TREES THAT FIGHT FIRE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 166, 7 August 1909, Page 4

TREES THAT FIGHT FIRE.

AXD MUSHROOMS WHICH LIFT PAVIXG-STOXES. The common peanut, beloved of the American,small boy, and, under its alias of "monkey-nut," not unknown to Lis English cousin (says a Home paper), grows in a peculiar way that is dis•inctly original. The little plant sends .i|) its shoots with the fruit on the end jf a somewhat sti/I* stalk, and then, before it ripens, the stem bends over and carefully pushes the fruit underground. Af, pigs are said to be i-«;)fi-iall.v fond of these, it lias been suggested that the plant does this to hide its nuts from the porker's too inquisitive investigations; but this can only be regarded as a supposition. There is a little mimosa that grows m the tropics which is so shy that on being shaken or touched it immediately closes up the dainty fronds of its little leaves, and they remain tightly closed until they think they have given their disturber time to pass on and leave them alone. Then they slowly and cautiously open out again until' presently all the leaves are flat as before.

In the hot desert regions of Arizona ud Mexico the cactus stores in its tliick leaves every drop of water or dew tliat it can get, so that there is always a supply, not for a rainy day, bui for a dry season. In reality, the' spines of tlie cactus are the remnants of lis leaves, and the so-called leaves ar<> th« modified stalks.

Jn the waterless regions where (he cactus grows it has very little use for leaves that would only wither away from the heat, so it reduces them to a very effective weapon against all enemies, and then swells the stalks to make the kind of water-tank it can best use lor its purposes. The best proof of the efhcieucy of its reasoning is in the fact that it exists where very little else cm, save a few plants which have similarly adapted "themselves to circumstance! One of the onccrcst tiling done' br a»,v plant is (he extraordinary nower shown by a common mushroom when >t wants to grow up into the open. Tender and spongy, the slightest thin" will Wish its fragile substance. But" this • coble thing can, and sometimes does, lift a paving-stone that happens to impede its movements towards the nir and light. By what remarkable faculty of engineering is this w'onder accomplished? '

The carnivorous properties of some plants are well known, but they are decidedly uncanny. A plant that can lav a trap for the wily fly, and catch him and eat him, i s a plant that has acquired intelligence beyond its sphere Ik it much wonder that old travellers' tales tell of trees Unit can catch men' Ihe thing is not so impossible on its f.un scale But it makes „„e feel „n----<ouifortablc to think that such powers fan be aenuh-ed at all by organisms so tow as we are accustomed to regard plants. "

The thing i« so common that we hare teased to wonder at it, but there is a teal of cleverness in the strategy of most flowers in supplying honey in such .1 position that it acts as payment to the friendly bee for the service of pol.enatmg the flowers that are to reproduce the stock. There are some plants. Joiyever, which have special methods of their own. The fig even now grows its flowers inside the fruit—or, rather, the fruit we eat is the outer covering cf the (lowers, and to grow the hirer Smyrna figs a special insect has to lie m con raged. For years these lame fiVs could not be grown in California? until at hist the right'insect was imported to do the work.

There is a pine in the Western forests « America that has so hard a cone that Ihe imprisoned seeds cannot be propagated in ihe ordinary way. The best ■rav is to bun, the cone over a hot lire "Tit.il it bursts, when the seeds escape When Hie vast, all-devastating forest fires sweep (he country, these pine coin's have their chance, and from them the new trees grow. Does the tree know that it has to make this cunning preparation for forest fires, o r risk extinction? It looks like it.