PLANTS AND THEIR WAYS 

 IN SOUTH AFRICA 



CHAPTER I 



PLANT LIFE 



Who has not watched and enjoyed growing things? The 

 baby is carefully weighed and measured; the kitten, the garden, 

 and the flowers of the veld in turn absorb our attention. 



Growth means life ; and every living thing has something 

 of interest to tell if our eyes have been trained to see and we 

 have learned to think about what we see. 



In studying plants we find great differences in the plant 

 kingdom, and how as living things they can change their form 

 and habits of growth so as to fit themselves to widely differing 

 conditions of life, for plants cannot choose where they would 

 grow. In doing so, the members of one plant family come to 

 look so unlike one another that it becomes difficult to detect 

 any family resemblance ; while members of different families 

 look enough alike sometimes " to be brothers and sisters," for 

 plants that have come from the same parents in past year's are 

 grouped together in a family or order. 



We are surprised to find that dodder, which fastens its 

 threads upon lucerne and chokes it and robs it of its food, 

 belongs to the highly respectable family of the sweet 

 potato. 



When lavish Nature sows her seed, some, it is true, " fall 

 upon stony places and wither away," but some lay hold of the 



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B 



