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READER IN BOTANY. Bart I. FROM SEED T@ LEAF. SELECTED AND ADAPTED FROM WELL~ KNOWN AUTHORS, BY JANE H. NEWELL. BOSTON, U.S.A.: GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS. 1889. a) ¥ EductT 252.24, V NARD Col SS Les MAR 13 1937 17 CopPyYRIGHT, 1889. By JANE H. NEWELL, ALL RiGHTs RESERVED. TYPOGRAPHY BY J. S. CusHING & Co., Boston, U.S.A. PressworkK By Ginn & Co., Boston, U.S.A. PREFACE. —_+90—— THE purpose of this book is to supply a course of reading calculated to awaken the interest of the pupil in the study of the life and habits of plants. It is not to be judged as a complete work in itself, but as a series of articles bearing on the subjects of the lessons described in “Outlines of Lessons in Botany.” ! Four of the articles, Nos. II., III., XIII., and XV., have been written especially for this Reader. Three articles are translated from “ Pflanzenleben,” 2 and two others owe much of their matter to the same book, which is a very charming popular account of the most recent discoveries in the physiology of plants. The other chapters are from various sources. Sachs’ “Lectures on the Physiology of Plants”? has supplied several interesting notes, and is an invalu- able work to the teacher who wishes to become more acquainted with this fascinating new field of study. 1 “Outlines of Lessons in Botany.” By Jane H. Newell. Boston: Ginn & Co. 1889. 2 “Pflanzenleben.” By Anton Kerner von Marilaun. Leipzig. 1888. 8 “Lectures on the Physiology of Plants.” By Julius von Sachs. Translated by H. Marshall Ward. Oxford. 1887. II. III. IV. VI. VII. VIII. IX. XI. CONTENTS. ———= Oe ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS ..... . Extracts from CHARLES DARWIN and ALPH. DE CAN- DOLLE. THe Corron PLANT ...... 62. ee NrvA MOORE. SEED-Foop e e e ° e e e e e e e e FREDERICK LEROY SARGENT. MOovEMENTS OF SEEDLINGS . ...... Extracts from CHARLES DARWIN. Toe Birta or PicclorA ...... . From the French of JOSEPH XAVIER SAINTINE. Root aNnp CROWN. Relative Position of Leaves and Rootlets . . . . e« «© © © © © © «© «© From the German of A. KERNER VON MARILAUN. “ Pflan- zenleben.’’ TREES IN WINTER... . . ew tw tw es YounGc AND OLp LEAVES ....... From the German. ‘‘ Pflanzenleben.’’ LEAF-ARRANGEMENT . .. . . .0. se ee Sir JoHN LuBBock. From ‘Flowers, Fruits, and Leaves.’’ CLIMBING PLANTS . ..: . .. . 2. « « Extracts from CHARLES DARWIN. PROTECTION OF THE GREEN TISSUE FROM THE ATTACKS OF ANIMALS. . .. 6 « « ee From the German. ‘“ Pflanzenleben.”’ PAGE 12 24 34 50 60 (2 84 96 115 134 XII. XIII. XIV. XV. CONTENTS. PAGE TRANSPIRATION . 2. . 1. 1 ww tw tw ew Ce Cw 149 Uses or FoRESTS AND OTHER PLANT COVERING OF THE EARTH ....... . . « « « 160 N. 8. SHALER. PaRASITIC PLANTS. . ......-.. - *&L72 INsSECTIVOROUS PLANTS ....... . . 187 Mary TREAT. A READER IN BOTANY. ——-089200-—— I. ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. ALL our food comes through plants. They are the link between the animal] and mineral king- doms. They are able to take from the earth and the air the inorganic substances they require, and to build them into organized material on which animals can live. Directly, through the use of the plants themselves, and indirectly, through animals which have been nourished by plants, we get all our food through the vegetable kingdom. Many of our fine varieties of garden vegetables and flowers have been produced in the following way: — | The gardener sows seed of his best plants, and selects from the offspring those which best show the characters he wishes to increase. From the offspring of these he again selects the best, and so 2 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. on, through many generations, till the fine color, or sweet taste, or great size, he has been working towards, becomes perfected. Then these improved plants can be multiplied by grafts, buds, or cuttings, which usually transmit the exact qualities of the parent, until the variety is well established. The seedlings of a plant have a tendency to inherit the characteristics of the parents, and also to vary somewhat. By selecting, through a long series of generations, individuals tending towards a certain desired character, and allowing the less desirable to perish, distinct varieties are produced. In this, man has unconsciously followed the process of Nature herself, who through long ages has been improving her work by suffering her weaker and poorer children to perish, through their lack of power to compete with those better suited to their surroundings. © The latter survive and hand down their qualities to their offspring, whose descend- ants in their turn, best adapted to take advantage of their opportunities, usurp the room, which is not wide enough for all. With animals the process is the same. The wonderful speed of the trotter, the pointing of the hunting-dog, the direct flight of the carrier- pigeon towards home, are all instincts that have ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 3 been developed by man by the same process of selection. Darwin’ says: — “From a remote period, in all parts of the world, man has subjected many animals and plants to domestication or culture. Man has no power of altering the absolute conditions of life; he can- not change the climate of any country; he adds no new element to the soil; but he can remove an animal or plant from one climate or soil to an- other, and give it food on which it did not subsist in a natural state. ... Although man does not cause variability and cannot even prevent it, he can select, preserve, and accumulate the variations given to him by the hand of nature, in any way that he chooses; and thus he can certainly pro- duce a great result. Selection may be followed either methodically and intentionally, or uncon- sciously and unintentionally. Man may select and preserve each successive variation with the distinct intention of improving and altering a breed, in accordance with a preconceived idea; and by thus adding up variations, often so slight as to be im- perceptible to an uneducated eye, he has effected wonderful changes and improvements. It can 1“ The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication.” By Charles Darwin. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 1887, Vol. I. p. 2. 4 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. also be clearly shown that man, without any intention or thought of improving the breed, by preserving in each successive generation the indi- viduals which he prizes most, and by destroying the worthless individuals, slowly, though surely, induces great changes. As the will of man thus comes into play, we can understand how it is that domesticated breeds show adaptation to his wants and pleasures. We can further understand how it is that domestic races of animals and cultivated races of plants often exhibit an abnormal char- acter, as compared with natural species; for they have been modified not for their own benefit, but for that of man.” Until quite lately, the origin of almost all cul- tivated plants was completely unknown. M. Al- phonse De Candolle investigated the subject very thoroughly, publishing his first results about thirty years ago. In a recent review of the whole sub- ject? he gives a list of two hundred and forty- seven species of cultivated plants, with their geo- graphical origins, and the number of centuries or thousands of years during which each has been cultivated, as far as can be known. He says:? 1“ Origin of Cultivated Plants.””’ By Alph. De Candolle. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 1885. 2 Page 1. ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 5 “The traditions of ancient peoples, embellished by poets, have commonly attributed the first steps in agriculture and the introduction of useful plants, to some divinity, or at least to some great em- peror or Inca. Reflection shows that this is hardly probable, and observation of the attempts at agri- culture among the savage tribes of our own day proves that the facts are quite otherwise. “In the progress of civilization the beginnings are usually feeble, obscure, and limited. There are reasons why this should be the case with the first attempts at agriculture or horticulture. Between the custom of gathering wild fruits, grain, and roots, and that of the regular cultivation of the plants which produce them, there are several steps. A family may scatter seeds around its dwelling, and provide itself the next year with the same product in the forest. Certain fruit trees may exist near a dwelling without our knowimg whether they were planted, or whether the hut was built beside them in order to profit by them. War and the chase often interrupt attempts at cultivation. Rivalry and mistrust cause the imitation of one tribe by another to make but slow progress. If some great personage command the cultivation of a plant, and institute some ceremonial to show its. 6 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. utility, it is probably because obscure and unknown men have previously spoken of it, and that suc- cessful experiments have been already made. A longer or shorter succession of local and short- lived experiments must have occurred before such a display, which is calculated to impress an already numerous public. It is easy to understand that there must have been determining causes to excite these attempts, to renew them, to make them suc- cessful. | “The first cause is that such or such a plant, offering some of those advantages which all men seek, must be within reach. The lowest savages know the plants of their country; but the exam- ple of the Australians and Patagonians shows that if they do not consider them productive and easy to rear, they do not entertain the idea of cultivat- ing them. Other conditions are sufficiently evi- dent: a not too rigorous climate; in hot countries, the moderate duration of drought; some degree of security and settlement; lastly, a pressing neces- sity, due to insufficient resources in fishing, hunt- ing, or in the production of indigenous and nutri- tious plants, such as the chestnut, the date-palm, the banana, or the bread-fruit tree. When men . can live without work, it is what they like best. ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 7 Besides, the element of hazard in hunting and fishing attracts primitive, and sometimes civilized, man, more than the rude and regular labor of cultivation.” Darwin gives us in the book quoted above an excellent idea of the beginnings of agriculture.’ “MM. Loiseleur-Deslongchamps and De Candolle have remarked,” he says, “that our cultivated plants, more especially the cereals, must origi- nally have existed in nearly their present state ; for otherwise they would not have been noticed and valued as objects of food. But these authors apparently have not considered the many accounts given by travellers of the wretched food collected by savages. I have read an account of the savages of Australia cooking, during a dearth, many vege- tables in various ways, in the hopes of rendering them innocuous and more nutritious. Dr. Hooker found the half-starved inhabitants of a village in Sikhim suffering greatly from having eaten arum- roots, which they had pounded and left for several days to ferment, so as partially to destroy their poisonous nature ; and he.adds that they cooked and ate many other deleterious plants. Sir Andrew Smith informs me that in South Africa a large 1 Vol. I. p. 324. 8 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. number of fruits and succulent leaves, and espe- cially roots, are used in times of scarcity. The natives, indeed, know the properties of a long catalogue of plants, some having been found dur- ing famines to be eatable, others injurious to health, or even destructive to life. He met a party of Baquanas, who, having been expelled by the conquering Zulus, had lived for years on any roots or leaves which afforded some little nutri- ment, and distended their stomachs so as to relieve the pangs of hunger. Sir Andrew Smith also informs me that on such occasions the natives observe as a guide for themselves, what the wild animals, especially baboons and monkeys, eat. “From innumerable experiments made through dire necessity by the savages of every land, with the results handed down by tradition, the nutri- tious, stimulating, and medicinal properties of the most unpromising plants were probably first dis- covered. It appears, for instance, at first an imex- plicable fact that untutored man, in three distant quarters of the world, should have discovered among a host of native plants that the leaves of the tea-plant and mattee, and the berries of the coffee, all included a stimulating and nutritious essence, now known to be chemically the same.