^50 



THE PLANT WORLD. 



stage it is useless to try to observe them, but if they be killed by put- 

 ting a drop of iodine under the coverglass and afterwards stained, it 

 will be seen that they are egg-shaped green bodies with the smaller 

 end colorless. This end bears four delicate cilia. Their motion was 



due to the lashing of the cilia in the water. 

 If these spores had been left in their natural 

 element, they would have continued their 

 motion for perhaps half an hour and then 

 happening to come in contact with a bit of 

 dead leaf or a pebble in the water, would 

 have gradually stopped their motion, with- 

 drawn their cilia, and begun to divide up 

 into more cells {Fig. 2) thus forming a plant 

 like the one from which they were developed. 



EIG. 2. 



In certain other cells {Fig. j), the pro- 

 toplasm is divided into a larger number of 

 smaller bodies with a thin membrane en- 

 closing them. This sac of spores passes 

 through a break in the wall of the cell and 

 then liberates its contents, which acquire 

 two cilia each and become active in the 

 same way as the preceding ones. But be- 

 fore these settle down they fuse in pairs and 

 then give rise to the filament of cells as in 

 the other case. After once observing this 

 phenomenon it is impossible for one not to 

 feel that plants are as much alive as himself. 



FIG. 3. 



THE EVENING LYCHNIS. 

 By C. F. Saunders. 



THERE are often to be found in the neighborhood of seaports, 

 old ballast grounds, where vessels discharge dirt or sand taken 

 aboard in some other part of the world. This dirt naturally 

 contains the seeds or roots of many plants, some of which, 

 taking kindly to their new surroundings, spring up and make them- 

 selves permanently at home on these western shores. Such ballast 

 grounds, when allowed to lie undisturbed, are places of great interest 

 to botanical collectors, who often find them to be veritable wild gar- 

 dens of foreign plants — all doubtless common enough in the old world, 

 and some of them common enough here, but others of them possessing 

 for the American stay-at-home the charm of absolute novelty. 



