the grasses on that acre. Moreover it is not only these
large animals that are supported, but every mouse, every bird, every
insect, and every worm which lives on that piece of ground, derives
all its energy from the activity of the plants thereon.
All work which we do with our brains or muscles involves the
consumption of food which has been formed by plants under the warm
rays of the sun.
So that man's thoughts and labour, as well as that of every living
creature, is in the first instance rendered possible by sunshine.
But the sunlight, besides this all-important function, affects plants
in other ways.
One of the most interesting of the early spring flowers is the
Coltsfoot. On bare blackish and unsightly heaps of shale one may see
quantities of its golden blossoms. Now if one looks at them on a
fine sunny day, every single blossom will be widely opened and each
will turn towards the sun.
In wet cold weather every blossom will hang its head and be tightly
closed up. Exactly the same may be observed with the Dandelion, which
is, indeed, still more sensitive than the Coltsfoot. In cold wet
weather it is so tightly closed that it is barely possible to make
out the yellow colour of the flower, but on warm sunny days it opens
wide: every one of its florets drinks in as much as possible of the
genial sunshine. Both opening and closing are produced by the warmth
and light of the sun's rays.
It is also the same with Pansies. On a fine day they spread out
widely, but in cold wet weather the heads hang over and the whole
flower shrinks together.
Perhaps the most interesting of them all are the little Woodsorrel
and the Crocus.
Both are exceedingly sensitive to sunlight, or rather to the cold. A
mere cloud passing over the sun on a fine spring morning will close
up the flowers of the Crocus. In cold weather, if you bring one of
its flowers indoors and put it near a bright light it will open
widely, sometimes in a few minutes.
What produces these changes? It is very difficult to say, but every
change helps towards the general good of the plant. In warm sunny
weather insects are flying about, and they can enter the flower if it
is open. These insects help in setting the seed (as we shall see in
another chapter). In cold wet weather the flowers are best closed,
as the rain might injure the florets and because also no insects are
abroad.
Both the Foxglove and the Blue Vetch (_Vicia Cracca_) are specially
ingenious in their way of obtaining light. For the stalk of every
separate blossom bends so that its head turns to the best lighted or
sunniest side. Thus, if you have Foxgloves planted against a wall,
every flower will turn away from it; if you plant them in a circular
bed, every one turns to the outside, so that every flower can get the
sunlight.
Every one who has kept plants in a window knows that the stems turn
towards the light. This has the effect of placing the leaves where
they can get as much sunshine as possible. The leaves themselves are
also affected by sunlight. They seem to stretch out in such a way
that they absorb as much of it as they can.
That, of course, is what they ought to do, for they want to obtain
as much as possible of the sunlight to carry on the work of forming
sugar and starch inside the leaf.
Not only each leaf by itself endeavours to place itself in the
best light-position, but all the leaves on the same spray of, for
instance, Elm, Lime, or Horsechestnut, arrange themselves so that
they interfere with one another as little as possible.[1] Very little
light is lost by escaping between the leaves, and very few of the
leaves are overshaded by their neighbours on the same branch.
[1] Kerner, _Natural History of Plants_; also Scott Elliot,
_Nature Studies--Plant Life_.
Thus all co-operate in sunlight-catching. But, when a number of
different plants are competing together to catch the light on one
square yard of ground, their leaves try to overreach and get beyond
their neighbours.
On such a square yard of ground, it is just the competition amongst
the plants, that makes it certain that every gleam of light is used
by one or other of them.
Every one of all those plants of itself alters the slope of its
leaves and turns its stems so as to get as much light as possible.
This light, as we have seen, is taken in by the plant. It is used to
make the gas, carbonic acid,[2] unite with water: when these are made
to join together, they form sugar; if the sugar is burnt the heat and
light appear again.
[2] The gas Carbonic acid consists of one part of Carbon and
two of Oxygen. It is invisible, just as are the gaseous states
of many liquids and solids. Water-vapour is not visible, though
water (liquid) and ice can of course be seen. Starch, sugar, cell
wall substance, etc., all contain Carbon, Oxygen, and Hydrogen.
Vegetable fat is not well understood, but starch helps to form it.
By changing the amount and arrangement of the molecules in sugar,
starch or vegetable fats, and many other substances can be formed.
But it is the sunlight that makes all this possible.
Thus the sun not merely supplies the motive power for all animal
and vegetable activity but, by its influence, flowers, leaves, and
stems move and turn in such ways that they are in the most convenient
position to intercept its light.
The sunlight, though all-important in the life of most plants, kills
many kinds of bacteria and bacilli which love the darkness. The
well-known radium rays are also destructive to bacteria, and hinder
the growth of certain fungi (Becquerel's rays have a similar effect).
The X-rays are not so well understood, but one can close the leaflets
of the Sensitive Plant by means of them.
Carbonic acid gas forms but a small proportion of the atmosphere
which surrounds a growing plant. Yet there is no lack of it, for when
the leaf is at work forming sugar the particles of gas are rushing
into the leaf, and other particles come from elsewhere to take their
place. Every fire and every breath given off by an animal yields up
carbonic acid, so that it is constantly in circulation.
This is more easily seen by tracing the probable history of an atom
of carbon. We will suppose that it enters a grass leaf as carbonic
acid gas and becomes starch: next evening it will become sugar and
may pass from cell to cell up the stem to where the fruit or grain
is ripening. It will be stored up as starch in the grain. This grass
will become hay and in due course be eaten by a bullock. The starch
is changed and may be stored up in the fat of the animal's body. When
this is eaten at somebody's dinner, the fat will most probably be
consumed or broken up; this breaking up may be compared to a fire,
for heat is given off, and the heat in this case will keep up the
body-temperature of the person. The carbon atom will again become
carbonic acid gas, for it will take part of the oxygen breathed in,
and be returned to the atmosphere as carbonic acid gas when the
person is breathing.
Another atom of carbon might enter the leaves of a tree: it will be
sent down as sugar into the trunk and perhaps stored up as vegetable
fat for the winter. Next spring the vegetable fat becomes starch and
then sugar: as sugar it will go to assist in forming woody material.
It may remain as wood for a very long time, possibly 150 to 200
years: then the tree falls and its wood begins to decay.
The bark begins to break and split because beetles and woodlice and
centipedes are burrowing between the bark and the wood. Soon a very
minute spore of a fungus will somehow be carried inside the bark,
very likely sticking to the legs of a beetle. This will germinate
and begin to give out dissolving ferments which, with the aid of
bacteria, attack the wood. Our carbon atom is probably absorbed
into the fungus. Very soon the mushroom-like heads of this fungus
begin to swell and elongate; they burst through the bark and form a
clump of reddish-yellow Paddock-stools. A fly comes to the fungus
and lays an egg in it. This egg becomes a fat, unpleasant little
maggot which eats the fungus, and amongst others devours our carbon
atom, which again becomes fat in its body. Then a tomtit or other
small bird comes along and eats the maggot. That bird stays out too
late one evening and is eaten by an owl. The owl, satisfied with a
good meal, allows itself to be surprised and shot by a keeper. When
its body is nailed to a door and decays away, the carbon atom again
takes up oxygen and becomes carbonic acid gas, which escapes into the
atmosphere, and is ready for a fresh series of adventures.
We must now consider the water which with carbonic acid gas makes up
sugar, etc. All plants contain a large percentage of water. This may
be as much as 95 to 98 per cent in water plants, and 50 to 70 per
cent. in ordinary tissues; it is contained in every sort of vegetable
substance.
But there is also a stream of water or sap which is almost always
entering the roots, rising up the stem, and passing into the leaves.
On these leaves there are hundreds of minute openings called stomata,
by which the water escapes as water-vapour into the atmosphere. A
single oak leaf may have 2,000,000 of these stomata.
It is this current of sap which keeps the leaf fresh and vigorous; it
is also by this current that every living cell is supplied with water
and kept in a strong, healthy condition.
The amount of water used in this way is very great; in four months
an acre of cabbages will transpire or give out through its leaves
3,500,000 pints of water and an acre of hops from 5-1/2 to 7
millions. A single oak tree, supposed to have 700,000 leaves, must
apparently have given off into the atmosphere during five months
230,000 lb. of water.
Sometimes the water is so abundant in the plant that it collects
as drops on the tips of the leaves and falls off as fluid water. A
very young greenhouse plant (_Caladium nymphaefolium_) was found by
Molisch to give off 190 water-drops a minute, and in one night it
exuded one-seventeenth of a pint.
The water is found stored up in the stems or leaves of plants,
especially those of hot or dry climates. The Madagascar Traveller's
Tree, _Ravenala_, has a considerable amount of water in a hollow at
the base of its leaf, and it is possible to drink this water. The
usual story is to the effect that a panting traveller finds this
palm in the middle of the desert, and saves his life by quenching
his thirst with its crystal-clear water. Unfortunately the tree
never grows far from marshy ground or springs, and the water, which
I tasted for curiosity, had an unpleasant vegetable taste, with
reminiscences of bygone insect life.
These are, of course, exceptional cases; as a rule the tiny
root-hairs search and explore the soil; the sap or ascending current
passes up the stem and pours out into the atmosphere. There the
vapour is hurried off by winds, and eventually condenses and, falling
as snow or rain on the earth, again sinks down into the soil.
It is very difficult to understand how the sap or water rises in the
trunks of tall trees; we know that along the path of the sap inside,
the root-hairs and other cells in the root, the various cells in
the stem, and finally those of the leaf, are all kept supplied and
distended or swollen out with water. All these living cells seem to
have the power of absorbing or sucking in water,[3] and eventually
they are so full and distended within, that the internal pressure
becomes almost incredible. Wieler found in the young wood of a Scotch
fir that the pressure was sixteen atmospheres, or 240 lb. to the
square inch. Dixon, when experimenting with leaf-cells, found ten,
twenty, or even thirty atmospheres (150 to 450 lb. to the square
inch). No locomotive engine has cylinders strong enough to resist
such internal pressures as these. It is an extraordinary fact, and
one almost incredible, that the cells can stand such pressures.
[3] The ascent is assisted by the osmotic absorption of water at
the root and by evaporation at the leaves.
[Illustration:
_Stereo Copyright, Underwood & Underwood_
_London and New York_
A SENTINEL PALM IN THE ANDREAS CAÑON, CALIFORNIA
This and such palms are often placed at the mouths of cañons to
indicate water, and may, indeed, thus save the lives of passing
travellers.]
Yet these minute living cells not only exist but work at this high
tension, and, in some cases, they live to about fifty years.
In this favoured country of Great Britain, it is unusual to find any
serious lack of water. But in Italy or Greece, every drop of it is
valuable and carefully husbanded.
Sometimes in such arid dry countries, a small spring of water
will form around itself a refreshing oasis of greenery surrounded
everywhere by dreary thorn-scrub or monotonous sand. All the plants
in such a spot have their own special work to do: the graceful trees
which shade the spring, the green mosses on the stones, the fresh
grass and bright flowers or waving reeds, are all associated in a
common work. They protect and shelter each other; their dead leaves
are used to form soil; their roots explore and break up the ground.
It is true that they are competing with one another for water and for
light, but they are all forming a mutual protection, and producing an
annual harvest.
In a climate like our own we cannot, like the Greek, suppose a Nymph
in the shape of a lovely young woman watching over the spring, for
she would infallibly suffer from rheumatism and ague.
But every living cell in every plant in such an oasis depends upon
the water of the spring. All the plants there form an association
which can be quite well compared to a city or some other association
of human beings. They do compete, for they struggle to do the most
work for the good of the community, and they incidentally obtain
their livelihood in the process.
Most plant societies or associations such as those which cover Great
Britain are not so obviously dependent on one particular spring, but
the plants composing them are associated in a very similar way.
CHAPTER II
ON SAVAGES, DOCTORS, AND PLANTS
Savages knew Botany--First lady doctors and botanical
excursions--True drugs and horrible ornaments--Hydrophobia
cure--Cloves--Mustard--Ivy--Roses and Teeth--How to keep
hair on--How to know if a patient will recover--Curious
properties of a mushroom--The Scythian lamb--Quinine:
history and use--Safflower--Romance of ipecacuanha--Wars
of the spice trade--Cinnamon, dogwood, and indigo--Romance
of pepper--Babylonian and Egyptian botanists--Chinese
discoveries--Theophrastus--Medieval times--The first illustrated
book--Numbers of plants known--Discoveries of painters and poets.
If we look back to the time when all men and women were mere savages,
living like the Esquimaux or the Australians of to-day, then it is
certain that every person was much interested in plants. Nothing was
so interesting as daily food, because no one was ever certain of even
one good meal in the day.
So that in those early times there was a very sound, well-grounded
knowledge of roots, bulbs, and fruits. They knew all that were good
to eat, all that could possibly be eaten in time of famine and
starvation, and also every poisonous and unwholesome plant.
Some savage genius must have discovered that certain plants were
"good medicine"; that certain tree-barks helped to check fever, and
that others were worth trying when people had successfully devoured
more than they could comfortably digest. The life of a savage meant
tremendous meals, followed by days of starvation; even now, when
young children are fed on rice in India, a thread is tied round their
waist, and, when this bursts, they are not allowed to eat any more.
Very probably some of these early physicians were lady doctors
usually of a certain age. Men were too busy with their hunting
and warfare to have time to try experiments with drugs, to make
concoctions of herbs all more or less disquieting and to find out if
these were of any use.
So that such medicine-men or witches gradually came to understand
enough about poisons or fruits to make themselves respected and
even feared. They would, no doubt, make botanical excursions in
the forest, accompanied by their pupils, in order to point out the
poisonous and useful drugs.
It is worth noting, in passing, that this habit of botanical
professors going on excursions with medical students has persisted
down to our own times, probably without any break in the continuity.
But it was soon found advisable to make this knowledge secret and
difficult to get. They did not really know so very much, and a
mysterious, solemn manner and a quantity of horrible and unusual
objects placed about the hut[4] would perhaps prevent some irate and
impatient savage patient from throwing a spear at his wizard--or
witch-doctor.
[4] This is still the custom in the huts of the wizard or
medicine-man in West Africa, where one finds small cushions stuck
over with all sorts of poisonous plants, bits of human bones, and
other loathsome accessories.
Shakespeare alludes to this in _Macbeth_. "Scale of Dragon; tooth of
wolf; witches' mummy; maw and gulf of the ravin'd salt sea shark;
root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark; ... gall of goat and slips of
yew"; and so on.
Most of their cures were faith-cures, and they were, no doubt,
much more likely to be successful when the patient believed he was
being treated with some dreadful stew of all sorts of wonderful and
horrible materials.
This explains how it was that the knowledge of medicine became so
mixed up with pure charlatanism and swindling that no man could tell
which drugs were of real use and which were mere ornaments giving
piquancy and flavour to the prescription. It is not possible to say
that a snake's head, the brain of a toad, the gall of a crocodile,
and the whiskers of a tiger, were all of them absolutely useless.
Within the last few years it has been found that an antidote to
snake-bite can be obtained from a decoction of part of the snake
itself, and it has also been discovered that small quantities of
virulent poisons are amongst our most valuable and powerful remedies.
Whether the savages and their successors the doctors of feudal
times even down to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, suspected
or believed that this was the case must remain a rather doubtful
hypothesis, but there is no question "that the hair of the dog that
bit him" theory of medicine was very prevalent.
The following was a cure for hydrophobia of a more elaborate nature:
"I learned of a Friend who had tried it effectual to cure the Biting
of a Mad Dog; take the Leaves and Roots of Cowslips, of the leaves of
Box and Pennyroyal of each a like quantity; shred them small to put
them into Hot Broth and let it be so taken Three Days Together and
apply the herbs to the bitten place with Soap and Hog's suet melted
together" (Parkinson).
This prescription is not so preposterous as it sounds. Box and
Pennyroyal both contain essences which would be in all probability
fatal to the germ of hydrophobia, and the soap and hog's suet would
keep air from the wound.
Other prescriptions read like our modern patent medicines.
"Good Cloves comfort the Brain and the Virtue of Feeling, and help
also against Indigestion and Ache of the Stomach" (Bartholomew).
"Senvey" (the old name of mustard) "healeth smiting of Serpents and
overcometh venom of the Scorpions and abateth Toothache and cleanseth
the Hair and letteth" (that is, prevents or tends to prevent) "the
falling thereof. If it be drunk fasting, it makes the Intellect good."
Even in those days the people can scarcely have believed that
drinking mustard improved the intellect. Many of the remedies and
cures are obviously false, for example the following:--
"A man crowned with Ivy cannot get drunk."
"Powder of dry Roses comforteth wagging Teeth that be in point to
fall."
The fact that the surgeon was also a barber, and also a
"face-specialist," appears from the two following:--
"Leaves of Chestnut burnt to powder and tempered with Vinegar and
laid to a man's Head plaisterwise maketh Hair increase and keepeth
hair from falling."
Those whose hair turned grey could employ the following
prescription:--
"Leaves of Mulberry sod in rainwater maketh black hair."
If a doctor was not quite sure of the endurance of a patient under
these heroic remedies, he could easily find out if he would recover,
for it was only necessary to try the following:--
"Celandine with the heart of a Mouldwarp" (that is mole, _Scottice_
moudiewort) "laid under the Heade of one that is grievouslie Sicke,
if he be in danger of Death, immediately he will cry out with a loud
voice or sing; if not, he will weep."
In Lightfoot's _Flora Scotica_, there is an interesting account of
the Fly Mushroom (_Agaricus muscarius_) which is not very rare in
Britain, and which may be easily recognized by the bright red top or
cap, with whitish scales scattered over it, and a sort of ring of
loose white tissue round the stalk.
"It has an acrid and deleterious quality. The inhabitants of
Kamschatka prepare a liquor from an infusion of this Agaric which
taken in a small quantity exhilarates the spirits, but in a larger
dose brings on a trembling of the nerves, intoxication, delirium
and melancholy. Linnæus informs us that flies are killed or at
least stupefied by an infusion of this fungus in milk and that
the expressed juice of it anointed on bedsteads and other places
effectually destroys"--what we may describe as certain lively and
pertinacious insects with a great affection for man!
As a matter of fact the fungus is said to be a deadly poison.[5]
[5] Cooke, _British Fungi_.
These quotations are enough to show how the real medical knowledge
of those times was encrusted with all sorts of faith-curing devices,
sheer falsehoods, and superstitions. The most learned men of the
Middle Ages were almost invariably monks and hermits, for there was
nothing in the world of those strenuous times to attract a studious,
sensitive disposition. The spirit of their learning can be judged
from the wearisome disquisitions and lengthy volumes written about
the Barnacle Goose and Scythian Lamb.
In certain deserts along the Volga River in Russia, a peculiar
fern may be found. It might be described as resembling a gigantic
Polypody; the stem is about as thick as a lamb's body and grows
horizontally on the ground like that of the common fern mentioned;
thick furry scales cover the outside of its stem, which ends at the
tip in an elongated point. The blackish-green leaf-stalks springing
from the furry stem end in large divided green leaves.
It occurred to some medieval humorist to cut off the upper part of
the leaf-stalks, and to make a sort of toy lamb out of the four
leaf-stalk stumps and part of the woolly or furry stem.
This was palmed off as a wonderful curiosity of nature, as "a plant
that became an animal," upon the ingenuous tourist of the period.
Such a subject was thoroughly congenial to the learned mind in the
Middle Ages, and an enormous quantity of literature was produced in
consequence. The general theory is given in the following lines:--
"Cradled in snow and fanned by Arctic air,
Shines, gentle Barometz, thy golden hair,
Rooted in earth each cloven hoof descends,
And round and round her flexile neck she bends,
Crops the grey coralmoss and hoary thyme,
Or laps with rosy tongue the melting rime,
Eyes with mute tenderness her distant dam,
Or seems to bleat, a vegetable lamb."
Such is the old idea of a well-known fern, _Cibotium barometz_.
Yet the original researches of some African "Obi" wizard or red
Indian were not forgotten, and gradually came into practice.
[Illustration: THE GARDEN OF EDEN
The title-page of John Parkinson's "Paradisus." In the distance
may be seen a Scythian Lamb growing on its tree, and in the
foreground many plants are shown as well as Adam and Eve.]
It must be remembered that these savages were true scientific
experimentalists, and made discoveries which have been of infinite
service to mankind. We remember great men like Harvey, Lister, and
Pasteur, but we never think of the Indian who discovered quinine.
The quinine trees, the yellow variety or _Calisaya cinchona_, grow
in the mountains of north-eastern Bolivia and south-eastern Peru,
in wild, inaccessible places at heights of 5000 to 6000 feet. The
Indians probably experimented with almost every part of every
wild tree before they discovered the wonderful properties of this
particular species. The quinine in nature is probably intended to
prevent some fungus or small insect from attacking the bark: when
quinine is used in malaria, it kills the fever germ which attacks
the blood corpuscles of the sick person, so that it is of the utmost
importance in all tropical countries.
When the Jesuit fathers reached Peru and made friends and converts
of the Indians, they discovered this remedy. Soon after the Countess
de Chinchon, wife of the Viceroy of Peru, fell seriously ill of
fever and was cured by the use of Jesuit's bark or quinine. It was
introduced into Europe about 1638, but for a very long time the
entire supply came from South America. The British Indian government
were paying some £12,000 every year for South American quinine and,
at the same time, the supply was running short, for the Indians were
cutting down every tree.
At last, in 1859 (on the suggestion of Dr. Royle in 1839), the
adventurous journeys of Clements Markham, Spruce, and Robert Cross
resulted in the introduction of the Cinchona now flourishing in
Madras, Bombay, and Ceylon. In 1897 British colonies produced about
£43,415 worth of quinine, and the price is now only 7-1/2d. or 8d. a
pound!
Such drugs as Safflower are of very ancient date. It was commonly
employed in Egypt with other dyes and spices for embalming mummies.
It is now used with carbonate of soda and citric acid to give a pink
dye to silks and satins, and occasionally, in the form of rouge, to
ladies' cheeks! How did the ancient Egyptians discover that this
particular thistle-like plant (_Carthamus tinctorius_) had flowers
from which a red dye could be extracted by a tedious process of
soaking in water? The natural colour of the flowers is not red but
yellow.
The history of other drugs reads like a romance. Ipecacuanha, for
instance, was discovered by some unknown Indian who lived in the
damp tropical forests of Brazil and New Granada. A worthy merchant
in Paris obtained a little of the drug in the way of trade. Shortly
afterwards he became very ill and was attended by a certain Dr.
Helvetius, who was exceedingly attentive to him. The grateful
merchant gave the kind-hearted physician some ipecacuanha. In the
course of time the great King Louis XIV's son fell ill of dysentery,
and Helvetius received 1000 louis d'or for his ipecacuanha.
A very interesting and romantic history might be written about the
effect of drugs, dyes, and spices in developing trade. During the
time when Britain was struggling to obtain a share of the foreign
trade of Holland and France, such spices as Clove, Cinnamon, and
Pepper were of the greatest importance. The Dutch, especially,
adopted every possible method to keep the spice trade in their own
hands. They cut down the clove, cinnamon, and other trees, in all
the islands not directly under their control. They imposed the most
barbarous penalties on any interloper. For instance, any one who sold
a single stick of cinnamon in Ceylon was punished with death. When
the English captured the island in 1796, all such restrictions were
of course repealed. Nevertheless its cultivation remained a monopoly
of the East India Company until 1832.
Logwood (_Haematoxylon campechianum_) is closely connected with the
story of adventure and colonisation in the West Indies. Its use
was at first forbidden by Queen Elizabeth as it did not yield fast
colours; this was because the dyers of those times did not know of
any mordant to fix them. Yet this is one of the few vegetable dyes
which retain their position in the market in these days of aniline
colours, and it is said to be a large constituent, with brandy, of
cheap "port wine."
Indigo was known to the Romans, who imported it from India on
camel-back by way of the Persian and Syrian desert. In the fifteenth
century, when the Dutch began to introduce it in large quantities, it
was found to interfere with the "woad"[6] (_Isatis tinctoria_) which
was then a very important cultivated plant in Europe. In Nuremberg,
an oath was administered once a year to all the manufacturers and
dyers, by which they bound themselves not to use the "devil's dye,"
as they called Indigo. Its more recent history shows a very different
system. In Assam and other parts of British India, enormous sums of
money have been invested in indigo plantations. It has been estimated
that four million pounds was invested, and that a population of
something like 700 Europeans and 850 workmen to the square mile in
Behar, were entirely supported by indigo plantations.
[6] The same "woad" which was used by the Britons to paint
themselves with.
Now all these planters are ruined and the population is dispersed,
because German indigo manufactured from coal-tar is destroying
the sale of the British-grown material. The plant has pretty blue
flowers and belongs to the _Leguminous_ order. The dye is obtained by
steeping the leaves and young branches in water, and it is finally
turned out in blue powder or cakes.
Perhaps the most interesting of all these drugs is Pepper. The
Dutch, in the days of Queen Elizabeth, had a monopoly of the East
Indian trade, and they tried to cut down or burn all spice trees
except those in their own control. They could thus form a corner in
pepper, and alter the price as they felt inclined. At one period they
doubled the price, raising it from three shillings to six shillings
per pound. This annoyed the London merchants so much that they met
together and formed the "Society of Merchants and Adventurers trading
to the East Indies." This was of course the original source of our
great East Indian trade, and later on resulted in the Indian Empire.
At present, and for centuries past, the whole world is searched and
explored for drugs and spices. Our medicinal rhubarb for instance,
grows in China on the frontiers of Tibet; it is carried over the
mountains of China to Kiaghta in Siberia, and from thence taken right
across Russian Siberia to London and New York. It is closely allied
to the common or garden rhubarb, which grows wild on the banks of the
Volga.
It is only our duty to remember with gratitude all those long since
departed botanists who have made our life so full of luxury and have
supplied our doctors with all kinds of medicines.
The first doctors were of course just savage botanists, but as soon
as men began to write down their experiences, we find botanical
treatises. The first, and for a very long time the only, botanical
books were intended to teach medical students the names and how to
recognize useful flowers and drugs.
Medicinal herbs such as mandrake, garlic, and mint are found
described on those clay cylinders which were used in Babylon instead
of books, about 4000 B.C., that is some 6000 years ago! The Egyptians
thought that "kindly, healing plants," such as opium, almonds, figs,
castor-oil, dates, and olives, were derived from the "blood and tears
of the gods"; that would be about 3000 B.C. It is not known how far
back Chinese botany can be traced, but, by the twelfth century before
Christ, some three hundred plants were known, including ginger,
liquorice, rhubarb, and cinnamon.
Theophrastus, who flourished about 300 B.C., was a scientific
botanist far ahead of his time. His notes about the mangroves in the
Persian gulf are still of some importance. It is said that some two
thousand botanical students attended his lectures.[7] It is doubtful
if any professor of botany has ever since that time had so large a
number of pupils. Dioscorides, who lived about 64 B.C., wrote a book
which was copied by the Pliny (78 A.D.), who perished in the eruption
of Vesuvius. The botany of the Middle Ages seems to have been mainly
that of Theophrastus and Dioscorides. In the tenth century we find
an Arab, Ibn Sina, whose name has been commemorated in the name of a
plant, Avicennia, publishing the first illustrated text-book, for he
gave coloured diagrams to his pupils.
[7] Lascelles, _Pharm. Journ._, 23 May, 1903.
After this there was exceedingly little discovery until comparatively
recent times.
But Grew in 1682 and Malpighi in 1700 began to work with the
microscope, and with the work of Linnæus in 1731 modern botany was
well started and ready to develop.[8]
[8] Bonnier, _Cours de Botanique_.
It is interesting to compare the numbers of plants known at various
periods, so as to see how greatly our knowledge has been increased of
recent years. Theophrastus (300 B.C.) knew about 500 plants. Pliny
(78 A.D.) knew 1000 species by name. Linnæus in 1731 raised the
number to 10,000. Saccardo in 1892 gives the number of plants then
known as follows:--
Flowering Plants 105,231 species
Ferns 2819 "
Horsetails and Club-mosses 565 "
Mosses 4609 "
Liverworts 3041 "
Lichens 5600 "
Fungi 39,663 "
Seaweeds 12,178 "
-------
173,706[9]
[9] Saccardo, _Atti d. Congresso, Bot. Intern. di Genova_, 1892.
But, during the years that have elapsed since 1892, many new species
have been described, so that we may estimate that at least 200,000
species are now known to mankind.
But it is in the inner meaning and general knowledge of the life of
plants that modern botany has made the most extraordinary progress.
It is true that we are still burdened with medieval terminology.
There are such names as "galbulus," "amphisarca," and "inferior
drupaceous pseudocarps," but these are probably disappearing.
The great ideas that plants are living beings, that every detail in
their structure has a meaning in their life, and that all plants
are more or less distant cousins descended from a common ancestor,
have had extraordinary influence in overthrowing the unintelligent
pedantry so prevalent until 1875.
Yet there were many, not always botanists, of much older date, who
made great discoveries in the science. Leonardo da Vinci, the great
painter, seems to have had quite a definite idea of the growth of
trees, for he found out that the annual rings on a tree-stem are
thin on the northern and thick on the southern side of the trunk.
Dante[10] seems to have also understood the effect of sunlight in
ripening the vine and producing the growth of plants (_Purgatorio_,
xxv. 77). Goethe seems to have been almost the first to understand
how leaves can be changed in appearance when they are intended to act
in a different way. Petals, stamens, as well as some tendrils and
spines, are all modified leaves. There is also a passage in Virgil,
or perhaps more distinctly in Cato, which is held to show that the
ancients knew that the group of plants, _Leguminosæ_, in some way
improved the soil. I have also tried to show that Shelley had a more
or less distinct idea of the "warning" or conspicuous colours (reds,
purples, spotted, and speckled) which are characteristic of many
poisonous plants (see p. 238).
[10]
"Guarda il calor del sol che si fa vino
Giunto all' umor che dalla vite cola."
He is speaking of wine--that "lovable blood," as he describes it.
But if we begin with the unlettered savage, one can trace the very
slow and gradual growth of the science of plant-life persisting all
through the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages, and recent times, until
about fifty or sixty years ago, when a sudden great development
began, which gives us, we hope, the promise of still more wonderful
discoveries.
CHAPTER III
A TREE'S PERILOUS LIFE
Hemlock spruce and pine forests--Story of a pine seedling--Its
struggles and dangers--The gardener's boot--Turpentine of
pines--The giant sawfly--Bark beetles--Their effect on
music--Storm and strength of trees--Tall trees and long
seaweeds--Eucalyptus, big trees--Age of trees--Venerable
sequoias, oaks, chestnuts, and olives--Baobab and
Dragontree--Rabbits as woodcutters--Fire as protection--Sacred
fires--Dug-out and birch-bark canoes--Lake dwellings--Grazing
animals and forest destruction--First kind of cultivation--Old
forests in England and Scotland--Game preserving.
"The murmuring pines and the hemlocks
Stand like harpers hoar with beards that rest on their
bosom."--_Longfellow._
Of course the Hemlock here alluded to is not the "hemlock rank
growing on the weedy bank," which the cow is adjured not to eat in
Wordsworth's well-known lines. (If the animal had, however, obeyed
the poet's wishes and eaten "mellow cowslips," it would probably have
been seriously ill.) The "Hemlock" is the Hemlock spruce, a fine
handsome tree which is common in the forests of Eastern North America.
These primeval forests of Pine and Fir and Spruce have always taken
the fancy of poets. They are found covering craggy and almost
inaccessible mountain valleys; even a tourist travelling by train
cannot but be impressed by their sombre, gloomy monotony, by their
obstinacy in growing on rocky precipices on the worst possible
soil, in spite of storm and snow.
[Illustration: _Canadian Pacific Railway_
A GIANT DOUGLAS FIR
This species of fir tree grows to an enormous height in British
Columbia. It is now being planted in many Scotch forests.]
But to realize the romance of a Pine forest, it is necessary to
tramp, as in Germany one sometimes has to do, for thirty miles
through one unending black forest of Coniferous trees; there are no
towns, scarcely a village or a forester's hut. The ground is covered
with brown, dead needles, on which scarcely even green moss can
manage to live.
Then one realizes the irritating monotony of the branches of Pines
and Spruces, and their sombre, dark green foliage produces a morose
depression of spirit.
The Conifers are, amongst trees, like those hard-set, gloomy, and
determined Northern races whose life is one long, continuous strain
of incessant endeavour to keep alive under the most difficult
conditions.
From its very earliest infancy a young Pine has a very hard time. The
Pine-cones remain on the tree for two years. The seeds inside are
slowly maturing all this while, and the cone-scales are so welded
or soldered together by resin and turpentine that no animal could
possibly injure them. How thorough is the protection thus afforded to
the young seeds, can only be understood if one takes a one-year-old
unopened cone of the Scotch Fir and tries to get them out. It does
not matter what is used; it may be a saw, a chisel, a hammer, or an
axe: the little elastic, woody, turpentiny thing can only be split
open with an infinite amount of trouble and a serious loss of calm.
When these two years have elapsed, the stalk of the cone grows so
that the scales are separated, and the seeds become rapidly dry and
are carried away by the wind.
These seeds are most beautiful and exquisitely fashioned.
The seed itself is small and flattened. It contains both resin and
food material, and is enclosed in a tough leathery skin which is
carried out beyond the seed into a long, very thin, papery wing,
which has very nearly the exact shape of the screw or propeller of a
steamer. This wing or screw is intended to give the seed as long a
flight in the air as possible before it reaches the ground. If you
watch them falling from the tree, or throw one up into the air and
observe it attentively, you will see that it twirls or revolves round
and round exactly like the screw of a steamship. It is difficult to
explain what happens without rather advanced mathematics, but it is
just the reverse of what happens in the steamer.
The machinery in the steamer turns the screw, and the pressure of the
water, which is thrown off, forces the boat through the water; in the
case of the pineseed, the pressure of the air on the flying wings
makes the seed twirl or turn round and round, and so the seed must
be a much longer time in falling. They often fly to about 80 or 100
yards away from the parent tree.
Once upon the ground, the seed has to germinate _if it can_; its root
has to pierce the soil or find a way in between crevices of rocks or
sharp-edged stones. All the time it is exposed to danger from birds,
beasts, and insects, which are only kept off by its resin. But it is
difficult to see, for its colour is just that of dead pine needles
and its shape is such that it easily slips into crevices. Then the
seven or eight small green seed leaves break out of the tough seed
coat, and the seedling is now a small tree two inches high. It may
have to grow up through grass or bramble, or through bracken, which
last is perhaps still more dangerous and difficult. It will probably
be placed in a wood or plantation where hundreds of thousands of its
cousins are all competing together. "In this case, the struggle
for life is intense: each tree seeking for sunlight tries to push
its leader-shoots up above the general mass of foliage; but all are
growing in height, whilst the lateral branches which are cramped
by the neighbouring trees are continually thrown off. The highest
branches alone get sufficient light to remain alive, but they cannot
spread out freely. They are strictly limited to a definite area; the
crown is small and crowded by those of the trees next to it, and the
trunk is of extraordinary length."
The above quotation from Albert Fron's _Sylviculture_ (Paris, 1903)
refers to an artificial forest cultivated and watched over by man.
But the trees in such forests have "extra" dangers and difficulties
to fight against. Even scientific foresters admit that they are very
ignorant of what they are trying to do. In fact, the more scientific
they are, the more readily they will confess how little they really
know.
Watch a labourer in a nursery transplanting young pine trees; each
seedling tree has a long main root which is intended to grow as
straight down into the ground as it possibly can. All the other roots
branch off sideways, slanting downwards, and make a most perfect
though complicated absorbing system. With his large hand the man
grasps a tree and lifts it to a shallow groove which he has cut in
the soil. Then his very large, heavy-nailed boot comes hard down on
the tender root-system. The main root, which ought to point down,
points sideways or upwards or in any direction, and the beautifully
arranged absorbing system is entirely spoilt. The wretched seedling
has to make a whole new system of roots, and in some trees never
recovers.
All sorts of animals, insects, and funguses are ready to attack our
young tree. Squirrels in play will nibble off its leading shoots.
Cattle will rub against its bark, and the roedeer, a very beautiful
creature, and yet a destructive little fiend from the tree's point of
view, nibbles the young shoots and tears the bark with its horns.
A tree's life is full of peril and danger. Yet it is most wonderfully
adapted to survive them. Take a knife and cut into the bark of a pine
tree, and immediately a drop of resin collects and gathers on the
wound. After a short time this will harden and entirely cover the
scar. Why?
There are in the woods, especially in Canada and North Russia,
hundreds of insects belonging to the most different kinds, which have
the habit of laying their eggs in the wood of tree-trunks. In those
regions the entire country is in the winter covered with snow and
ice for many months. Insects must find it difficult to live, for the
ground is frozen to a depth of many feet. Where are the eggs of these
insects to be stored up so that they can last through the winter
without injury?
There is one insect at least, or rather many, of which the Giant
Sawfly may be taken as an example, which have ingeniously solved
this problem. She painfully burrows into the trunk of a tree and
deposits her eggs with a store of food at the end of the burrow. A
drop of resin or turpentine, which would clog her jaws, makes this a
difficult task, but, as we find in many other instances, it is not
impossible, but only a difficulty to conquer. If it were not for the
resin, trees might be much more frequently destroyed by Sawflies than
they are.
The larvæ of the Sawfly is a long, fleshy maggot. Just at the end
are the strong woodcutting jaws by which it devours the wood and
eats its way out as soon as it feels the genial warmth of spring
penetrating through the tree-bark. Many other insects hibernate or
lay their eggs in tree-trunks. Some are caterpillars of moths, such
as the well-known Goat moth; others are beetles, such as one which
burrows between the bark and the wood of apple trees. The mother
beetle lays a series of eggs on each side of her own track. Each
egg produces a grub which eats its way sideways away from the track
of the mother. The track made by these grubs gets gradually wider,
because the maggots themselves grow larger and more fat with the
distance that they have got from their birthplace. We shall find
other instances of burrowing insects when we are dealing with rubber
plants.
This resin or turpentine is a very interesting and peculiar
substance, or rather series of substances. It is valuable because
tar, pitch, rosin, and colophony are obtained by distilling it.
When travelling through the coast forests of pine trees in the Landes
of Western France, one notices great bare gashes on the stems leading
round and down the trunk to a small tin cup or spout. These trees are
being tapped for resin, from which rosin is manufactured. It would be
difficult to find any obvious connexion between music and the Giant
Sawfly. Yet the rosin used by Paganini and Kubelik has probably been
developed in Conifers to keep away sawflies and other enemies. This
very district, the Landes in France, was once practically a desert,
and famous as such in French history. The soil was so barren that no
villages or cultivation were found over the whole length of it. Now
that it is planted with trees which are able to yield firewood and
rosin, it is comparatively rich and prosperous.
Storms are also very dangerous for tree-life. One can only realize
the beauty of a tree by watching a pine or ash in a heavy gale of
wind. The swing of the branches, the swaying of the trunk, the
balancing support of the roots which, buttress-like, extend out into
the soil, give some idea of the extraordinary balance, toughness,
and strength in trees. Except in the case of the common umbrella,
which is an inefficient instrument in high wind, engineers have
never attempted the solution of the problem satisfactorily solved by
trees. A factory chimney only 51 feet in height will have a diameter
at the base of at least three feet. This means that the height is
about seventeen times its diameter. But the Ryeplant, with a diameter
at base of 3 millimetres, may be 1500 mm. high! That is, the height
is five hundred times its diameter, and the Ryeplant has leaves
and grain to support as well as its own stem! In Pine forests on
exposed mountain sides there is almost always at least a murmuring
sound, which in a storm rises into weird howls and shrieks. With
Greek insight and imagination, the ancients supposed that spirits
were imprisoned in these suffering, straining pines. That is most
beautifully expressed in _The Tempest_, where the dainty spirit
Ariel had been painfully confined in a pine tree for a dozen years,
and "his groans did make wolves howl and penetrate the breasts of
ever-angry bears."
One of the most interesting points in botany depends on the fact that
evil conditions of any sort tend to bring about their own remedy.
Endymion's spear was of "toughest ash grown on a windy site" (Keats).
The prosaic chemical analyses of German botanists have, in fact,
confirmed the theory there suggested, for it is found that the wood
of trees grown in exposed windy places is really denser and tougher
than that of others from sheltered woods.[11]
[11] Hartig finds the specific gravity of the wood in a tree is
increased from 0-60 to 0.74 when the surrounding wood has been
cut down.--_Bot. Central_, vol. xxx, p. 220.
If one realizes all these dangers from insects, animals, and storms,
the height to which some trees grow and the age to which they live
become matters for astonishment and surprise.
The tallest trees in the world are probably certain Eucalyptus of
Australia, which have obtained a height of 495 feet above the ground.
They are by no means the _longest_ plants, for there are certain
_rattans_ or canes, climbing plants belonging to the Palm family,
which may be 900 feet long, although their diameter is not more than
two inches.[12] There are also certain Seaweeds in the Southern
Ocean, off the coast of Chile, which attain a prodigious length
of 600 feet (_Macrocystis pyriferus_, or "Kelp"). That is not so
remarkable, for their weight is supported by other plants in the case
of the rattans, and as regards the seaweeds, by the water in which
they float.
[12] Bonnier, _Cours de Botanique_.
The next in order to the Eucalyptus are those well-known Mammoth
or Big trees of California (_Sequoia gigantea_). They grow only in
certain valleys in the Sierra Nevada, at an altitude of 5000-8000
feet. Their height is usually given as from 250-400 feet, and the
diameter sometimes exceeds thirty-five feet. Since they have become a
centre of the tourist-industry in the United States, various methods
have been adopted to make their size more easily realized. Thus a
coach with four horses and covered by passengers is (or used to be)
driven through a gateway made in one of them. The trunk of another
has been cut off some feet from the ground, and a dancing-saloon has
been made on the stump. It is at least doubtful if dancing would be
very agreeable upon such a cross-grained sort of floor! A complete
section of one of them was carried across the United States to make
a dining-room table for an American millionaire. The age of one of
these trees has been estimated at 3300 years. That is to say that
it was a seedling in 1400 B.C., and has been peacefully growing in
a Californian valley during all the time when Greece, Rome, Spain,
France, Britain, and of course the United States, developed their
civilizations. The specimen of the Mammoth tree in the Natural
History Museum in London was 1335 years old.
The possible age of many of our common trees is much greater than any
one would suppose. The "Jupiter" oak in the forest of Fontainebleau
is supposed to be 700 years old. Another oak which was cut down at
Bordya, in the Baltic provinces of Russia, was supposed to be about
1000 years old. Other millennial trees are or were another oak and
two chestnuts: the oak grew in the Ardennes, the chestnuts still
flourish, one at Sancerre (France), and the other the famous specimen
on Mount Etna. There are also eight olive trees in the garden of
Gethsemane at Jerusalem, which are certainly 1000 years old, and
were, according to tradition, in existence in the time of Jesus
Christ.
And yet all these trees are mere infants compared to Adanson's Baobab
and the Dragon tree of Orotava. The celebrated traveller alluded to
visited the Cape Verde islands in 1749 and found inscriptions made by
English travellers on the trunk 300 years before his time. From the
growth since then, he calculated that some of these trees were about
6000 years of age, and they were 27 feet in diameter.[13]
[13] Bonnier, _l.c._
[Illustration: A DRAGON TREE IN THE CANARY ISLANDS
Said to be about eight hundred years old]
The record is held by the Dragon tree of Orotava, in the Canary
Islands.
When the Spaniards landed in Teneriffe in 1402, its diameter was
very nearly 42 feet. It was, however, greatly injured by a storm in
1827, and finally destroyed in 1851. (The wood was then made into
walking-sticks and snuffboxes.) The age has been estimated at 10,000
years, or by other authorities at 8000 years only. The "dragon's
blood" of the Canaries, a well-known remedy in the Middle Ages,
was not, as is popularly supposed, derived from this tree, but was
obtained from a totally different plant.
But there is a hazy tradition to the effect that the story of the
Dragon which guarded the golden fruit in the island of the Hesperides
was nothing but a garbled account of this redoubtable veteran of the
plant world.
There is no particular advantage in growing to these enormous heights
and clinging to life in this way for hundreds and thousands of years.
Nature seems to have found this out and preferred the ordinary pines,
oaks, and larches, which are mature in a few hundred years. In a
thousand years, ten generations of larch or pine can be produced,
and, as each is probably better than its predecessor, a distinct
improvement in the type is possible. All these long-lived giants
belong in fact to the less highly specialized orders of plants.
They are like the primeval animals, the Mammoths, Atlantosauri, and
Sabretoothed Tigers.
Yet when we come to think of the many and diverse perils to which
trees are exposed, the existence of even these exceptional monsters
seems very wonderful.
After a violent storm which had blown down many of the trees in a
friend's park,[14] I visited the scene of destruction and discovered
what had apparently in almost every instance produced it. Rabbits had
overthrown these trees!
[14] Dunlop House, Kilmarnock.
They had nibbled away part of the cork and part of the young wood
on the projecting buttress-like roots at the base of the tree. In
consequence, water, bacteria, and fungus spores had entered at the
injured places, and part of the roots had become decayed and rotten.
When the gale began to sway them backwards and forwards and a severe
strain came on what should have been a sound anchoring or supporting
buttress, the rotten part yielded, and these fine, beautiful trees
fell a prey to the rabbit.
The influence of forests and timber on the daily life of mankind is a
most romantic and interesting chapter in history.
Every savage tribe, every race of man, however degraded or backward,
is acquainted with fire. Fuel is therefore a necessity of existence
for all savages, and not merely for cooking. There is a very
interesting passage in London's _The Call of the Wild_, when the
Dog "Buck" in his dreams remembers a hairy man crouching over the
fire with Buck's ancestor at his feet, whilst in the darkness all
round them the firelight is reflected from eyes of wolves, bears,
and even more terrible and dangerous brutes which have now happily
vanished from the world. For protection at night fire was an absolute
necessity. Even at that long-distant period, therefore, man had
commenced to attack the forest. Unless one has had to tend a wood
fire for twelve hours, it is difficult to realize what a quantity
is required. To prepare fire was a long, laborious, and difficult
operation; one piece of wood was placed on the ground and held in
position by the toes, a pointed stick was taken between the two palms
of the hand and twirled vigorously round and round until the heat was
enough to ignite a piece of rotten wood placed as tinder.
Therefore smouldering branches were kept always burning, as they
are to-day amongst the Fuegians and some other savages. It was a
sacred duty to watch this fire, and the woman (usually old) who was
entrusted with the task was very probably put to death if she failed.
From this very ancient savage custom probably arose the cult of the
Vestal Virgins in Ancient Rome.[15]
[15] It will be remembered that they were obliged to keep the
sacred fire always burning, and were put to death if they
misbehaved. The fire was never allowed to go out during the whole
of Roman history, and the custom has been even preserved in some
Roman Catholic convents and chapels.
Another very important factor in savage life was the canoe or piroque
necessary for fishing or to cross lakes and rivers. The first chantey
of Rudyard Kipling has a probable theory, and is a beautiful account
of how man first thought of using a floating log.[16] They hollowed
out the log and "dug out" the canoe, by first lighting a fire on it
and then scraping away the cinders; then the sides were pressed out,
and it was trimmed and straightened to the right shape. All this
was the idea of some paleolithic genius far more persevering and
ingenious than any marine architect of our own days.
[16] _Seven Seas._
"Birchbark" canoes are not so common as Dug-outs. The tree, the White
or Paper Birch, is found in Canada and the Northern United States;
those Indians who discovered that the light, waterproof cork-bark
could be fashioned into a canoe made a very great discovery, and
indeed it was their canoes that made travel or exploration possible
in North America.
When man began to long for a settled permanent home, it was
absolutely necessary to find a way of living in safety. Wolves,
bears, hyenas and other animals were abundant; neighbours of his own
or other tribes were more ferocious and more dangerous than wild
beasts. Some neolithic genius imagined an artificial island made of
logs in the midst of a lake or inaccessible swamp. Such were the lake
dwellings which persisted into historic times, and which are indeed
still in existence in some parts of the earth.[17]
[17] Munro, _Lake Dwellings_.
The trees were abundant; they could be felled by the help of fire and
an axe, and the lake dwelling gave a secure defence. The wood of some
of the piles supporting the great villages in Switzerland seems to be
still sound, though it has been under water for many centuries. Some
villages are said to have required hundreds of thousands of trees.
The forest afforded man almost everything that he used, bows and
arrows, shelter, fuel, and even part of his food.
Nuts and fruits would be collected and when possible stored. In
seasons of famine, they used even to eat the delicate inside portion
of the bark of trees.
But as soon as the first half-civilized men began to keep cattle,
sheep, and especially goats, more serious inroads still were made
upon the forest. Where such animals are allowed to graze there is
no chance for wood to grow (at any rate in a temperate country).
The growing trees and the branches of older ones are nibbled away
whilst they are young and tender. The days of the forest were nearly
over when cultivation commenced. Dr. Henry describes the process of
"nomadic" culture in China as follows: "They burn down areas of the
forest; gather one or two crops of millet or upland rice from the
rich forest soil; and then pass on to another district where they
repeat the destruction."[18] A very similar process of agriculture
existed until the eighteenth century in Scotland.
[18] _Royal Dublin Society_, vol. i. part v. No. 11.
[Illustration:
_Stereo Copyright, Underwood & Underwood_
_London and New York_
SHOOTING THE HOZU RAPIDS IN JAPAN
The logs in the long train of rafts are of bamboo tied together.
In spite of their fragile nature the lumbermen are so fearless
and agile that they cleverly steer the frail bundles with but few
accidents.]
Thus the forest was being burnt or cleared for cultivation. It was
devastated by black cattle, goats, and other animals, and it was
regularly exploited for fuel and building every day by every family
for centuries.
It is not, therefore, surprising that the ancient forests in Britain
have disappeared. Dr. Henry mentions one square mile of virgin
forest on the Clonbrock estate in Ireland. The _Silva Caledonica_
of the Romans is said to exist in Scotland at the Blackwood of
Rothiemurchus, at Achnacarry, and in a few other places. Of the
original oak forest, which covered most of England and Southern
Scotland, not a vestige (so far as is known to the writer) remains
to-day.
There are in places very ancient forests. A few miles from Retford
are considerable remains of Sherwood Forest, which is for ever
associated with that genial bandit Robin Hood. One huge oak (called
the Major) has or used to have a keeper always on guard and paid by
Lord Manvers, but there are hundreds of aged oaks all round it. Then
there is the Knightwood Oak and some other ancients in the New Forest.
But it is not certain that these even date so far back as the time of
Canute, for so far as the New Forest is concerned, it seems that this
was formed either by Canute or by William I. The Saxons seem to have
destroyed most of the English forests.
In Scotland oak forest existed as far north as the Island of Lewis,
in Caithness, Dornoch, Cromarty, and along Loch Ness, as well as
in every county south of these.[19] The deer forests and grouse
moors, now desolate, whaup-haunted muir-land and peat mosses, were
flourishing woods of magnificent Scots fir at no very distant
period. They ascended the hills on the Cairngorms to 1400 or 1500
feet, and in Yorkshire to 2400 feet.[20]
[19] Niven, _Bot. Section British Association_, 1901.
[20] Boyd Watt, _Cairngorm Club Journal_, vol. iv. No. 20,
January, 1903; Smith, Lewis, _Roy. Geog. Soc. Journal_.
Even in remote historical times, such as those of Canute, the
forests had become seriously and dangerously destroyed. This king
was apparently the first to artificially protect the woods as a
hunting preserve. He was followed by William the Conqueror and other
sovereigns. The game preserves of the landed proprietors to-day are,
of course, the remains of the same custom.
Fortunately, however, we do not kill poachers or cut off their right
hands, and we do not cut off the forepaws of poaching dogs, as used
to be done in medieval days.
This connexion of forests with game no doubt prevented the entire
disappearance of wood, but when, as is the case in England, the
comfort of pheasants is thought of more importance than the
scientific cultivation of forests, the result is often very
unfortunate.
The use and value of timber is, however, too important a matter to
take up at the end of a chapter.
CHAPTER IV
ON FORESTS
The forests of the Coal Age--Monkey-puzzle and ginkgo--Wood, its
uses, colour, and smell--Lasting properties of wood--Jarrah and
deodar--Teak--Uses of birch--Norwegian barques--Destruction of
wood in America--Paper from wood pulp--Forest fires--Arid lands
once fertile--Britain to be again covered by forests--Vanished
country homes--Ashes at farmhouses--Yews in churchyards--History
of Man versus Woods in Britain.
What was the first tree like? That is a very difficult question
to answer. Perhaps the first forests were those of the great coal
period, of which the remains, buried for untold ages in the earth,
became the coal which we now burn.
The flames and red-glowing heat of a fire are the work of the
sunlight which fell in these long-past ages through a steamy, misty
atmosphere, upon these weird, grotesque vegetables, unlike anything
which now exists upon the earth. Their nearest allies amongst living
plants are the little club-mosses which creep over the peat and
through the heather in alpine districts.
Of course no one can say exactly what these coal forests were like.
But although some modern authorities have questioned the general
accuracy of the descriptions of Heer and others, yet, as they have
not given anything better in the way of description, we shall
endeavour to describe them according to our own beliefs, and as they
probably existed in the Lanarkshire coalfield and other places in
Britain.
In that gloomy mirk of the Carboniferous epoch, an observer (if there
had been any) would have dimly perceived huge trunks rising to sixty
or eighty feet and divided at the top into a very few branches. All
branches were covered over by comparatively quite small leaves.
Not a bad idea of the Sigillarias, Lepidodendrons, etc., which
made the forest and can be obtained by carefully looking at a pan
of Selaginella such as one finds in almost every botanical garden,
and imagining this to be eighty feet high. Through the bottomless
oozy slime which formed the ground, horizontal runners and roots
penetrated in every direction. Great fern-like plants might be
observed here and there. Sluggish rivers meandered slowly through
these forests, carrying silt and refuse (their deposits are our
Cannel coals). In the water and in pools, or perhaps in the mud,
were curious waterferns with coiled-up crozier-like leaves. Perhaps
horsetail-like plants of huge size might have formed great reed-beds
to which those of to-day are as a plantation of one-year-old firs is
to a pine forest that has lasted for a century.
Fishes and crustaceans, or lobster-like creatures, crawled and
squattered through the slime, pursued by salamander-like animals with
weak limbs and a long tail. Some of these latter were seven to eight
feet long. Millipedes, scorpions, beetles and maybugs existed, and
huge dragonflies preyed on them.
But there is one very ancient group of trees, the Araucarias or
Monkey-puzzles, which are by no means uncommon even now. The ordinary
one (_Araucaria imbricata_) is often planted in the British Isles,
and it has, if you look closely at it, a most peculiar appearance.
It is like the sort of tree that a child would draw; it is a clumsy
attempt at one, and very different from the exquisite irregularity of
the ash or oak.
Its leaves are especially curious: they cover the branches very
closely, and are hard, rigid, and spiny. Its cones, though of the
nature of pine-cones, are yet quite unique. The seeds are edible, and
used to be an important article of diet to the Indians on the slopes
of the Chilian Andes, where monkey-puzzle forests used to exist. This
of course is a very out-of-the-way region; other species of Araucaria
are found scattered about the world in a most perplexing manner. One
kind grows in Norfolk Island, in the Pacific; another occurs in the
inner mountainous districts of Brazil; there are some in Australia
and others in New Caledonia.
But in the Jurassic period of geology, in the age of ammonites
and gigantic lizards and crocodiles, Araucarias were the regular,
ordinary trees. They grew all over Europe, and apparently as far
north as Greenland, and, indeed, seem to have existed everywhere.
Perhaps the spiny leaves discouraged some huge lizard, perhaps
Atlantosaurus himself (he was thirty feet high and one hundred feet
long), from browsing on its branches. Perhaps the Pterodactyls, those
extraordinary bird or bat-like lizards, used to feed upon the seeds
of the monkey-puzzle, and carried them in their toothed jaws to New
Caledonia, Australia, and Norfolk Island. Other improved types have
driven the monkey-puzzles from Europe, Asia, and Africa, and taken
their places, but in out-of-the-way districts of South America and
Australia they are still able to hold their own.
An ally of theirs, the Ginkgo or Maidenhair tree, seems to have been
extremely common in certain geological periods. To-day it has almost
entirely disappeared. A few trees were discovered in certain Chinese
temples, where they had been preserved as curiosities for centuries,
but it is almost extinct as a wild plant. The Bigtree group
(_Sequoia_ p. 47) was a companion of the Ginkgo in its flourishing
period. So also were the Sago palms or Cycads. All the ordinary
trees, Pines, Oaks, Beeches, and the like, did not appear upon the
earth's surface till a much later period.
The most important economic product of trees is the timber which they
furnish. Wood, as we have tried to show in the last chapter, has been
always of the greatest importance to mankind. It is easily worked,
durable, buoyant, and light, and it is used for all sorts of purposes.
Silver fir,[21] which is accustomed, when growing, to be continually
swayed and balanced by the wind, is preferred for the sounding-board
of pianos and for the flat part of violins, whilst Sycamore or hard
Maple is employed for the back and sides of the latter.
[21] The Romans used it for ships' masts and spars.
But there are enormous differences in different kinds of woods.
The colour of wood varies from white (Beech), yellow (Satinwood),
lemon-yellow and bluish red (sap and heartwood of Barberry), to dark
and light brown mottled (Olive), black (Persimmon), and dark brown
(Walnut). Some woods have a distinct smell or perfume. Cedarwood,
Sandalwood, Deal, and Teak, are all distinctly fragrant. The
Stinkwood of South Africa and the Til of Madeira have an unpleasant
smell.
More important in practice are the differences in the hardness and
weight of wood. The Ironwood of India cannot be worked, as its
hardness blunts every tool. It requires a pressure of something
like 16,000 lb. to force a square-inch punch to a depth of
one-twentieth of an inch in _Lignum vitæ_. Even Hickory and Oak (if
of good quality) require a pressure of 3200 lb. to the square inch
to do this. On the other hand the Cotton tree of India (_Bombax
malabaricum_) has exceedingly soft wood. It is quite easy to drive a
pin into the wood with the fingers.
Some woods are far too heavy to float: many tropical woods are
especially very weighty. Perhaps the Black Ironwood, of which a cubic
foot weighs 85 lb., is the heaviest of all. But the same volume of
Poplar, Willow, or Spruce does not weigh more than 24 lb.
There are many ancient and modern instances of the extraordinary
way in which timber lasts when at all carefully looked after. Thus
the Cedar which "Hiram rafted down" to make the temple of Solomon
(probably Cedar of Lebanon) seems to have been extraordinarily
durable. Pliny says that the beams of the temple of Apollo at Utica
were sound 1200 years after they were erected.
Cypress wood (_Cupressus sempervirens_) was often used to make chests
for clothes because the clothes moth cannot penetrate it, and it also
lasts a very long time. There is a chest of this wood in the South
Kensington Museum which is 600-700 years old. The Cypresswood gates
of Constantinople were eleven centuries old when they were destroyed
by the Turks in 1453. The fleet of Alexander the Great, and the
bridge over the Euphrates built by Semiramis, were made of Cypress.
This wood seems to have been of extraordinary value to the ancients,
and was used for mummy cases in Egypt, for coffins by the Popes, as
well as for harps and organ pipes.[22]
[22] Most of these interesting details are found in Boulger's
valuable treatise on "Wood."
Perhaps the most valuable woods are Box, which is used for woodcuts,
and Walnut, which used to be highly prized for gun-stocks, as much as
£600 having been paid for a single tree.
But the most interesting histories of trade in timber belong to the
commoner and more usual woods. The great woods of Jarrah (_Eucalyptus
marginata_) cover 14,000 square miles of Australia, but they are
being rapidly cut down and sawn up into small blocks to be carried
right across the world in order to form the pavement which London
cabmen and cab-horses prefer to any other.
One remembers also the beautiful Deodar forests of Afghanistan, and
the Himalayas. Logs of deodar were floated down the rivers to form
bridges or temple pillars in Srinagar, the capital of far Cashmere.
Nowadays great "slides" are made, winding down into the valleys from
the recesses of the hills. When winter approaches, water is sprinkled
on the logs which make the slide; this freezes and forms a slippery
descending surface, down which the deodar timber rushes till it
reaches the low ground, where it is cut up into railway sleepers and
takes part in the civilizing of India.
The fragrant Teak has an oleoresin which prevents the destructive
white ants from attacking it; it is the most valuable timber for
shipbuilding, and grows in many places of India, Malaysia, Java, and
Sumatra. It floats down the rivers of Burmah, coming from the most
remote hill jungles, and elephants are commonly used at the ports to
gather the trunks from the water and pile them ready for shipment.
The Birch is carried all the way from Russia to Assam and Ceylon,
in order to make the chests in which tea is sent to England and
Russia (native Indian woods are also used). It is also used in the
distillation of Scotch whisky, for smoking herrings and hams, for
clogs, baskets, tanning, dyeing, cordage, and even for making bread.
But one of the most curious and interesting sights in any seaport
is sure to be an old white Norwegian or Swedish sailing barque or
brigantine. She will have a battered, storm-beaten appearance, and is
yet obviously a comfortable home. The windows of the deck-house may
be picked out with a lurid green. The tall, slowmoving, white-bearded
skipper and his wife, children, and crew, not to speak of a dog and
cats, have their home on this veteran "windjammer." She carries them
from some unpronounceable, never-heard-of port in Norway, all over
the world. You may see her discharging a cargo of deal plank, through
the clumsy square holes in her stern, in a forgotten Fifeshire
village, in Madagascar, in China, or in the Straits of Magellan. All
her life she is engaged in this work, and her life is an exceedingly
long one, to judge from the Viking lines on which she is built.
Moreover, her work is done so economically that it used to be much
cheaper to use her cargo in Capetown than to utilize the beautiful
forests of the Knysna and King Williamstown.
But there are not wanting signs that the forests of Norway, of
Sweden, and even those of the United States, are doomed.
It is said that seven acres of primeval forest are cut down to supply
the wood which is used up in making the paper required for one day's
issue of a certain New York journal. What a responsibility and a
source of legitimate pride this must be to the journalists! Let us
hope that the end justifies the means.
Boulger calculates that in 1884 all the available timber from
4,131,520 acres of Californian Redwood was used in making the
sleepers of the railways then existing in the United States.
He finds that no less than 18,000,000 acres of forest are necessary
to keep up the supply of sleepers for the old lines and to build new
ones.
So that, if we remember the wood required for paper, firewood, and
the thousand other important requisites of civilized man, the United
States must soon exhaust her supply and import wood.
Then will come the opportunity of British North America. The Southern
forest of Canada, which extended for 2000 miles from the Atlantic to
the head of the St. Lawrence, has indeed gone or is disappearing into
pulpwood and timber, but there is still the great Northern forest
from the Straits of Belleisle to Alaska (4000 miles long and 700
miles broad), and in addition the beautiful forests of Douglas Spruce
and other trees in British Columbia covering 285,000 square miles.
It is the wood-pulp industry which is at present destroying the
Canadian forests. The penny and halfpenny papers, and indeed most
books nowadays, are made of paper produced by disintegrating wood:
it is cheap, and can be produced in huge quantities; nevertheless it
is disquieting to reflect that probably nineteen-twentieths of the
literary output of the twentieth century will be dust and ashes just
about the same time (some fifty years) that the writers who produced
it reach the same state.[23]
[23] Compare the report by the Society of Arts.
Yet, considering the amount daily produced to-day, the future readers
of fifty years hence who are now in their cradles, may consider this
a merciful dispensation of Providence.
One very curious use of wood may be mentioned here. Near Assouan,
on the First Cataract of the Nile, one discovers broken granite or
syenite needles, which had been intended by the ancient Egyptians
for monuments. Where the broken pillar lies, there are rows of
wedge-shaped holes cut in the rock.
They used to drive in wedges of dry wood and then wet them with
water. The expansion of the wood split the rock, though this is hard
granite or syenite. Very often the process failed because the stone
cracked. The same method is said to be still used in some quarries.
The destruction of the forest is really necessary. Most of the corn
land and rich pasture of the world has been at one time forest. It
could scarcely be such fertile soil if it had not been for the many
years during which leaf-mould fell on it, and the roots broke up and
penetrated the subsoil below. Canada, Russia, and the United States
are now passing through the same experience as that of Great Britain
in the time of the Romans, Saxons, and Danes.
But there is terrible waste by fire.
When the trees become dry and withered in the height of summer in
either India or the United States, some careless tramp may throw
aside a lighted match. If a fire once starts, it spreads with
enormous rapidity; great clouds of smoke roll over the surrounding
country, and every village sounds the alarm. Everybody rushes to
help and try to stop the conflagration, or if too late hurriedly
saves whatever he can get of his possessions. His log hut and all the
accumulations of years of saving may be turned into a heap of ashes
in a very few minutes.
But the crackling of the leaves and the flaming twigs and scorching
bark make such a volume of fire that nothing which man can do is of
any avail.
Of course every beast, every bird and insect is in the greatest
possible danger.
This is how a fire in New Zealand has been described by Mr. William
Satchell:--[24]
[24] _The Toll of the Bush._
"For a while it seemed that the battle must go to the wind, the
fiery monster withdrew, lay hidden, roaring angrily in the dry heart
of the woods; then insidiously he stretched forth his glittering
arms, first one, then another, and locking the shuddering trees in
an irresistible embrace, sprang once again erect. In an instant the
whole bush from edge to edge became a seething, rocking mass of
flames.
"'Fire! Fire!'
"Then, insignificant no longer, transfigured rather beyond all living
possibilities of loveliness, the bush stood revealed to its centre.
It became less a fire than an incandescence, waxing in brilliance
to the point when, as it seemed, it must perforce burst into
indistinguishable flame. Every leaf and twig of that fairy forest was
wrought and hammered in virgin gold, every branch and trunk was a
carved miracle of burnished copper. And from the golden leaves to the
golden floor, floatingly or swiftly, there fell an unceasing rain of
crimson flame petals, gorgeous flame fruits. Depth after depth stood
revealed, each transcending the last in loveliness. And as the eye
sought to penetrate those magic interiors there seemed to open out
yet farther vistas, beyond belief beautiful, as of the streets of a
city incorruptible, walled and towered, lost in the light of a golden
incomparable star."
"'Fire! Fire!'
"In the face of that vision of glory the cry rang out with all the
ineptitude and inappropriateness of the human weakling. On one side
the titanic forces of nature, inexorable, eternal; on the other the
man, frail of body, the creature of an hour, matching himself against
them.
"'Fire! Fire!'
"Sheltering his face from the insufferable heat, the Swede
hammered madly at the solid house-door. At the back, now utterly
unapproachable, the kitchen, the roof, and a part of the main wall
were already in flames. A few minutes--five at the most--would
complete the demolition of the house. To right and left the great
trees one after another went off like rockets, the roar of their
burning foliage shaking the very earth. A deafening crashing of
falling timber came at intervals from the bush beyond."
In some countries the destruction of the forests has had a very
serious effect on the climate. The rain which falls upon a forest is
partly absorbed by the leaves, and but a very small part of it is
carried off by burns and streams: most sinks down into the forest
soil, and is only gradually given back again after being taken in by
the tree roots and evaporated by the leaves.
But bare hills denuded of wood allow most of their rain to rush down
to the sea in dangerous spates of the rivers and burns, and then the
ground becomes afterwards very dry and burnt up. There are very many
countries now barren and desolate because they have been robbed of
the beautiful forests which once covered the springheads and mountain
valleys.
Perhaps Palestine is one of the worst instances. But it is when we
remember Babylon, Nineveh, and all the cities of the coast of Asia
Minor, as they were even a thousand years ago, and compare their
present barren, desolate condition, that the full meaning of mountain
forests becomes clear.
Where once there were thriving, prosperous cities with enormous
populations, now the goats graze or a few miserable peasants
carefully husband the water of a few miserable streams. The same
thing has happened in Mauritius, in the Cape Verde and Canary
Islands, and in many other places.
But men are now beginning to see how dangerous the destruction of
forests may be, and in many countries and especially in Britain, new
forests are being planted. Perhaps in time we may grow in Britain so
much timber that we shall gain something like £32,000,000 a year,
which is what we spend on imported woods.
At present plover, whaups, snipe, and grouse, or useless red deer,
inhabit what was once the Caledonian forest, and every thousand
acres of such land nowadays supports perhaps one shepherd and half
a gamekeeper. But when it is planted again with woodlands it will
afford a living to at least ten foresters, and surely a whole
gamekeeper as well.
In the lowlands of Scotland and in England one often discovers, in
walking over the hills, remains of cottages and farmhouses which have
now vanished. The people have gone into the towns, and the healthy
yeomen and farmers' boys have become weak-chested factory hands and
hooligans. Such sites of old farms can often be recognized by a
patch of nettles, and especially by eight or nine ash trees. These
were always planted near the houses to give a ready supply of wood
for spears. The ash, "for nothing ill," as Spenser puts it, would be
available also for repairing the handles of tools, carts, etc. Some
authorities say that it was the law of Scotland that these eight or
nine ash trees should be planted at every "farmtoon."
So also, when forests began to vanish in England, laws were made
to the effect that yew trees should be planted in every village
churchyard. Probably this was to ensure a good supply of bows for
the English archers, who, like the Scottish spears, were the best
soldiers of their kind in Europe.
[Illustration: A FOREST FIRE
Such fires frequently occur in New Zealand, and the Maoris have
to fly for their lives.]
So that if we try to compare the conditions of man and of the forests
in Great Britain from the earliest days, it would be something like
this:--
1. When the earliest inhabitants lived on shell-fish, seabirds' eggs,
nuts, and fruits, almost the whole country was covered by oak, Scotch
fir, or birch forests.
2. When man was a hunter of reindeer and other deer, horses, cattle,
and birds, he used much wood for fires and for building his lake
dwellings.
3. When man kept herds of swine to eat acorns, black cattle, goats,
and ponies, there would be many clearings and a great deal of open
wood in which the cattle roamed about.
4. When man grew corn and other plants, the forest vanished
altogether. Dr. Johnson said he scarcely saw a tree between Carlisle
and Edinburgh. Yet first the King, then the Barons, had their
parks and woodlands for preserving game. Moreover, the yews in the
churchyards of England, and the ash trees by the Scotch farmtoons and
peel-towers, were carefully looked after.
5. When great towns arose, and men became factory hands and steel
workers, rich men began to make plantations in the lowlands, and to
use the depopulated highlands for grouse moors and deer forests.
6. When men become wiser than they are now, it will be seen that
great forests are necessary on all waste-land and barren places, both
to keep a healthy country population and because it will pay.
CHAPTER V
FLOWERS
Man's ideas of the use of flowers--Sprengel's great
discovery--Insects, not man, consulted--Pollen carried to
set seed--Flowers and insects of the Whinstone Age--Coal
Age flowers--Monkey-puzzle times--Chalk flowers--Wind-blown
pollen--Extravagant expenditure of pollen in them--Flower of
the pine--Exploding flowers--Brilliant alpines--Intense life in
flowers--Colour contrasts--Lost bees--Evening flowers--Humming
birds and sunbirds--Kangaroo--Floral clocks--Ages of
flowers--How to get flowers all the year round--Ingenious
contrivances--Yucca and fig--Horrible-smelling flowers--Artistic
tastes of birds, insects, and man.
For many centuries flowers were considered as pleasing and attractive
decorations stuck about the world in the same way as they are put in
a drawing-room in order to give people pleasure. Very soon they were
found to be extremely useful in poetry, sometimes to point a moral
or disguise a sermon, like the primrose in _Peter Bell_, but more
generally to produce a good impression on the BELOVED OBJECT. Burns
puts the usual view of flowers very nicely in the following: "But I
will down yon river rove amang the woods sae green, and a' to pu' a
posie to my ain dear May." Possibly this is the meaning also in the
exquisite lines of Shakespeare about the pansy:--
"Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,--
Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,--
And maidens call it, love-in-idleness."
Even if there is no particular meaning, the "little western flower"
gives point and beauty to the lines.
People only began to understand flowers about the year 1793, when
Christian Conrad Sprengel, Rector of Spandau, near Berlin, published
a very interesting work. He had discovered that the beauty of
flowers and their colour and shape were by no means intended solely
to please _human_ eyes, but that they were designed to attract and
allure the eyes of _insects_. Before his time there had been many
guesses. Indeed, Theophrastus (born 371 B.C., and often mentioned in
this work) seems to have quite well understood why flowers produce
pollen, and that the fruit would not set and form seed unless pollen
was carried to the female part of the flower. He mentions that the
Pistacio has both male and female plants, and that Palms only form
dates when the pollen is carried to the female tree. This experiment
with the Date-palm was tried in 1592 by an Italian (Alpino) in an
Egyptian tour, and the Englishman, Jacob Bobart, the Pole, Adam
Zaluzianski (the latter in the same year) confirmed the general idea.
Then in the year 1694 Rudolp Jacob Camerarius, a German, carried on
a few more experiments, but no real definite advance was made until
1793, in the very midst of the French Revolution.[25]
[25] The historical account by Bonnier, _Cours de Botanique_, is
very interesting and complete.
The great point of Sprengel's discovery was in its being an
intelligible explanation of the reason why flowers have bright
colours, scent, and honey. At his time and indeed for many years
afterwards, botanists looked on the stamens, petals, and other
parts of the flower exactly in the way that a stamp collector looks
at punctures and postmarks, that is without thinking about their
meaning. Now we find that they are always designed to fulfil a
perfectly definite purpose, and that all their details are contrived
accordingly.
This purpose is to carry the pollen from the stamens of one flower
to the stigma of another. The pollen can usually be recognized as
a yellowish or reddish dust formed in the stamens; this dust is
generally rubbed off on an insect's proboscis or on part of its body.
When the insect reaches another flower the pollen is scraped off by
a sticky or gummy stigmatic surface. When the pollen has been placed
on this surface it grows, germinates, and part of it unites with the
egg-cell of the young seed.
The latter is then, and not till then, able to become ripe and
mature. It may be compared to cross-breeding in animals, though the
process does not exactly correspond.
But all flowers do not require insects to carry their pollen. In
early geological periods we do not find any flowers like those that
now exist, nor in those early times were there any flies, bees, or
butterflies.
The cockroach seems to have existed in Silurian (whinstone) times,
and many gigantic and extraordinary insects lived in those damp
forests of ferns, club-moss, and horsetails, of which the remains
now form our British coalfields. Mayflies, plantbugs, and especially
dragonflies (some of them with wings two feet across) existed, but
none of these insects are of much use as pollen-carriers.
Even much later on, when screw pines, monkey-puzzle trees, ginkgos,
and bamboos formed the forests and woods of Europe, crickets and
earwigs existed; but it is not until that geological period in which
the chalk was formed (the Cretaceous age) that fossil plants like
most of those now familiar to us occur. These had flowers intended
for insects, and with the fossil plants we find the fossils of the
insects that visited them. Bees, butterflies, and ordinary flies
appeared upon the scene just as soon as there were flowers ready for
them. Mr. Scudder has even found the fossils of certain plants, and
with them the fossils of butterflies closely allied to the present
butterflies which now live on present trees allied to those fossils!
How then was the pollen of the first flowers carried?
It was in all probability blown by the wind or carried in water.
Even now poplars, alders, birches, and oaks rely chiefly upon the
wind to carry their pollen. These plants were amongst the first of
our modern flora to appear upon the earth. Some of them possess very
neat contrivances suited to the wind. The catkins of the alder, for
example, hang downwards, so that each little male flower is protected
from rain by a little scale or bract above it. The pollen is very
light, dusty, or powdery, so as to fly a long distance. The Scotch
fir (_Pinus sylvestris_) has male flowers in little cones. These are
upright, and the pollen of each stamen drops on to a small hollow on
the top of the stamen below. It is then blown away by the wind on a
fine dry day, but it is not allowed to get out in wet weather. It is
said that vast clouds of pine pollen occur in America, and that the
water of certain lakes becomes quite yellow and discoloured by it at
certain seasons. Each little particle of pollen has two minute caps
or air-balloons which give it buoyancy, so that it can float easily
immense distances.
A curious little herb, the Wall Pellitory, and another foreign
species, the Artillery plant, produces small explosions of pollen.
When it is touched, there is a little puff or cloud of dusty pollen.
Even the common Nettle does the same on fine dry days when it is in
full flower.
But of course this carrying of pollen by the wind is a very
expensive arrangement. It is so much a matter of pure chance that
a grain arrives at its right destination. Suppose that a flower
is giving out clouds of pollen, then the chance of a pollen grain
reaching a female flower only five feet away is very small, even if
the stigma of the female flower is a quarter of an inch in diameter.
The chance of pollen reaching it will only be about 1 to 1440; 1439
pollen grains will be wasted[26] for every one that reaches the
stigma. But even this is not quite a fair calculation, for if the
female flower is not down wind, none will reach it at all!
[26] The pollen from the great pine forests of the Italian Alps
blown up to the snow becomes used in nourishing the Pink or
Red Snow Algæ, which colours it a delicate rose-pink. In lower
grounds all such pollen becomes, like leaf-mould, a manure for
other plants. There is no _waste_, strictly speaking.
But if an insect goes to the catkin of an alder or any other male
flower, it will see the red points of the stigma and will very likely
go there at once. This shows how much more reasonable and efficient
insects will be.
The immense majority of flowers are, in fact, purple, blue, red,
yellow, or white, so that they are conspicuous, and stand clearly
out against the green of their leaves. It is well known to all who
have arranged flowers for the table that the green of the leaves of
different plants varies greatly in its shade and tint. Many greens do
not match special flowers at all, but it is the fact that the green
of any one plant is always quite harmonious, and agrees well with its
own flowers!
Besides varied and beautiful colours, sweet or strong scents and
supplies of honey or nectar are provided for insects.
How did flowers manage to produce all these attractions? No one has
answered that question. We know in a general sort of way that the
parts of flowers are modified leaves, and that petals and stamens
become yellowish or pure white because they do not form green
colouring matter like ordinary leaves.
It is also known that on the Alps or on any high mountain, where the
air is pure and the sun strong, flowers become rich, brilliant, and
vivid. In such places as the "Jardin" near Mont Blanc, the pure,
deep, rich blue of gentians, the crimsons, reds, and purples of other
flowers, impress the most casual and unobservant traveller. "White
and red, yellow and blue, brown and green stand side by side on a
hand's breadth of space." In that strong mountain air, also, perfumes
are stronger, purer, and of finer quality than in the lowlands. There
is a more intense, active, and vigorous life going on in flowers than
is required by the more prosaic industries in other parts of a plant.
Flowers also often live at a higher temperature than the surrounding
air.
Kerner has described how the little flowers of Soldanella penetrate
the snow by actually melting a passage for themselves through it (see
p. 103).
This high temperature and vigorous life, shown also by the rapid
transpiration of flowers,[27] seems to hint that colours and perfumes
appear in consequence of rapid chemical transformations.[28]
[27] _Pharmaceutical Journal_, May 20th, 1899.
[28] Buscalioni e Traverso, _Atti del Ist. Bot. di Pavia_, vol.
10, 1904.
It was, of course, by degrees that the extraordinary variation
in colour, which exists in nature, came about. No doubt bees,
bumble-bees, wasps, and the more intelligent flies were improved and
developed æsthetically. We can almost tell by looking at a flower
what sort of insect probably visits it.
Not only so, but there are the neatest imaginable contrasts and
blends of colour. The common Bluebeard Salvia, e.g., has the
uppermost leaves (three-quarters to an inch long) of a deep, rich,
blue-purple, which the roving Bumble-bee will see from a long way
off. The Bumble-bee flies to this great splash of her favourite
hue and for a second buzzes angrily, then she notes the small
_bright-blue_ patches on the upper lips of the small flowers below
the leaves which are set off by _white_ hairs of the upper and
_yellow_ hairs of the lower lip.
That bees really do understand and are guided by colour may be
gathered from the following unfortunate accident. A certain hive
of bees which had been brought up in a blue-striped skep became
accidentally scattered. They tried to find their way back to their
old home, but many strayed, and it was noticed that they had tried to
enter the doors of every blue hive, which were strewn with the bodies
of the unfortunate intruders.[29]
[29] Von Buttel, _Respen_.
The rich blue-purple of Aconite, the dark strong red of the Woundwort
(_Stachys silvatica_) are specially beloved by bumble-bees and
hive-bees. Butterflies like any bright colour. Those flies which have
a long, sucking proboscis, resemble the bees in their tastes, but all
these insects are quite capable of finding out where they can get
honey most easily, and visit flowers whatever the colour may be.
A very strange and wonderful fact is that quite a number of plants
prefer the dark, or rather the dim, mysterious light of the gloaming.
Then the Honeysuckle, the Evening Campion, the Night-scented Stock,
Tobacco, and Schizopetalon give out their strongest scent and open
out their white flowers as widely as possible. That is because they
wish to attract the owlet moth and others which come out at this
time, when there are fewer enemies and more security. If you look
at any of these moth-flowers at mid-day, they are for the most part
closed up, they are not particularly attractive, and they are giving
out very little scent. The contrast to their condition in the evening
is most striking.
Not only insects but birds are used to carry pollen. The gorgeous
little humming birds, with their brilliant metallic crimson,
bronze-green, and purple, are of the greatest importance in the New
World. In the Old World they are replaced by the tiny _Nectarinidæ_
or Sunbirds, with breastplates almost as exquisitely jewelled. They
prefer the most gorgeous reds and scarlets, such as that of _Salvia
horminum_, _Lobelia cardinalis_, and the like. Fuchsias are regularly
visited by them in Tierra del Fuego, where sometimes they may be seen
busily at work during a shower of snow. In South Africa they seize
the stem of a Redhot Poker (_Tritoma_) (_Kniphofia macowanii_), and
twisting their little heads round, they suck the honey from every
blossom in succession. Still more interesting it is to see them
perched on the edge of one of those great tumbler-like heads of
Protea (e.g. _P. incompta_) and dipping their slender curved beaks
repeatedly into the flowers. Then the little male bird will alight
on a branch and make the most elaborate preparation for a song of
triumph. Although helped out by fluttering of wings and much display
of feathers and tail, the song is a very faint cheep of the feeblest
description, and very difficult to hear.
Not only birds but even animals are sometimes called into the
service. There is a group of small mammals which live on the honey of
flowers. Even the Kangaroo is said to occasionally take a draught of
nectar from some of the cup-like flowers of the Australian Dryandra
(_Proteaceae_).
But one of the most interesting and extraordinary facts is the
manner in which flowers fit in. They begin early in the morning: one
blossom opens out and then another; all endeavouring to catch the
attention of some passing insect. _Allionia violacea_ opens at three
or four a.m., and closes about eleven or twelve. Some wild Roses open
about four or five in the morning, as well as the Chicory, Roemeria,
etc. Virginian Spiderwort, Dandelion, and Nightshade are ready at
six in the morning. A great many (Buttercups, White Water Lily,
etc.) are open by seven a.m. Most of these early flowers are shut at
noon. Others begin to close about three or four in the afternoon.
The regular evening moth-flowers open about six p.m., though _Cactus
grandiflorus_ does not open till nine or ten p.m., and closes at
midnight.[30] Extraordinary as these variations seem, they are easily
explained. Some open early because there are then few competitors. By
far the greater number are open from nine a.m. till one or two p.m.,
because those hours are the favourite working time of most insects.
[30] Linnæus and many others have made Floral Clocks. Kerner,
_Natural History of Plants_, describes the opening and closing of
flowers very fully.
Flowers live for very different periods. That of the Wheat only lasts
for fifteen or twenty minutes (its pollen is carried by wind), and
is then over. There are others, Hibiscus and Calandrinia, which only
remain open for three or four hours, but a Foxglove will last six
days, a Cyclamen ten days, whilst Orchids may last for from thirty
to eighty days (_Cypripedium villosum_, seventy days, _Odontoglossum
Rossii_, eighty days).
Thus the sun every day through the summer, as he calls into life new
swarms of insects, sees at every hour of the day new flowers opening
their petals to his genial warmth and ready for the new bees and
flies. The development of the flower and that of its insect are
probably simultaneous, and equally regulated by the sun's warmth.
Moreover the opening periods do not merely fit in during the day, but
each flower has its own special month, and even in Scotland there is
no month in which some flower may not be found in bloom. Any stray
wandering insect can get its draught of honey at any season of the
year.
This is a matter of some importance for those who keep bees, and
the following list may be of some use. _February_: _Crocus vernus_,
Snowdrop, Black Hellebore, and Hazel. _March_: The preceding, _Arabis
alpina_, Bulbocodium, _Cornus mascula_, _Helleborus foetidus_, Giant
Coltsfoot, Gooseberry, various species of Prunus and Pyrus, Willow.
_April_: The preceding as well as _Adonis vernalis_, _Barbarea
vulgaris_, _Brassica napus_.
It is not worth while noting those that bloom from May to September,
for there are hundreds of good bee-flowers in these months. In
_October_: Borage, Echium, Sunflowers, _Lycium europæum_, _Malope
grandiflora_, Catmint, Tobacco, Ocimum, Origanum, _Phacelia
tanacetifolia_, and others. Most of these last into November.[31]
In December and January very few plants are in bloom. The following
have been noted at Edinburgh Botanical Gardens: _Dondia epipactis_,
_Tussilago fragrans_, Snowdrop, _Geum aureum_, Hepatica, _Primula
acaulis_, _P. veris_, _Aubrietia deltoidea_, _Crocus imperati_, _C.
suaveolens_, _Erica herbacea alba_, Helleborus (3 species), _Polygala
chamaebuxus_, _Andromeda floribunda_; also Sir H. Maxwell[32]
mentions _Azara integrifolia_, _Hamamelis_ _arborea_, and
_Chimonanthus fragrans_. Of wild plants, Chickweed, Whin or Furze,
_Lamium purpureum_, and Dandelion can generally be found in the depth
of winter.
[31] Huck, _Unsere Honig u. Bienenpflanzen_. These are drawn up
for Germany, and cannot be warranted for this country.
[32] _Memories of the Months._
The contrivances which can be found in flowers, and by which the
insect is forced to enter exactly along the proper path, are endless.
Each flower has some little peculiarity of its own which can only
be understood by thoroughly examining the plant itself. It is not
therefore possible to do justice to the ingenuity of flowers in
a work of this sort. There are orchids which throw their insect
visitors into a bath of water, so that they have to crawl with wet
wings up a certain path where they touch the pollen masses and
stigma; others which hurl their pollen masses at the visitor. In the
Asclepiads a groove is provided into which the leg of the insect
slips, so that it has to struggle to get its foot out, and must
carry off the pollen masses, though it often fails and leaves its
leg behind. Some Arums and Aristolochias have large traps in which
they imprison the insects, and only let them go when they are sure
to be pollen-dusted. In one of these flowers there are transparent
spots on the large petal-prison, which so attract the insects that
they remain opposite them instead of flying out (just as flies do
on a window-pane). Salvia has a stamen which is like a see-saw on a
support; the bee has to lift up one end, which brings the other with
its pollen flat down on to its back. The Barberry has a sensitive
spot on its stamen; when the insect touches the spot, the stamen
springs up suddenly and showers pollen upon it. In Mimulus the two
flaps of the stigma close up as soon as they are touched, which will
be when they have scraped off any pollen; then when the creature
withdraws, covered with the flower's own pollen, none of this can be
left on its own stigma, as this is shut up.
But instead of reading, one should watch a bumble-bee visiting the
Foxglove flowers. The sight of her busily thrusting her great hairy
body into the bell, which almost exactly fits her shape, while she
gurgles with satisfaction, will teach the reader far more about
the romance of flowers than many pages of description. If he then
carefully examines the flower, he will see how the honey, the arched
converging stamens, and the style, are placed exactly in the right
place and where they will have the most effect.[33]
[33] Compare Shelley, who watched all day "the yellow bees in
the ivy bloom," but he "did not heed what things they be." Moreover,
though he appreciated the general spirit of the bee, it is very
unlikely that he saw any of them on the Ivy!
One orchid, _Angraecum sesquipedale_, has a spur eighteen inches
long, and the great Darwin suggested that there must be an insect
somewhere with a tube long enough to reach the honey. Such an insect,
a large moth, was actually brought home from Madagascar, the place
where this orchid occurs, after a lapse of many years!
Perhaps more remarkable than anything else are such cases as the
Yucca and the Yucca-moth or the Fig-wasp and the Fig.
The Yucca is a fine lily-like plant resembling the Aloes in general
appearance. A particular sort of moth lives entirely upon the Yucca.
When the flowers open, the mother-moth kneads up a ball of pollen and
places an egg inside. This ball she thrusts down the style into the
ovary of the flower. There a grub develops from the egg and eats the
pollen, yet some of this pollen fertilizes the young seeds. If Yuccas
died out the moth would be exterminated. If the moths were destroyed,
no Yuccas would ever set their seed!
The Fig has two sorts of flower. The one (caprifig) produces only
male or pollen-yielding flowers. The other is the true edible fig.
Inside the caprifig are the grubs of the fig-wasp, which rejoice in
the name of _Blastophaga grossorum_. When grown up these force their
way out of the caprifig and, flying to the true fig, the mother-wasp
lays her eggs in certain flowers which have been apparently
specially modified for the purpose. At the same time she covers the
ordinary flowers with pollen from the caprifig. Her progeny return
to the caprifig. Here again the future of a valuable fruit-tree
is absolutely bound up with the fortunes of a tiny and in no way
attractive wasp!
Another very remarkable case is that of those flowers (Stapelia,
etc.), which in colour and general marking closely resemble decaying
meat or other objectionable substances. Very often the smell of such
flowers is exceedingly strong, and resembles the ordinary smell of
putrid matter. In one case an artist employed to paint the flower had
to use a glass bell, which was put over it. He could only lift it for
a second or two at intervals in order to see the exact colour, before
the horrible odour obliged him to cover it over again. Blowflies and
others, which are in the habit of resorting to such substances, seek
out these flowers in great numbers and lay their eggs upon them. In
so doing they carry the pollen.
There are certain fungi which have quite as horrible a smell, and
some of them also resemble decaying animal matter. These are most
eagerly sought out by the same blow-and other flies (bright green
lucilias, yellow-brown scatophagas, bluebottles, etc.). But in the
case of these fungi it is the spores, not pollen, which is carried by
the insect.
The effect of this flowery sort of life is abundantly evident in
the structure of the insects themselves. Their mouth has been most
wonderfully modified into a complex sucking apparatus; their legs
have been transformed to act as pollen-carrying baskets, and the
habits and tastes of the insects have been modified in the most
extraordinary way.
Perhaps also the association of bright colours with a very pleasant
sensation--that of a full, satisfying meal--has raised the artistic
sensibilities of butterflies, sunbirds, humming birds, etc. For
certainly these flower-haunting birds and butterflies are remarkable
for their brilliant colouring. This has probably been brought about
by the preference of the females for the most brilliantly coloured
male butterflies and humming birds.
At any rate bright reds and blues are common to both bird or insect
and to the flowers that they frequent. But the most curious point of
this whole question lies in the fact that human beings of all grades,
South Sea Islanders, the Ancient Greeks, Peruvians, Japanese, Romans,
as well as the Parisians and Londoners of to-day, appreciate the
beauty of colouring and grace of form which are so obvious in the
world of flowers.
Yet man has had nothing whatever to do with the selection of either
these colours or shapes. Many of those which he considers most
precious (such as the weird, spotted, and outlandish Orchids of
Madagascar and South America) have very likely scarcely ever been
seen by man at all. It is to the artistic eye of the honey-bee,
bumble-bee, butterfly, and of the humming bird and sunbird, that we
owe these exquisite colours. The grace and beauty of outline probably
depend upon their perfect symmetry and on the perfect suitability of
every curve to its purpose.
Therefore it seems that the eyes of man, whether savage or civilized,
are pleased and comforted by these same colours that delight the
little brains of insects and birds.
This is indeed a mysterious fact.
CHAPTER VI
ON UNDERGROUND LIFE
Mother-earth--Quarries and Chalk-pits--Wandering atoms--The
soil or dirt--Populations of Worms, Birds, Germs--Fairy
Rings--Roots miles long--How roots find their way--How they
do the right thing and seek only what is good for them--Root
versus stones--Roots which haul bulbs about--Bishopsweed--Wild
Garlic--Dandelion, Plantain--Solomon's Seal--Roots throwing down
walls--Strength of a seedling root.
The word "Adam" means red earth. Poets and essayists still regularly
write about Mother-Earth and, in so doing, admit one of the most
interesting and wonderful facts in Nature.
If you go to some quarry or cliff where a section has been cut,
laying bare the original rock below; then (with Hugh Miller) you may
reflect on the extraordinary value of those few inches of soil which
support the growth of all our trees and of all our cultivated plants.
It is probable that plant-roots _never_ go deeper than about thirty
feet. All our food, our energy, and activity depend therefore on this
thinnest surface-layer of an earth which is 8000 miles in diameter.
But in most places the depth of true soil is far less than thirty
feet, generally it is not more than thirty inches, and by far the
most valuable part of it is a very thin layer five or six inches
thick.
It is in this true soil that the roots gain their nourishment, and
not only roots, for whole populations of worms, of germs, of
insects, even of birds and the higher animals, live upon it. To
it return the dead leaves, the bodies of dead insects, and waste
products of all kinds. Within it, they are broken to pieces and
worked up again by the roots of other plants in order to form
new leaves, new insects, and food for bird and beast. Just as in
engine-works, you may see old engines, wheels, and scrap-iron being
smashed into pieces; they are melted down and again worked up into
engines of some improved design.
[Illustration: THRASHING CORN IN CHILE
Mares are driven at the gallop round the circle, and so beat the
corn out of the ear with their hoofs. They do this for twenty
minutes at a time, and are then made to go the other way round.]
On a chalk-cliff, which dates from the long-distant Cretaceous
period, the entire thickness formed by the yearly work of plants for
millions and millions of years is often less than a foot in depth,
and probably only four to five inches are true soil.
But this is an exceptionally thin stratum, although it is capable of
producing rich turf, fat snails, and excellent mutton. In peat-mosses
and in those buried forests which form the coalfields, vegetable
matter may accumulate in deposits of thirty feet of coal. Yet these
stores of carbonaceous matter seem to be at first sight miserly and
selfish, at least from a vegetable point of view.
They resemble the gold and silver withdrawn from circulation in the
world by some Hindoo miser and buried deep within the earth. Yet
somebody is pretty certain to find out and make use of such stores
eventually.
In the case of the peat and coalfields, an animal of sufficient
intelligence to utilize them has already been produced, and now they
are used by man as fuel.
It is very important to remember that the soil is a sort of last home
to which the particles of carbon, of nitrate, and minerals always
return after their wanderings in the bodies of plants, of insects, or
of other animals. They probably rest but a short time before they
again set off on new adventures.
One might say the same of the water, and of the carbonic acid gas
and oxygen of the atmosphere, for the water, falling as rain upon
the earth, trickles down to the underground water-level. Then it
immediately begins to rise up between the particles of earth and is
promptly caught and sucked in by the roots, only to be again given
out by their leaves. The carbonic acid gas and oxygen also are always
entering and leaving the foliage. Even the nitrogen of the air is not
left alone in the atmosphere. There are small germs in the soil which
are able to get hold of it and make it into valuable nitrates.
More curious still is the fact that electric charges can be used
to change the comparatively useless air-nitrogen into useful
manures. Probably the farmer will some day make his own nitrates by
electricity.
The structure of the soil or earth is a most interesting and romantic
part of botany. It is true that a "radical" disposition is necessary
if one is to go to the root of the matter, but, unless we do this, it
is impossible to realize the romance of roots.
Down below is the unaltered rock, sand, or clay. Next above it comes
the subsoil, which consists of fragments of the rock below, or of
sand, clay, etc., more or less altered by deep-going roots. Even in
this subsoil, bacteria or germs may be at work, and the burrows of
worms and insects often extend to it. Next above the subsoil comes
the true soil; there is plenty of the stones, soil, sand, or whatever
it may be that constitutes the subsoil, but its richness consists
in its contents of valuable minerals, and especially of broken-up
leaves, corpses of insects, and manure. Above this true soil are
first the leaf-mould of two years ago, then that of the year before
last, and _on the top_ is the leaf-mould and other decayed products
of last winter.
All these upper layers are full of life and activity, which probably
goes on vigorously all the year round.
The population of worms is especially important. The worm is a
voracious and gluttonous creature: it is for ever swallowing bits
of leaves and rich soil. Inside its body there are lime-glands
which act upon the vegetable food and improve its quality as
manure. The worm comes up to the surface at night or early morning
and leaves the worm-casts upon it. The rain then washes the rich,
finely-divided matter of the casts down into the soil again. It is
said that there are about 160,000 worms at work in an acre of good
soil. Yet their life is full of danger. A keen-eyed population of
blackbirds, thrushes, starlings, peewits (plover), and partridges
are always watching for and preying upon the poor worm. Even in his
burrows, which may be six feet deep, he is not safe, for the mole
(_moudiewarp_) is also both very hungry and very active, and delights
in eating him.
In the soil also and even deeper in the subsoil are many insects;
some hibernate in the winter, and at other times actively gnaw the
roots of plants or devour dead leaves and twigs (see Chapter xxiii.).
Thus there are many burrows and holes, so that there is no want of
air in the soil, which is indeed necessary both for these creatures
and also for the roots of the plants.
Rain comes down through the soil, carrying with it carbonic acid,
mineral salts, and also germs or bacteria, which form perhaps the
most important population of all.
No work could be carried on without their help; it is bacteria which,
at every stage of decay, assist in breaking up leaves, twigs,
insects' bodies, worm-casts, and other manures. The way in which they
work is too difficult to explain here, but to get an idea of the
romance of the underground world one must try to picture to oneself
these swarms and myriads of germs and bacteria all incessantly and
busily engaged at their several duties. In the uppermost layers there
are probably in a single cubic inch of good soil from 54,000,000 to
400,000,000 of these microbes. Many are absolutely necessary to the
harvest; a few may be of little importance, but there are sure to be
some of those dangerous sorts which might devastate a continent with
disease in a single summer.
There are also quantities of other fungi. The fairy rings which one
sees year after year in widening circles of bright, fresh green
are the work, not of fairy footsteps, but of an underground fungus
(_Marasmius oreades_ and others). Its threads are thin, white, and
delicate; they attack the roots of grasses, etc., on the outer side
of the ring. It is therefore on this outer side yellow, dry, and more
or less withered. On the inner side, however, the grass is luxuriant
and of a rich bright green. Here the fungus has died off, and its
remains, as well as those of the plants which it destroyed, form a
rich manure for the new grass following on its track. Every year
the ring widens; at a certain time in summer one sees the irregular
line of mushroom-like fungi which are formed by the destructive
underground absorbing threads. This, however, is but one of the
underground fungi. There are many kinds; some are useful, others are
very destructive.
Upon the upper surface of the soil there falls not only rain, but
another sort of rain consisting of seeds, dead leaves, insects'
bodies, fungus spores, bacteria, and dust.
Every year when the ploughman turns the sod there is a revolution in
the whole of these populations.
So far nothing has been said about the roots themselves, which
penetrate, explore, and exploit all these layers of dead leaves,
soil, and subsoil.
The length of roots produced is very much greater than any one would
suppose. A one-year-old Scotch fir seedling when grown in sand
produced in a season a total length (branches, etc.) of no less than
thirty-six feet of root. The total surface of this root system was
estimated to be about twenty-three square inches. This little Scotch
fir after six months' growth was laying under contribution a cone of
earth twenty to thirty inches deep and with a surface of 222 square
inches. In certain kinds of corn the same author estimated the total
length of the roots as from 1500 to 1800 feet. S. Clark estimated the
length of the roots of a large cucumber plant as amounting to 25,000
yards (fifteen miles), and made out that it was occupying a whole
cubic yard of ground.
Clover roots are said to go down to depths of six or nine feet, but
many weeds go deeper still. Coltsfoot, for instance, may be found,
according to a friend of mine, living at a depth of twenty spades. In
Egypt and other places the roots of acacias go down to twenty feet or
even further, so that they can tap the water supplies, which are at a
great depth.
But a still more extraordinary fact is the manner in which the
root-branches arrange to grow in such a way that they search every
part of the soil.
The main root in many plants grows straight down, or as nearly as it
can do so. Its branches are inclined downwards at a quite definite
angle which is often 30°-45° to the surface. Moreover, these branches
come off in quite a regular way. Each keeps growing in its own
special direction to the east, south-east, or west, or whatever it
may be, of its parent root.
Have they some extraordinary sense of the direction of the points
of the compass? It is said that if a side root, which is growing,
say for instance downwards and westwards, is turned in some other
direction, it will after a time resume its original westerly voyage.
This fact is a most extraordinary one, if true, but it can scarcely
be said that it has been proved, and, as will be shown later, there
are other curious facts in the behaviour of roots which might explain
the experiment without assuming that roots know the points of the
compass.
If one cuts a branch of willow and plants it upside down in the
earth, it will very likely take root and grow. Its appearance will
be most extraordinary, for the roots will grow downwards, whilst the
branches, instead of growing in the direction of the old branches,
turn round and grow upwards.[34]
[34] Kerner and Oliver, _l.c._, vol. 1, p. 88.
Why do roots generally grow downwards? The fact is so familiar that
the difficulty of answering does not, at first sight, seem so great
as it really is.
Pfeffer, the great physiologist, has the following interesting
comparison. Suppose a man is trying to find his way in the dark, then
a single lingering ray of light gives him an impulse to walk towards
it.[35] So our root, also in the dark, feels the pull of gravity and
endeavours to grow downwards. Others have compared the direction of
gravity to the sailor's compass, and suppose that the root is guided
in the same sort of way.
[35] _Annals of Botany_, 1904.
But a young, vigorous root making or forcing its way in darkness
through stones and heavy earth is a most interesting and fascinating
study.
There are the most extraordinary coincidences in its behaviour. It
has the property of always doing exactly the right thing in any
emergency.
It is of course intended to keep below the ground and in the dark.
So we find that if roots are uncovered, they will turn away from the
light and burrow into the earth again. They avoid light just as a
worm would do.
Roots are of course intended to absorb or suck in water. If there is
a drain in the soil or a place where water collects, the roots will
grow towards that place. Very often they form a dense spongy mass of
fibres which may almost choke the drain. Along a riverside one can
often find great fibrous masses of tree roots near the water. But how
does the root learn that the water is there and turn away from its
original track to find it? It certainly does so!
Then again, Herr Lilienfeld has recently shown that roots seem able
to turn away from poisonous materials in the soil and to seek out and
grow towards valuable and nutritious substances. He found that peas,
beans, sunflower, and other roots were very sensitive to different
substances in the soil, and were directly attracted by what was good
for them and turned aside from what was unwholesome.
This property and the power of growing towards water probably explain
the mysterious sense of direction alluded to above, for roots will
take a line which has not been exhausted by their neighbours.[36]
[36] Lilienfeld, _Beihefte z. Botan. Centralblatt_, Band XIV.,
abth 1, pp. 131-212. The facts were denied by Newcombe and
Rhodes, _Bot. Gazette_, 36, 1904.
But of all these wonderful properties, the most remarkable is the way
in which roots find their way past stones and other obstacles in the
soil. They insinuate themselves into winding cracks and crawl round
stones with an ingenuity that makes one wonder if they can possibly
be without some sort of intelligence.
It is the very tip or end of the young root that seems to be
responsible; for if, in the course of its journeyings underground, it
should strike a stone or something hard, the root does not grow on
and flatten itself.
But some sort of message is sent back from the tip to the growing
part which is a short distance behind it. After this message has
been received, the growing part begins to curve sideways, so that
the tip is brought clear of the obstacle and can probably proceed
triumphantly upon its way. The inexplicable part is that the growing
part which curves has never been touched at all, but simply answers
to the message from the tip.[37]
[37] If the growing part itself touches a stone it curves round
the stone, not away from it--the reverse of the reaction at the
tip!
This is perhaps the most reasonable and intelligent behaviour found
in the whole vegetable world, and it is not surprising that Darwin
compared the root-tip to a brain.
These extraordinary responses fill one with astonishment, but
there are others still more interesting and remarkable. It will be
remembered that we have already shown how different the soil is at
different levels. The subsoil, soil, and uppermost layers are all
quite different from one another.
This may explain why it is that many plants seem to prefer to develop
their roots at one particular depth below the surface. Not only so,
but they find their own favourite level in the most persevering way.
If, for instance, you sow a barley-corn at too great a depth, the
seed germinates and forms a few roots, but it immediately sends out a
stem which grows upwards towards the light. As soon as this stem has
reached the proper place, which is just below the surface, there is
an enormous development of roots, which begin to search and explore
their favourite stratum of soil.[38]
[38] Pfeffer, _l.c._, p. 139.
In some few cases one can see in a dim sort of way the reason for the
level which certain plants prefer. Thus the underground stems of the
common Thistle, which are very long and fleshy, are found just a few
inches below the level usually reached by plough or spade. This makes
it very difficult to tear them out. Even if grubbers with long spikes
which reach as deep as these buried stems are driven through the
ground, it generally happens that the stems are only cut in pieces
and not dragged up. These hardy weeds are not much injured by little
accidents of this kind, for each separate bit will form upright
thistle stems next year. In fact if one cuts this fleshy subterranean
runner of the Thistle into pieces a quarter of an inch long, each
piece will probably become a Thistle.
Sometimes indeed these weeds are carried from one field to another
by pieces of them sticking in the very machines which are used to
eradicate them.
The Bishopsweed is one of the hardest cases. The writer was once
ambitious enough to try to dig up an entire plant of this horrid
weed. The first foot or so revealed no sign of the end of the
branching runners, and it was not until a hole about four feet deep
and five feet across had been excavated that there was any sign of an
end to the plant.
When it was at last removed, the original deeply buried stem was
found to give off branches which again branched in a most complicated
manner, until almost every green shoot of Bishopsweed[39] within a
space six feet in diameter was seen to be really a branch of this
one original plant! So to eradicate the plant it would have been
necessary to dig over the whole garden to a depth of at least five or
six feet.
[39] This weed is a cure for gout, and seems to have been called
Bishopsweed because it was supposed that gout was a common
ailment of bishops!
How did the stem get down to such a depth below the surface? This is
one of the most curious stories in plant life, and the process which
we shall now try to describe has only been explained within the last
few years.[40]
[40] By the classical researches of Rimbach.
The seed of the Wild Garlic (_Allium ursinum_) lies at first upon the
surface of the ground, but it is soon buried by a growth of the stalk
of the seed-leaf, which pushes the germ down below the earth. As soon
as it is buried, roots are formed and pass obliquely downwards, where
they become fixed by forming root-hairs all round themselves. These
root-hairs round every root hold its tip firmly in the earth; then
these same roots contract or shorten, which of course hauls down the
root a little deeper in the earth. One might compare it to a few men
hauling down a balloon by ropes attached to the car. About September
to November, roots of quite a different character are formed; these
explore the surrounding soil and gather in food and moisture.
Then the roots rest during the winter, when the buds and young leaves
are being formed. In April the buds begin to push out their leaves
and a new ring of roots appear. These April roots are quite different
from the September ones. They again fix themselves firmly and then
contract, becoming fully a third shorter than they were originally.
The bulb is dragged down still deeper below the surface. It flowers
in May and fruits in June and July. Then in September the same
series of operations begins again. The process goes on until the
plant is three to five inches below the ground.
It follows from all this, that every year the roots find new ground
to explore and utilize. Nor is the Wild Garlic at all exceptional in
this respect. A great many plants have roots which contract and drag
the bulb or stem after them deeper into the earth. Something of the
same sort happens, for instance, to Bramble branches. They arch or
droop over, when growing, so that the end touches the earth. On the
underside of the tip, as soon as it begins to rest on the ground,
roots are formed. These roots make their way into the ground, and
then, when fixed, they shorten or contract, so that the end of the
branch is dragged down to a depth of several inches. After this has
happened the old branch generally dies away, and a young, vigorous
Bramble develops from its buried tip.
Raspberry branches also are often buried; their roots become coiled
or rolled in a very curious manner. The end of the root becomes
firmly attached in the soil, and then the rest of it revolves like a
tendril so as to draw the stem deeper into the earth.[41]
[41] Scott Elliot and Fingland, _Trans. Nat. Hist. Soc. Glasgow_,
vol. 5, New Series, part ii., 1897-8.
On any ordinary roadside in the country one is sure to find the
rosettes of the common Dandelion and of the Rats-tail Plantain
(_Plantago major_). These are two of the most interesting plants in
the world, although they are vulgarly common. How is it that their
leaves are always at the level of the ground? The stem is always
growing upwards; every year fresh circles of leaves are formed above
the older ones. Yet the crown of the stem is never so much raised up
above the ground that the toe of a boot would be likely to knock it
off. It is always kept so deep in the earth, that it is by no means
easy to kick or "howk" the crown out of the ground.
The Dandelion root contracts very strongly at the end of the season,
and by this shortening or contraction keeps its leaves just at the
soil level. The Plantain sends out about forty to sixty oblique
downward-growing roots, which fix themselves in the soil by throwing
out branch roots. These forty to sixty roots are at first about ten
inches long, but, as soon as they are firmly attached, they contract,
and pull the stem with its crown of leaves about one-third of an inch
deeper. This is just enough to keep the leaves flat on the ground and
to prevent any possible injury from passers-by.
So that in finding their favourite level in the soil, plants are
often pulled or hauled about by the roots. But they are not always
moved by the roots. Even though buried in darkness, they seem able in
some way to tell when they are in the most favourable position.
Every gardener knows that Autumn Crocus and other bulbs do not remain
in the same position. They wander below ground in a curious and
inexplicable fashion.
The Solomon's Seal has an underground, fleshy stem, which prefers to
grow at a definite depth. If it is planted close to the surface, then
the point of the next year's little fleshy bud turns downwards; next
year it again turns downwards, and so on every year, until the stem
has reached its proper depth. Then it grows horizontally. Similarly,
if it is planted too deep it grows upwards.
Thus if one wishes to realize the underground life of plants, one
must picture to oneself:--
1. The usual descending roots, whose system of branching may be
compared to the ordinary branching above ground. It is often not
unlike the reflection in water of the tree itself, such as one might
see on a fine winter's day along the shore of some still lake.
2. The bold, exploring, horizontal runners of Couchgrass, Thistle,
Bishopsweed, etc., vigorously pushing their way at a depth too great
for the gardener's spade.
3. All sorts of bulbs, runners, and roots being slowly hauled or
dragged about till they get into exactly the right position, but
never remaining for two years in exactly the same place. All have
their favourite depth[42]--
[42] See Rimbach's researches.
Herb Paris 2/3 to 1-3/4 inches deep.
Solomon's Seal 1-1/3 to 2-1/3 " "
Cuckoo Pint (_Arum maculatum_) 2 to 4 " "
Colchicum (Autumn Crocus) 3-1/3 to 5-1/3 " "
Asparagus 6-3/8 to 13-1/8 " "
The water evaporating on the surface of the soil must, as it rises
from the permanent water-level below, pass the gauntlet of all
these thirsty rootlets and their hairs. Tree-roots will be ready to
intercept it at ten feet depth, many herbaceous plants will suck it
in at depths of five to six feet, and in the upper layers of soil it
will have to pass root-system after root-system from Asparagus to
Paris, so that very little will be lost.
Perhaps of more importance are the bacteria-germs, and dissolved
mineral salts in the rainwater as it trickles down from the surface.
The soil particle acts as a filter: at every inch of the descent some
of the bacteria and salts will be left, so that by the time the level
of Asparagus has been reached there will be exceedingly few, and the
water is comparatively speaking pure. The effect of this vigorous
underground life is often visible on the surface. Roots, and
particularly tree-roots, are often extraordinarily strong. Kerner, in
his invaluable _Natural History of Plants_, has a beautiful picture
of a young larch tree which had grown in a fissure of a huge boulder.
In attempting to grow, the root had forced up part of this stone. It
was estimated that it had lifted a weight of 3000 lb., though it was
only some ten inches in diameter.
Along a dry-stone wall, or even near houses, the growth of tree-roots
very often damages the entire wall, which may be entirely overthrown
if the tree is too near. The force of the growth of the roots is so
great that even a six-foot stone wall cannot keep them down.
Quite a young seedling root, in forcing itself through the soil, may
exercise a pressure of two-thirds to four-fifths of a pound!
This is of course necessary, if one remembers that it has to drive
itself through the earth, pushing aside and compressing the earth
particles along its course.
CHAPTER VII
HIGH MOUNTAINS, ARCTIC SNOWS
The life of a cherry tree--Cherries in March--Flowering of
gorse--Chickweed's descendants--Forest fires in Africa--Spring
passing from Italy to the frozen North--Life in the
Arctic--Dwarfs--Snow-melting soldanellas--Highland Arctic-Alpine
plants--Their history--Arctic Britain--Edelweiss--An Alpine
garden.
It is impossible to understand and very difficult to explain the sort
of life and consciousness which is enjoyed by plants.
That they do live is obvious; we know instinctively that they enjoy
fine weather in summer and gentle showers in spring, but we cannot
prove it.
Much of a plant's life is concealed and hidden from us. Even the few
explanations which have been given by certain observers are by no
means generally accepted.
This is true even as regards the case of the Cherry tree, which
has been experimented with, and fought over and argued about by
botanists, and yet we only know a very little about its inner life.
When the leaves fall in autumn, next season's buds are already formed
and are then about one-eighth of their full size. At this time the
tree contains enormous quantities of food-stores, for the whole
season's work of the leaves has been accumulating until this moment.
During the long winter's "sleep" the tree is by no means at rest. It
is arranging and packing up those stores in the safest place and in
the most convenient form.
Just as a bear, before it retires to sleep during the winter, takes
care to get as fat as possible, so the Cherry turns its starch to
fat, and stores it away in the innermost and least exposed parts of
the tree, that is in the central wood. As soon as the winter ends,
and indeed _before_ it has ended, preparations are beginning for the
great moment of the year. For weeks there is a slow, gradual, almost
imperceptible growth of the buds, then they develop with a rush,
and in six to ten days double or treble their weight. Then comes
the supreme moment, for the flower-buds suddenly burst open and the
Cherry is in active and vigorous bloom and covered all over with
exquisite blossoms. All last year's fats and starches are rapidly
used up. Very soon the young leaves are beginning to make sugar and
other food, which give some help during the ripening of the fruit.
The flowers are actively at work. One of our usual misconceptions
as to the nature of a flower is that it is an emblem of peace, of
restful enjoyment, of serene contemplation of its own beauty. That is
very far from being the truth. The petals are actively, vigorously
working. If one could take the pulse of a petal, which shows the
rapidity of its breathing, one would find that it is twice as fast as
that of the leaf. The work of changing water into vapour and pouring
it out goes on three times as quickly in the petals (as compared
with the leaves). Moreover their temperature is higher, and often
distinctly above that of the atmosphere.
This feverish activity of the flowers themselves is matched by
the hurrying crowds of excited and exhilarated insects which are
searching every blossom.
No wonder that the Japanese Prime Minister, in the midst of their
great and famous war, invited the whole cabinet to spend an afternoon
watching the cherry trees in bloom!
[Illustration: _Stereo Copyright, Underwood & Underwood_
_London & New York_
WISTARIA IN KAMAIDO PARK, JAPAN]
From the blossom of the springtime all through summer and autumn
follows one continuous spell of hard work. Day after day an endless
stream of food is entering the stem; night after night it is
condensed and arranged and repacked, until, when the leaves fall, the
period of slow and quiet preparation begins again.
Under certain conditions it is possible for gardeners to modify the
life of a cherry, and to make it bloom much earlier, but this is only
possible within well-defined limits. It is no use trying to force it
to bloom before January. It _must_ have a quiet time after summer.
But by beginning in January and by very carefully managing the
temperature, it can be made to produce fruit quite early in the year.
The following account is given to show how very carefully gardeners
have to work when they upset the ordinary course of Nature's events.
The plant is taken into a greenhouse, and the temperature kept as
follows:--
Day Night
Temperature. Temperature.
First week 48°-50° F. 41°-45° F.
Second week 50°-53° F. 45°-48° F.
Third week 53°-59° F. 48°-51° F.
Till flowering 59°-64° F. 51°-57° F.
Flowering period 46°-53° F.(!) 43°-50° F.(!)
After flowering 59°-64° F. 51°-57° F.
During development of stone 53°-59° F.(!) 48°-51° F.(!)
After development of stone 61°-66° F. 53°-59° F.
Ripening of fruit 68°-70° F. 59°-63° F.
Not merely strong, forcing heat, but a little judicious cold, is
necessary to get out the flowers and to ripen the fruit.[43]
[43] Schimper, _Pflanzengeographie_. The account is based on the
works of Pynaert, Sachs, Askenasy, etc.
Most flowers have very much the same general history as the cherry,
but it must not be supposed that they are all alike. The differences
are very interesting and curious.
Thus, for example, plants of our common Gorse, furze, or whin may
be found in bloom at almost every season of the year. There are at
least four seasons when there is that tremendous display of golden
blossom which made the great Linnæus fall on his knees and burst into
tears. These are about the 22nd March, 24th May, 15th August, and
21st November; yet there are enough odd flowers blooming in almost
every month to give some cause for the saying, "The gorse is out
of bloom when kissing is out of favour." The last practice, though
uncleanly and dangerous, not only on general grounds, but on account
of bacterial germs which may be transferred, has been authoritatively
condemned in the United States, but it is still more or less popular
in other countries at all seasons.
The Chickweed and some other of our annual weeds show a hardy
disregard of climate. Its seeds germinate and grow at any time, so
that flowers and seeds can be formed whenever there is a spell of
favourable weather. Now one chickweed can produce 3000 seeds. Suppose
that there are only five generations in the year, which is a very low
estimate. Then one seed of chickweed might produce 3000 × 3000 × 3000
× 3000 individuals in one season!
Other plants show much the same tendency. In fine warm autumns
a great many annuals bloom a second time. It is on record that
forty-four spring species bloomed in one warm November. At the Cape
and in other warm climates many of our annuals do not die at the end
of autumn, but go on growing. They become perennial.
It is even possible to make a Tree Mignonette by pinching off the
flower-buds, though this plant is usually an annual.
In fact plants are not absolutely confined to one rigid scheme,
but they can alter and modify their blooming time if they find it
convenient to do so. In the Mediterranean some blossom in early
spring and others in late autumn, whilst in the dry, hot, and dusty
summer very few flower.
In Central Africa during the dry season forest fires are by no means
rare. The trees are scattered, and the ground is only covered by
dried and withered grasses and sedges. One sees in the distance a
rolling cloud of smoke, and soon one comes to a line of flame. It is
not dangerous, not even very impressive, for a jump of three feet
carries you over the flame and on to a desolate wilderness of black
cinders, out of which stand up the scorched trunks and half-burnt
branches of gaunt, naked trees. A day or two afterwards, bright blue
and white and yellow flowers break out of those scorched branches and
also from the ground.
It is difficult to understand why this happens, but certainly it
is good for the flowers, which can be seen by insects from a long
distance.
But these are unusual cases. Generally the warm breath of spring
wakes up the bulbs and buds, and one after another has its moment of
flowering.
Spring travels towards the North Pole at an average rate of four
miles a day.
A pedestrian visiting Italy in the end of January might follow the
spring northwards, and if he wished to accompany it all the way, it
would be quite possible to do so without exceeding an ordinary day's
march. He would have to reach North Germany by the end of March,
Sweden in May, and by the end of June and July would find spring
beginning in the desolate Arctic regions.
Of course the presence of mountains would make this tour a little
difficult and devious, but still it is quite a possible undertaking.
It would be very interesting, for he would be able to watch the cold
and frost and chilliness of winter disappearing as the sun's rays
thaw out a greater and greater extent of the cold and frozen North.
The life of an Arctic plant is truly set in the midst of many and
great dangers.
For 250 days the ground is hard frozen and the temperature _never_
above the freezing-point. About the end of May it begins to rise
a little, but the plant has to crowd the whole of its life, its
flowers, fruits, and seeds, into the space of two months!
About the 23rd to the 29th June the first flower appears, then
follows strong, active growth in uninterrupted sunshine during July
and August. The flowers are brilliant in colour and richly produced.
The tiny dwarf Arctic plants are covered all over with blue or golden
yellow or white blossoms. All is in full activity and luxuriance.
Then suddenly, in a night, the icy grasp of winter falls upon them.
Hard-frozen flowers, buds, and ripening fruits remain chilled and
incapable of life from the 30th August until the end of May.
Of course, under such conditions, these hardy and vigorous little
plants cannot become trees or shrubs. To show the effect of the
climate upon them, a few British plants which are also Arctic may be
compared.
In In the
Great Britain. Arctic Regions.
Matweed
(_Matricaria inodora_) 6 in. to 1 ft. high 2 in.
Goldenrod
(_Solidago virgaurea_) 1-2 ft. 3-4 in.
Red Rattle
(_Pedicularis palustris_) 6 in. to 1 ft. 2-3 in.
Mugwort
(_Artemisia vulgaris_) 2 to 4 ft. 4-5 in.
Willow-herb
(_Epilobium palustris_) 1 to 2 ft. 2 in.
Grass of Parnassus
(_Parnassia palustris_) 6 in. to 1 ft. 1 in.
These wretched little dwarfs seem, however, to have pretty long
lives, and, as we have said, deck themselves in the most gaudy
colours every summer.
In the Alps of Switzerland and other temperate countries, the
flowering season is also a very short one and soon over. It is often
not more than six weeks, yet in that short time the rich blue of the
Gentian, the Alpine Roses, Soldanellas, Campanulas, and many others
make some of these grass slopes high up in the mountains a perfect
garden of loveliness.
Sometimes in passing over the snowfields of Switzerland just before
spring, one notices the pretty violet flowers of the Soldanella
swaying to and fro in the wind above the unmelted snow. One does
occasionally see in this country the Snowdrop in the midst of snow,
but then it has fallen after the Snowdrop had blossomed.
The Alpine Soldanella flowers whilst the earth is still covered. It
begins as soon as the ground below the snow is thawed. Each little
developing flower-stalk melts out a grotto in the snow above itself,
and so bores, thawing its way up into the air above. It has already
been mentioned that, inside a flower, the temperature is often higher
than the surrounding air. It is this higher temperature of the flower
which thaws a little dome or grotto in the snow above the head of
the flower.[44] When a flock of sheep are covered by a snowdrift,
a similar hollow is formed above them by their breath and the high
temperature of their bodies: they often seem indeed to be little or
none the worse for being buried. The Soldanella melts its way in just
the same manner.
[44] Kerner, _Natural History of Plants_ (Blackie), vol. 1, p.
468.
In this country we have no such magnificent chain of mountains as
the Alps, and yet we find on the Scotch and Welsh mountains quite a
number of real alpines.
There are, for instance, such flowers as Sea-pink (_Armeria_), Sea
Plantain (_Plantago maritima_), Scurvy-grass, and others, which
can be found on windy, desolate gullies and corries high up on the
Highland hills, and which also occur on the sea-coast, but _never
between the seashore and the tops of the mountains_. You might search
every field, every moor, and every riverside throughout the country,
but you would not discover those three plants anywhere between the
seashore and the summits.
At first sight it seems quite impossible to explain why this should
be the case. But all those three plants are found in the Arctic
regions, and the explanation is in reality quite simple.
At one time the shores of England and Scotland formed part of the
Arctic regions. Ice and snow covered the hills and mountains;
huge glaciers occupied the valleys and flowed over the lowlands,
plastering the low grounds with clay which they dragged underneath
them, and polishing and scratching any exposed rocks.
When the ice began to melt away and left free "berg battered beaches"
and "boulder-hatched hills," Lincolnshire and Yorkshire must have
been like the Antarctic regions in those days. This is how Dr. Louis
Bernacchi describes the Antarctic continent:--
"The scene before us looked inexpressibly desolate.... No token of
vitality anywhere, nothing to be seen on the steep slopes of the
mountains but rock and ice.... Gravel and pebbles were heaped up in
mounds and ridges. In some places these ridges coalesced so as to
form basin-shaped hollows. Bleached remains of thousands of penguins
were scattered all over the platform, mostly young birds that had
succumbed to the severity of the climate."
Great Britain must have been just as savage and desolate when
these hardy little Arctic plants colonized the shingles and rooted
themselves amongst the rocks.
They covered not only the seashore, but they probably made a
settlement wherever rock or land of any kind was exposed. These
original settlers have had three bands of descendants. One band has
remained ever since on the seashore of Great Britain; another set
gradually travelled northwards. As the ice melted away, leaving
the land bare, first in Denmark, then in Norway, and finally in
Greenland, this second set followed it, until now we find them far to
the northward, populating the Arctic regions of to-day just as they
did those of Britain in the Great Ice Age.
The third set of descendants would at first cover all the land and
rocks of the lower hills and valleys near the sea; then as the ice
and snow melted and exposed the higher mountain sides, they would
climb the hills and eventually reach the exposed summits where they
are now living. There they find themselves in an impossible, savage
sort of climate, in which they alone are able to exist. Violent
storms, drenching mist, scorching sunshine (when the rocks become
so hot that it is almost impossible to touch them), rainstorms and
months of snow and hard frost, cannot kill Scurvy-grass, Seathrift,
or Plantain, but there are few other plants which can stand such
conditions. Lower down on the flanks of the hills and in the valleys,
they have long since been dispossessed of the rich and fertile lands
by plants which can grow more rapidly and luxuriantly.
The little Alpine Creeping and Least Willows, for instance, some of
which get up to 3980 feet in Breadalbane, are mere dwarfs only a few
inches high, and totally different from their allies in the fertile
lowlands, which are trees eighty to ninety feet high.
Some of the Alpine plants which also occur in the Arctic regions have
not even been able to survive by the seaside in Great Britain. Their
nearest allies are in the Norwegian mountains.
It would be impossible even for shrubs to stand the violent winds and
snowstorms of these summits. Alpine plants are generally low-growing
mats. They are also often clothed all over in cottonwool, such as the
Edelweiss. This probably keeps them from losing too much water during
the dry season, when the rocks on which they grow are strongly heated
by the sunlight.
Yet, like the Arctic plants, they have rich, deep, and brilliant
colours.
A queer point is that they have got so accustomed to this stormy and
perilous existence that it is extremely difficult to grow them in a
garden. Like mountaineers, they dwindle and pine away in the richer
soil and softer air of the low grounds.
To make an Alpine garden, rocks and stones must be arranged with
pockets and hollows, like natural crevices and basins, between them.
Rich leaf-mould must be placed in these hollows. There must be good
drainage, and as much sunlight as one can possibly get.
CHAPTER VIII
SCRUB
Famous countries which were covered by it--Trees which are
colonizing the desert--Acacia scrub in East Africa, game and
lions--Battle between acacia and camels, etc.--Australian
half-deserts--Explorers' fate--Queen Hatasu and the first
geographical expedition recorded--Frankincense, myrrh, gums, and
odorous resins--Manna--Ladanum--Burning bush--Olives, oranges,
and perfume farms--Story of roses--Bulgarian attar of roses--How
pomade is made--Cutting down of forests and Mohammed.
A scrub or Half-desert does not seem at first sight to be in the
least interesting.
But if one remembers such places as Cordoba, Seville, Florence,
Genoa, Sicily, Athens, Constantinople, the great cities of Ephesus,
Corinth, etc., of St. Paul's Epistles, Persia, Arabia, Palestine, and
Carthage, surely the countries which have had such splendid histories
deserve a chapter to themselves. What achievements in war, in art, in
literature, and in romance are connected with these lands bordering
the Mediterranean or fringing the great deserts of Sahara and central
Asia!
The animals which belong to such country are also interesting. It
is the home of the camel, ass, horse, donkey, not to speak of the
giraffe, rhinoceros, gazelle, antelope, zebra, lion, and hyena.
The plants are full of interest too, and some of them are of great
importance to man. The Olive, Orange, Fig, Roses, and many perfumes
and spice-trees, are natives of scrub. In fact, it is the real centre
of all gums, frankincenses, and myrrhs.
As man depends upon plants and animals, and as animals also are
dependent on the plant world, it is the climate which really is
responsible for everything.
The world of plants is entirely and exactly regulated by the
character of the climate. What, then, is the climate of scrub?
Those countries enjoy brilliant sunshine, cloudless skies, and yet
there is sufficient rain to permit of irrigation and to prevent
the unmitigated desolation of the desert. When, as has happened in
many of these famous lands, the forests have been cut down and the
aqueducts have been neglected, they become arid, dry, and almost
useless. But when carefully and industriously worked, as they were in
the days of Greece, Carthage, and Rome, they produce results which
will for ever live in the history of the world.
The meaning of such half-desert climates and of the scrub which
covers them has been already suggested.
The scrub is trying to occupy the desert.
If one takes the sternwheel steamer at the First Cataract of the
Nile and passes southwards, the desolation of black rock and
"honey-coloured" sand of the Libyan Desert is at first unbroken.
But here and there the thorny trees of the "Seyal". Acacia show
the beginnings of a scrub region. Much further to the south, those
acacias and others become great forests which extend all along the
south of the Sahara Desert and furnish the valuable gums of the
Soudan.
If one passes southward through this forest of acacias, it alters in
character. The trees become taller, closer together, and climbing
plants and undergrowth become more frequent. Still further south,
one finds the regular tropical forest which is characteristic of the
tropics everywhere.
[Illustration:
_Photo G. F._
GATHERING OLIVES IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE]
The most interesting part, which is also the richest in big game, is
the intermediate zone between the desert and the acacia forest or
scrub.
All sorts of transitions are found. Sometimes there are thickets of
thorny bushes. Occasionally scattered clumps of woodland alternate
with stretches of grass or what looks like grass. Near the desert one
finds pioneer acacias dotted singly here and there; these are the
scouts or skirmishers of the army of trees which is trying to occupy
and colonize the desert.
This explains why this sort of scrub occurs in so many parts of the
world. On the European side of the Mediterranean, the dry climate
of Spain, the Riviera, and Greece must no doubt at one time have
supported a scrub vegetation. At present it is difficult to tell what
this was. There is a sort of scrub called _Maqui_ which covers parts
especially of Corsica and other Mediterranean countries. In Greece,
also, thorny, woody little bushes are very common.
But these are just what the goats, who are fiends from a vegetable
point of view, have been unable to destroy. We cannot tell what sort
of country revealed itself to the first Phoenicians when they landed
in Southern Spain to traffic with the savage inhabitants, or what met
the eyes of Ulysses when he made his great voyage to unknown lands.
But there are places in the world where man has never either kept
domestic animals or cultivated the soil. Possibly Spain and Sicily in
those early days were not unlike parts of British East Africa, such
as the Taru Desert between Mombasa and Kibwezi.
The following may give an idea of how this scrub or desert appeared
to me.
Gnarled and twisted acacias of all sorts and sizes, usually with
bright white bark and a thin, naked appearance, cover the whole
country. Amongst these one finds the curious _trees_ of Euphorbia.
In Britain Euphorbias are little green uninteresting weeds, but
here some of them are twenty to thirty feet high, with many slender
whip-like branches, but no leaves. Others are exactly like Cactus,
and take on weird, candelabra-like shapes. Nobody meddles with
them for, if the slightest cut is made in the bark, out pours an
acrid, white milk which raises painful blisters, and may even cause
blindness if a drop touches the eyes.
Almost all the plants are either covered with thorns or protected by
resins, gums, or poisonous secretions.
Between the scrubby trees the soil is dotted over by little tufts
of grass or sedge, but these are so far apart that the tint of the
landscape is that of the soil.
Game is abundant everywhere. Sometimes it is a small bustard or
a persistent, raucous guinea-fowl that affords a chance for a
good dinner. Occasionally a tiny gazelle, the "paa," with large
ears, springs out of the thorns and vanishes down the path. I saw
footprints of giraffes, and came across ostriches more than once. I
also made a persevering attempt to slay a Clarke's gazelle, an animal
with enormous ears and a long thin neck.[45]
[45] _Naturalist in Mid-Africa._
These long-necked creatures can see far above the usual short thorny
bush, and it is exceeding difficult to get near them. Water probably
exists under the stony grit soil, but at present one has to be
contented with that found in the stagnant pools at Taru, Maungu,
etc., which, if not occupied by the decaying remains of a dead
antelope, are, as a rule, drinkable.[46]
[46] _Naturalist in Mid-Africa._
These acacias are quite well fitted to live in this dry and arid
region. Their roots go down to twenty feet or more, so as to reach
the deep-seated water supplies.
Their leaves are generally adapted to resist any injury from the
strong glare of the sunshine. The gums, already alluded to, are also
very important, for any crack or break in the tree is promptly gummed
up, and there is no loss of precious water thereby. This gum will
also prevent or discourage burrowing and boring insects from getting
in; they would, if they tried to do so, become "flies in amber," like
those found in fossil resin. The trees are generally provided with
strong spines, which guard them from the many grazing animals which
try to devour the succulent leaflets.
The fight between the grazing animal and the plant is, in these
scrubs and half-deserts, very severe. In Egypt it is said that the
whole flora has been entirely altered by the camel and the donkey.[47]
[47] Floyer.
But in this case the battle is unfair. Man keeps those camels,
donkeys, and goats. He provides them with water and protects them
from lions, leopards, and snakes. In East Africa man has not yet
interfered, and the plants probably get the better of the animals.
In such places lions, leopards, and hyenas are common. It will be
remembered that a lion not very long ago stormed and took charge of a
railway station on the line to Uganda, and was only routed with very
heavy loss.
There is also some reason to suppose that the antelopes and other
creatures do help the plants in their efforts to colonize the Sahara.
Their droppings will very greatly improve the soil, and more vigorous
thickets and undergrowth will spring up when the soil is improved in
this way. Such a vigorous growth of plants will be better able to
resist the long eight or nine months' drought, and so help the wood
to develop, until perhaps it is too thick, and the trees are too
high, for the antelopes to graze upon them. In this manner the Acacia
scrub is slowly and painfully colonizing the desert.
It is not only in Africa that one finds these half-deserts or scrub.
There is the Brigalow Scrub in Australia, which has a curious
silver-grey shimmering appearance on account of the blue-grey
sickle-like leaves of the Brigalow Acacia. The foliage casts no
shade, for the leaves are flat and thin, and place themselves
edgewise to the light, so that there is no danger of the strong
light injuring them. Also in Australia is the Mallee Scrub, covering
thousands of square miles between the Murray River and the coast. It
consists of bushy Eucalyptus, six to twelve feet high. Its monotonous
appearance when seen from a small hill is very striking.[48] "Below
lies an endless sea of yellow-brown bushes: perhaps far away one
may observe the blue outline of some solitary hill or granite peak,
but otherwise nothing breaks the monotonous dark-brown horizon.
Everything is silent and motionless save perhaps where the scrub-hen
utters its complaining cry, or when the wind rustles the stiff
eucalyptus twigs."[49]
[48] Drude, _Vegetation der Erde_.
[49] Drude, _l.c._
There is a melancholy interest attaching to both the Mallee and
Brigalow, for in them lie the bones of many gallant and persevering
explorers. Nor is the East African thorn-tree desert without its
victims. The missionary, Dr. Chalmers, was lost near Kibwezi in the
Taru Desert.
[Illustration: THE EGYPTIAN QUEEN HATARU'S EXPEDITION
The ships of the expedition are drawn up along the shores of Punt
(in Somaliland), and incense trees are being carried on board.
Notice the baboons on board ship, and the rays and sword-fish in
the water.]
There are a certain number of valuable plants found in these
half-deserts or scrubs. Perhaps the earliest geographical
expedition of which we have a good account (with illustrations) is
that sent by the Egyptian Queen, Hatasu, from Thebes, about three
thousand years ago. She built on the Red Sea a fleet of five ships,
each able to carry from fifty to seventy people, and sent them to
the land of Punt, which was probably Somaliland. The natives lived
in round huts built on piles like the ancient lake dwellings. The
object of the journey was to obtain incense. No less than thirty-one
incense-bushes were dug up with as much earth as possible about their
roots, and carried to the ships, where they were placed upright on
the deck and covered with an awning to keep off the sun's rays.
Whether they did really survive the journey and grow in Egypt is
uncertain. Sacks of resin, ebony, cassia, apes, baboons, dogs,
leopard-skins, and slaves, as well as gold and silver, were also
taken away. The Queen of Punt accompanied them. From her appearance
it is not probable that the Queen of Sheba was any relation, although
some writers have supposed that Sheba and Punt were the same place.
The whole story is represented in coloured bas-reliefs in the temple
at Tel-el-Bahiri, near Thebes.[50]
[50] Rawlinson, _Story of Egypt_.
The incense here alluded to was a very valuable drug in Egypt on
account of its use in embalming mummies. Quite a number of gums,
resins, and the like, are obtained from Somaliland and similar
half-desert countries. The frankincense of the Bible, which may
be the incense of Hatasu, is obtained from _Olibanum_ produced by
various species of Boswellia. In February and March, cuts are made by
the incense gatherers in the bark of the trees. Tears of resin soon
appear and become dried by the sun over the wound. The best kinds
still come from Saba, in Arabia, where the Romans obtained it in
the time of Virgil. Besides Olibanum, frankincense contains Galbanum
(_Ferula galbaniflua_) and Storax (_Storax officinale_). Equal parts
of these were mixed with the horny shield of a certain shell-fish.
When the last is burnt, it has a strong pungent odour. The Galbanum
is now found in Persia, and Storax in Asia Minor, both half-desert
countries. The true Myrrh (_Commiphora myrrha_) is also found in East
Africa and South-west Arabia.
The name is supposed to be derived from Myrrha, the daughter of
Cinyras, King of Cyprus, who in consequence of a great crime was
banished to Arabia and became the tree which bears her name. The
myrrh of the Sacred Oracles was used as incense at least 3700 years
ago, and it is mentioned by Moses (Genesis xxxvii. 25).
The sovereign of England used always to present gold, frankincense,
and myrrh in the Chapel Royal, London, on the feast of the Epiphany,
and, strange though it may appear, the symbolic offering is still
made each year by our present king.
Balm of Gilead (_Balsamodendron Gileadense_) belongs to scrub or
half-desert regions. Cleopatra obtained plants from Jericho for her
garden at Heliopolis. The Jews used to sell it regularly to the
merchants of Tyre.
It is still valuable, for the essence is worth from £2 to £3 per lb.
The opoponax described by Dioscorides belongs to the Orient. It
yields a valuable gum resin, which is much used in perfumery
(_Pastinaca opoponax_). It also is obtained by incisions in the
bark[51] of the tree.
[51] Ridley, _l.c._; Lindley, _l.c._; Maisch, _Materia Medica_.
In fact a very large proportion of these fragrant sweet-smelling
substances, Myrrh, Cassia, Bdellium, etc., come from these sunny
Eastern lands, which are not exactly deserts but very close to them.
Manna, e.g., is obtained from the flowering Ash (_Fraxinus ormus_)
in Sicily by transverse incisions being made in the bark, so that
the brownish or yellowish viscid juice exudes and hardens on the
wound. _Ladanum_ is a varnish or gluey coating found on the leaves of
_Cistus creticus_, which grows in Crete. In old times the glue was
collected from the beards of the goats which had been browsing on
the plant. Although this method, no doubt, increased the strength of
the perfume, it has been abandoned, and the ladanum is obtained by a
"kind of rake with a double row of long leathern straps." The straps
take the glue from the leaves. It is used as a perfume in Turkey.
Another very interesting Eastern plant sometimes seen in
old-fashioned country gardens in Britain is the "Burning-bush"
(_Dictamnus fraxinella_). Like a great many of these half-desert
plants, it is full of an acrid, ethereal, odorous substance. On a
calm, hot summer's day, this material exudes from the leaves and
surrounds the plant with an invisible vaporous atmosphere. Such an
atmosphere probably assists in preventing the water from evaporating
or being transpired from the leaves.[52]
[52] This was suggested by Tyndall, but has been denied by others.
Now if one places a lighted match a little below the leaves or
flowers this vapour catches fire, and there is a display of flames
and smoke with little explosions, followed by a strong smell. The
plant may be injured if it is set on fire too frequently, but
generally does not seem to be any the worse for the experiment.
The Mediterranean is the home of the Myrtle and Olive, of Oranges and
Lemons, of Figs and Vines, of Almonds and Raisins, as well as of
many other important and interesting plants.
The olive crop in Italy yields about ninety millions of gallons of
olive-oil every year. The olives are collected as soon as they become
ripe, and are crushed in circular stone troughs with a perpendicular
millstone. The paste is then pressed in bags and afterwards clarified
by passing through cotton wool.[53] To the eye of a foreigner the
white gnarled stems and silver-green foliage of the olive groves are
not particularly attractive.
[53] _Journal Society of Arts_, August, 1896.
Near Burriana, in Spain, one may walk for miles through the
plantations of oranges. The dark-green glossy leaves and golden
fruit of the orange make a most beautiful contrast, but the dry,
thirsty soil, and the careful way in which the water is regulated
and supplied by small gutters, most jealously watched over, make the
tourist realize the difficulty of agriculture in so dry and arid a
country.
The Myrtle is not a very important plant nowadays, though its berries
are still eaten and myrtle wreaths used to be worn by the bride at
every wedding. In classical times it was sacred to Venus, but the
victors in the Olympian games were also crowned with myrtle, and the
magistrates at Athens had the same privilege. It is no longer used as
a medicine
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