THE PLANT INSTINCT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3139, 16 March 1909, Page 3

THE PLANT INSTINCT.

From the earliest ages an inexhaustibly abundant store, for food for poetical reflection has been afforded by the habits of flowers and thendemonstration of unerring plant instinct. At Home, more than in New Zealand with its less rigorous climate, it has been a source,oi per petual amazement to discover the delicate blooms of such plants as primroses.and snowd'-ops assisting to beautify surroundings marked only by hardy evergreen bushes struggling against the frost. The green spearhead of the snowdrop forces an opening in the ironbound surface of the soil, the the beautiful flnwer which unfolds soon after, preserves its morsel of pollen intact what time the frost holds the ground in its iron grip. The secret of this seeming horticultural paradox lies in the fact that the bell of the snowdrop is always warmer by two degrees than the surrounding atmosphere, and the drop for two of warm air suffices to save it from frostbite. This heat the snowdrop conserves under its suspended bell. The power of inverting the flower and thus savin.? the tissues from radiation of warmth is fuund in other flowers, all of which defy the climatic rigours with equal success. The summer flowers have greater chances of being fertilised owing to the prevalence of busy insect life, and so many of them shed their radiane abroad but for a single day, and having completed their cycle, fade and are gone. jThe snowdrop, on the other hand, must hold on as long as Nature will allow, so that no opportunity of fertilisation' may be lost. Some blooms in Nature last only an hour or two, some ten or eleven weeks, and among the long lives the snowdrop ranks high. Within the bulb of the snowdrop the aconite, and the daffodil, the flowers of next spring were formed last summer. The bulb is the chrysalis maturing and preparing within its case for renewed activity. The bulk of these flowers is almost wholly unaffectedy cold or warmth, by moisture or drought. The time is determined months before. First, the tender snowdrop, and then the daffudil. and then the swelling chorus of summer's loveliness. The snowdrop's is the voice crying in the wilderness to drowy Nature to prepare for the glories of another season" splendour.