Chapter II: Preface

When I was a young girl I can well remember how much I longed for some simple book that would help me to learn, not merely the name of a plant and what class and order it belonged to, but something about its life-history.

It seemed very wonderful that, if I put seeds into the ground, dry and dead as they looked, I might feel sure young plants would presently come up; that, if I planted an acorn, a young oak-tree would in due time be seen; but how all this came to pass I could not discover. I had access to an excellent library, but although I searched there hour after hour, and found many a learned book about plants, they might as well have been written in Sanskrit for all I could understand of their scientific pages. There seemed nothing suited to the mind of a thoughtful child, and although, since that long-ago time, endless books have been written for young readers and thinkers, delightful books, too, which meet the needs of those who desire information and instruction, I have not hitherto met with one that makes the careful study of plant-life really interesting and practicable for those young people who may not have a teacher to help them in their study.

It has been my aim in the little volume I now venture to send forth to my young friends, known and unknown, to supply this deficiency. I want to enable them to share the joy of spending hours in a garden learning to understand the structure of plants. I want to make them able, when they see a bud, or a root, or a twig, to know what the history of that object is, how it comes to have the shape it takes, how it developed into its present condition, and what its next form will be.

The possession of the simple facts which I have tried to make plain to every intelligence in the following pages will turn a country walk from a useless lounge into a lively object-lesson, delightful, from beginning to end, alike to teacher and taught. Nor will I apologise for the simple language which I have used, for my design has been, while taking advantage of all the latest discoveries of science, to use no terms and introduce no ideas which cannot be made intelligible to a thoughtful child. In the hope that even so humble an effort as this may not be without a use in enlarging and quickening a sense of that infinite harmony which runs through every part of the Creator’s marvellous plan of nature, I put forth, not without a full sense of its inadequacy, this little volume. It has, at any rate, given me an excuse for endless hours of pleasure within the precincts of my own woods and garden.

I have to acknowledge great indebtedness to Mr. J. W. Odell, F.R.H.S., whose wide knowledge of botanical science has been of essential service in ensuring, as far as possible, the accuracy of my statements.

ELIZA BRIGHTWEN.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.

PAGE

+Adaptation+ 25

Plant collections—General view of vegetable growth—
Lowest forms of plant life—Water buttercup—Vallisneria—
Water-lily—Mare’s-tail—Sea-weeds—Cacti—Orchids—Tillandsia—Seed
dispersion.

CHAPTER II.

+Roots+ 47

Root fibres—Hygroscopic water—Root hairs—The evil
of stagnant water—Binding roots—Carex arenaria—Psamma
arenaria—Cheddar cliffs—Correlation of roots—Land, water, and
air roots—Laurel root in well—Horizontal stems—Poa bulbosa—
Earth-nut—Potato—Onion—Air roots—Hoya—Aëroids—Parasitic
roots—Yellow rattle—Clover dodder—Flax dodder—Mistletoe—Root-
cap—Office of the root—Growing mustard-seed—Strength of roots.

CHAPTER III.

+Tree Stems+ 73

Expansion of bark—Shedding bark—Repairing injury—Epidermis—
Fibro-vascular bundles.

CHAPTER IV.

+Leaves+ 97

A leaf a digestive organ—Petiole and blade venation—
Monocotyledons—Dicotyledons—Radical leaves—Phyllotaxis—
Epidermis—Stomata—Influence of foliage upon climate—Eucalyptus—
Mesophyll—Chlorophyllon—Pallisade tissue—Protoplasm—Absorption
of carbon-dioxide—Jewel-weed—Alchemilla—Growing wheat—Vertical
leaves of eucalyptus cork layer—Fall of the leaf—Useful
products of trees.

CHAPTER V.

+Buds+ 123

Buds formed in summer—Hollow stalks of plane-tree—Terminal
and axillary buds—Spiral arrangement—Pollard willow—Suckers—
Dormant buds—Bulbils on lily stem—Protection from cold—Leaf
and flower buds—Folding of embryo leaves and flowers.

CHAPTER VI.

+Flowers+ 149

Floral envelopes—Buttercup—Gamopetalous—Polypetalous—
Epipetalous—Apocarpous—Woodsorrel—Syncarpous pistil—Geranium-
coloured bracts—Composite flowers—Fading flowers—Flower
expansion—Flower dissection—Cruciferous plants—Papilionaceous
flowers—Honey glands—Entomophilous flowers—Catkins—Monœcious
and diœcious flowers—Arum—Protection from insects and moisture.

CHAPTER VII.

+Pollination+ 175

Cross pollination in dog’s mercury and hazel—Pin-eyed
primrose—Maiden pink—Wind pollination—Araucaria—Pollination
by moths—Nottingham catchfly—Attraction of scent—Bartsia—St.
John’s wort—Japanese toad-lily—Pollination by humming-birds.

CHAPTER VIII.

+Fertilisation+ 193

Pollen grains—Micropyle—Nucellus—Embryo-sac—Experiment with
lily pollen—Changes after fertilisation—Growth of embryo—
Albumen—Arillus in spindle-tree—Yew and nutmeg—Persistent
style of clematis—Ovules—Changes in ovary of oak and datura.

CHAPTER IX.

+Fruit+ 209

Wide meaning of the word fruit—Diversity in appearance and
character of various fruits—Dehiscent and indehiscent
pericarp—Epicarp—Chestnut involucre—Mesocarp and endocarp—
Pericarp—Achene—Strawberry an apocarpous fruit—Pineapple—
Irritating hairs—Resinous protection of cones—Coiled stem
of cyclamen—Seed-pod of ivy-leaved toad-flax hidden in wall
crevices.

CHAPTER X.

+Dispersion of Fruits and Seeds+ 227

Dispersion by hooks and spines—Martynia—Testa—Di Quaglia—
Burdock—Bedstraw—Dispersion by winged seeds or achenes—
Sycamore, pinus tribe, birch—Dispersion by silky down or
hairs—Dandelion, goat’s-beard, groundsel—Willow-herb—Bird
agency—Seas and rivers—Dispersion by elastic force—Pansy—
Balsam—Furze—Broom—Squirting cucumber—Dispersion by
hygrometric sensitiveness—Barley—Feather-grass—Mexican
insect—Dispersion by sticky glands—Linnæa Borealis—Salvia
glutinosa—Plumbago—Ground-nut self-buried.

CHAPTER XI.

+Germination+ 249

Testa and its various forms—Collomia—Axis, tigellum,
hypocotyle—Centre of growth—Double embryo—Three conditions
required for germination—Varying time in different plants—
Cedar of Lebanon—Railway-bank flora—Broad beans—Cress seed—
Tillandsia—Collecting seedling trees—Fern and moss spores—
Prothallium—Archegonium—Antheridium germ cells—Capsular fruit
of mosses—Protonema.

CHAPTER XII.

+Physiology of Plants+ 273

Processes of plant growth—Nutrition—Water and gas as plant
food—Water culture—Osmosis—Experiment showing absorption—
Nitrates—Insectivorous plants able to absorb nitrogen to some
extent—Second experiment on absorption—Preparation of plant
food—Water bouquet—Transpiration—Use of Stomates—Respiration—
Seeds give off carbon-dioxide—Effect of light, darkness, and
heat—Reproduction—Protococcus—Strawberry runner—Asexual and
sexual reproduction—Effect of cold upon seeds.

CHAPTER XIII.

+Insectivorous Plants+ 295

Special purpose of each plant organ—Various modes by which
plants entrap insects—Sundew—Venus fly-trap—Trapping insects
by sticky hairs—By viscid glands—By pitchers containing
fluid—Sarracenias—Roridula—Utricularia—Nepenthes—Pinguicula.