century! Some species of Alpine Gentians produce leaves for several years before they bear any flowers. At the end of this leafing season, and as the reward for such a persistent accumulation over expenditure, there is a decent banking account stored up usually in the shape of a root-stock or underground rhizome. Then follows the season of extravagance. The gorgeous development of flowers draws on every molecule thus prepared for it, keeps open house for insects and even birds, produces stores of seeds rich in a nursery supply of nitrogen and phosphorus ; in short beggars the plant, and either ruins it altogether, or reduces it to a state of temporary bankruptcy, from which it can only recover by perhaps years of subsequent thrift! Every horticulturist knows that an abundant year of apples and pears is usually followed by one of dearth. In short, the seven years of famine" are in this way contingent upon the "seven years of plenty."

The desire "to found a family" is as manifest among plants as among men ! Otherwise what means this slow accumulation of energy on their part? All is eventually expended in the production of flowers and seeds. On the food-store possessed by the latter largely depends their chances of success in the battle of life. Consequently there is as great tendency" to accumulate with plants as with ourselves. "No man liveth to himself alone" (unless he wishes to be perpetually branded for selfishness),

a

and this principle of altruistic morality applies to the vegetable kingdom as well. If I am allowed to use the term "morality" when speaking of the behaviour of plants, I should say the latter instinctively obey the same code, and none other, as that enforced upon humanity!

CHAPTER III.

STATING THE CASE.

A LAWYER does not think he is insulting the common sense or learning of the judge before whom he pleads, by stating his case to the jury in terms of legal explanation which for years may have been the A B C of his lordship. And no genuine botanist will quarrel with a writer who adopts the same plan with intelligent readers unpossessed of a scientific knowledge of plants.

The present chapter, therefore, will be devoted to a brief statement of plant-life as a whole. This is necessary to the general reader who desires to understand the full scope of the argument hereafter used,

There may be a few people who think the process of plant growth and development is less wonderful than it was, because more is known about it. I suppose there is always a certain condition of mind in which familiarity is sure to breed contempt. But, in my opinion, increased knowledge brings increased

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wonder.

Let a man take a grain of wheat, just as it is, and keep it in some dry, cold place. No change occurs; but if he places it in a damp, warm soil, by and by he beholds a marvellous transformation! The plant sprouts and grows. How is

this?

Until lately people regarded growth as a mystical and mysterious process altogether, and so saved themselves the necessity of any further explanation. Others invented phrases to account for it (not a bad method in philosophy), and such people wisely said that growth was due to the vitality of the seed or the virtues of the soil. The latter was a powerful affirmative, from which only a dejected few dared to turn away unsatisfied.

P

r

Let us see, in a quiet and matter-of-fact way, what actually does occur when a seed is placed in the ground.

FIG. 3.-Bean in Section. c. one of the cotyledons;

young root.

Perhaps a botanist would notice, first of all, whether such seed had one lobe or two. If we take off the outer skin of a bean or acorn, we see two halves or cotyledons. No such appear

Þ, young stem; r, the ance, however, is visible in a grain of wheat, barley, or maize, for these are seeds with one lobe only. The broadest classification of flowering-plants is based on this seed-difference-the two-lobed being termed

dicotyledonous, and the single-lobed seeds monocotyledonous.

The sizes of seeds has little or no reference tỏ the magnitude the plant will attain unto which sprouts from it. The Oak-tree does not bear larger seeds than the Bean-plant; those of the Pine and Poplar are not so large as those of the Pea.

Why does any variation occur at all? Everybody knows that most seeds are eatable, such as beans, peas, maize, wheat, hazel-nuts, walnuts, etc. In most of them their nutritious matter is improved by cooking. Even in those seeds we cannot eatsuch as the acorn, horse-chestnut, etc.-it is not because nutritious matter is absent, but because of the presence of some bitter, disagreeable, or even poisonous substance diffused through the nutritious store. We shall see presently that these bitter or poisonous principles are protective to the seeds, and prevent their being so completely eaten up by hungry animals that none remain to perpetuate the species.

If we examine a common broad bean, split open, we see a greenish-white object called the embryo. This is the undeveloped plant which will sprout from the seed under favourable conditions. It is for this insignificant-looking object that, in reality, all the store of nutritious matter in the two lobes has been accumulated and stored away! such a bean in the soil, the first

If we planted thing it would