6i2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



pecks of apparently lifeless seed-corn safely housed in the granary. 

 We thus see that in the annual j^lants the life of the species is, so to 

 speak, carried over from one growing season to another in the ripened 

 seed. The seed is also the form in which plant-life is easily trans- 

 ported from place to place. The seed of some hedgerow weed, as it 

 becomes loosened from its attachment upon the lifeless mother-plant, 

 and is blown for rods or even miles over the surface of the incrusted 

 snow, is a familiar and perhaps striking example that may enforce the 

 meaning to be here conveyed. The young plantlet in the seed, snugly 

 packed within thick coats, is preserved from death, and at the same 

 time is carried far from the place where it was produced. The seed 

 is the oflFspring of the plant and the childhood of its kind, though so 

 fashioned and protected that it can pass safely through a period of 

 drought or cold when its parent would have succumbed. It is the 

 motile or migratory state of plants, and many are the means of trans- 

 portation by land, wind, wave, stream, passing herd, and flying bird, 

 that are within its reach. 



Biennial plants, like the beet, carrot, etc., spend one season in pre- 

 paring for the coming days of inactivity and exposure, and close their 

 careers the following year by using up the accumulated store of food 

 in the roots, stems, or leaves, in producing a crop of seeds. These 

 plants have taken one bold step toward that perennial condition of 

 life enjoyed by our shrubs, trees, and many other plants. Even the 

 " giants of the forest " prepare themselves for the trying months of 

 winter ; by withdrawing their vital fluid from the delicate leaves, and 

 with apparently lifeless branches bearing buds enwrapped in scales 

 and secured with a natural glue, they brave the winter blasts. 



The season of growth is constantly anticipating the days when the 

 streams of vitality must be checked. The gardener may remove his 

 tender plants to a place "under glass," and so change the order of Na- 

 ture that things get " out of season," but soon the tortured plants must 

 have rest from their labors and an opportunity to reproduce their kind. 



With this somewhat lengthy introduction to our subject let us 

 enter a less familiar field of plant-life, and see if we do not find 

 the same rule holding true among the minute and frequently very- 

 troublesome plants known as Fungi. Enough is not known of the 

 habits of these low forms of vegetation for us to measure the natu- 

 ral limits of individual existence ; in fact, individuality is very ob- 

 scure, and, being largely creatures of circumstance, multiplication is 

 extremely rapid when conditions are most favorable, and at a stand- 

 still when the reverse is true. Some of the simplest forms of this vast 

 group, like the minute bacteria, yeast-cells, etc., pass through many gene- 

 rations in a few hours ; while, on the other hand, the larger species of 

 the hard, woody " shelf " fungi, on trunks of trees and old stumps, may 

 represent in a single so-called " individual " the accumulated growths 

 of a score or more of years. The mildews, molds, and fungi of that 



