A LIVING MYSTERY. 731 



vegetative propagation of a particular species. In the tiger-lily, 

 for example, the tiny bulbels, that spring from the axil of every 

 leaf, fall off when mature, and form distinct or separate plants on 

 the ground beneath. In other instances, suckers, offshoots, or 

 scions are produced, sometimes underground, as in the Jerusalem 

 artichoke, sometimes above, as in the potentillas and hawkweeds, 

 all of which grow out, to all appearance, into plants like the one 

 from which they originally separated themselves. Many plants 

 produce long, creeping branches, which regularly and systemati- 

 cally root at the nodes. The runners of strawberries are a famil- 

 iar example of this mode of growth ; so, in a somewhat different 

 way, are the eyes of potatoes, the small side-bulbs in certain forms 

 of onion, and the long, underground suckers or scions of the twitch 

 or couch-grass. 



When we come to look a little closer, however, at the nature of 

 such seeming reproduction, we can see at once that in none of 

 these cases is a new individual — in the truest sense of the word — 

 really produced : all that has been done is to split up the original 

 single organism into a number of colonies, as it were, or compo- 

 nent parts, all still retaining the primitive individuality in shape, 

 color, and every other particular. The branch is a branch while 

 it remains on the tree ; it is still none the less a branch in all es- 

 sentials after it has been severed as a cutting, and made to root 

 afresh like a distinct plant, apart from the remainder of the 

 primitive individual to which it belongs.* Gardeners and agri- 

 culturists are perfectly aware of the truth of this principle, at 

 least as regards its practical aspect, for they take advantage of it 

 freely in the case of varieties which, as they say, " will not come 

 true from seed." A particular potato-plant, let us say, or a par- 

 ticular rose-tree, possesses certain individual points, which render 

 it desirable in cultivation ; and, inistead of seeding it, by crossing 

 with another individual, and taking their chance among the seed- 

 lings (in which the special peculiarities seldom reappear), gardeners 

 prefer to divide and multiply the original individual to the utmost 

 possible extent, so as to make sure of retaining all the strong 

 points of the plant in question, undiluted by crossing. All the 

 Marshal Niels in existence, for example, are, in the last resort, cut- 

 tings from a particular, individual French rose-bush ; all the Brit- 

 ish-Queen strawberry -plants are offsets by runners from a single, 

 exceptionally fine-fruiting seedling. 



Take an instance which I see before my eyes this very moment 

 as I raise my head from my temporary study-table on a North 

 African hill-side. The date-palms, which form the wealth of the 



* I do not mean herein to dissent from Mr. Herbert Spencer's views as to what consti- 

 tutes an individual. The apparent discrepancy, rendered necessary by the conditions of 

 popular explanation, will be fully got rid of a little further on. 



