1879. 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



245 



tion find exhalation, foi-mino; a true respiration. 

 Differing from animals in not being continuous 

 by niijht and day without cessation, but liaving 

 two modes, one diurnal, in which the leaves ab- 

 sorb the carbonic acid of the air, decompose this 

 gas and extract and give forth the oxygen whilst 

 the carbon remains in their tissues ; the other 

 nocturnal and the reverse, in which the plant 

 absorbs the oxygen and extracts the carbonic 

 acid — that is to say they breathe as animals do. 

 The carbon which plants use during the day is 

 indispensable to the perfect development of their 

 organs and the consolidation of their tissues. 



If further proof were needed we have only to 

 take a given weight of pure sand and wash it 

 clean and boil it to dissolve all soluble matter 

 out of it, and when so prepared put a healthy 

 strong cutting of a plant into it and grow it into 

 a plant which will soon double, treble and quad- 

 ruple its weight, even if watered with pure dis- 

 tilled water, in which no gases or salts remain. 

 If at the end of a time we now weigh our sand 

 again we find the same weight without any ap- 

 preciable diminution; while our plant has 

 gained fourfold by absorption of carbon, nitro- 

 gen, ammonia, etc., contained in the atmosphere, 

 and that, principally through its leaves ; as we 

 had no roots to start with, they only contribu- 

 ting to sustain the equilibrium when formed 

 later on. So that it may be fairly claimed that 

 by respiration, i.e., absorption and exhalation, 

 plants live, feed and grow, and while doing so 

 purify the air injured by combustion and the res- 

 ])iration of men and animals by pouring into it 

 large quantities of ox3'gen gas, ns can readily 

 be demonstrated as above. 



Plants subjected to perpetual nocturnal res- 

 piration by long continued darkness undergo 

 certain modifications in their exterior aspect, by 

 losing a great part of their carbon, which passes 

 into the state of carbonic acid, and they exhale 

 large quantities of water, producing a decided 

 elongation of the plant, a greater softness in its 

 tissues, and the absence of green coloring. The 

 juices are considerably modified and changed, a 

 fact the market gardener turns largely to his 

 profit, rendering his lettuce, sea kale, etc., suc- 

 culent, sweet and delicate by carefully applying 

 this principle of blanching. 



I have only treated of carbonic acid, which 

 supplies all plants with the carbon of their tis- 

 sues, whether through the soil by the roots, 

 or through the air by the leaves, as being 

 the most easilv demonstrated on account of the 



latter being the medium through which the great 

 bulk of this food is absorbed. The three foods 

 all plants require are first, water; second, car- 

 bonic acid ; third, ammonia. According to 

 Schleiden the greater part of water is suj^lied to 

 plants in the form of vapor, the other portion in 

 rain. The sources of ammonia are nearly the 

 same as carbonic acid and the decomposition of 

 nitrogenous matter. 



In closing I will only add that the sap of spe- 

 cial plants contains the metallic oxides as potas- 

 sium, sodium, calcium and magnesium. How 

 these various substances permeate through the 

 tissues of plants is much more of a mystery than 

 the absorption of water and carbonic acid gas is 

 by the leaves. At all events they are not so 

 easily demonstrated, although simple facts on 

 which all botanists are agreed. I would have 

 liked to touch on this as well as root action, 

 electrolyses and the effect of heat and light on 

 plants also, but this note is too long alread}^, and 

 I will leave these to abler hands. 



THE FLORA OF THE STATE OF TEXAS. 



TRANSLATED FOR THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 

 FROM THE "ANZEIGER DES WESTENS." 



As the State of Texas is divided from north to 

 south into three well defined zones — prairie, hill 

 and mountains — so she is divided from east to 

 west into three distinctly defined zones of vege- 

 tion. The east is a? much unlike the west as 

 you may say Maine is to South Carolina, and no 

 wonder, since there is a distance of about 800 

 miles from the eastern to the western line of 

 the State. 



Texas may be said to consist, first of the region 

 of evergreen trees, stretching from the Red and 

 the Sabine rivers to the Trinity and beyond, 

 west of the region of oak and mesquite trees 

 from the Trinity to the Medina, and lastly of 

 the region of chaparrals from the Medina to 

 the Rio Grande. 



The most part of eastern Texas is covered 

 with evergreen trees. The woods are so im- 

 mense that you may travel in them for hundreds 

 of miles and not find an open space. The more 

 southerly you go the denser are the woods, and 

 the more do they trend in a westerly direction. A 

 narrow tongue of them goes even down as fiir as 

 thirty miles below Austin, on the Colorado, and 

 beyond that river. Here the town of Bastrop was 

 founded, and for a while that little place supplied 

 all the timber for the west of it until the woods 

 o-ave out. In the iTorth, the pine woods terminate 



