The Habits of Plants

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 6, 7 February 1907, Page 33

The Habits of Plants

Fortunately for one's interest in flowers, only a few - of them are as cruel in their ways as the pitcher family. There are, of course, a few plants which carry about a poison in I'heir juices or in ttieir berries, or, like poison ivy, seem to give off a> -poison in the air about them. Many people, you know, are so susceptible to ivy poison that they • can not) as much as pass a fence on which the ivy is climbing without having a very painful rash break- out on them. But, after all, perhaps this poison is only the plant's way of protecting itself. You know people don't break off and carry away armfuls of the poisonous plants as they do of their more amiable neighbours. Besides, quite frequently those very poisons are extremely, useful, For instance, there is the digitalis which you may see growing in old-fashioned flower gardens. Its tall stales covered with bell-shaped flowers, sometimes blue or purple or occasionally red— for there are many varieties of digitalis,— are decidedly ornamental.' Yet it is so poisonous that not infrequently the enterprising - chickens which sample its leaves turn up thc*ir toes very shortly afterward. But digitalis, -or rather theextracts made from ii, are almost indispensable in the treatment of certain diseases.

Some plants have the queer habit of sending out their 'blossoms the first thing -in the spring, -before they begin to work at/ all on their leaves. Haven't" you noticed that the swamp maples are always covered with bright red fringes long before the leaves begin to show as even tiny buds ? And the catkins" give the alder a gray dress long before its mid-sum-mer green one is made. Perhaps long ago— when the ice coat was receding to the north, the air was full of melting snow, and the sun heat might be shut off any moment,— instinct told the ' alders that the important things were blossoms and seeds. .If they -wanted to leave any progeny to take their places, they must hustle along with their seeds. Leaves were only a matter of living longer ; they could wait for the leisurely life. And so they devoted all their attention in the early spring to seeds. By and by, as "the ice receded more and more, they found time to make leaves ' too , but they have never got over their hurry about their flowers and seeds.

A botanist, who went to Jamaica to study the wonderful flora of the West Indies, tells of a forest of the giant flowers, sometimes fifty feet in height— a truly impressive sight. The thought that if he came bade next year he would find all these great flowers a mass of dried leaves filled him with sadness, until he remembered the great seeds that the plant has given its life to produce. - •

Some families of plants have habits peculiar to themselves, just, I suppose, as human families acquire queer little ways which stick from generation to generation. Some plants climb by twisting arounft any support which happens. to be handy. Haven't you noticed pole beans and hop vines ami wistarias and honeysuckles, how they twist and twist around everything they come across, and around themselves when vthey can find nothing else ? They are very persistent about it too, and always try to reach the top of anything they set about climbing. .Perhaps that's what gave rise to the Jack and the Beanstalk story. Three really is no telling "where a climbing bean would stop .if the pole only kept ahead of it.

Then there are the. clingers that put out claw-like -fingers that grip the trunks of trees -or "tack themselves on fences or houses. Poison ivy has- innumerable little claws alone: its stems, arid they are so strong and tenacious it is almost impossible to tear ft x away from a fence once it gets a hold. Its harmless cousin. Ihe Virginia crooner, on +*ie o+*>pr hand, sends out a series of lone, curling tendrils, which it attaches to any handy support. The ends twist around and around like, fingers. They a-e very tourh and strong, and you will find considerable difficulty in -dislodging them. Grapevines have a similar fashion of holding themselves up.