CONTENTS 



CHAPTER XXIV 



RUBBER, HEMP, AND OPIUM 



PAGE 



Effects of opium — The poppy-plant and its latex — Work of the opium- 

 g-atherer — Where the opium poppy is grown — Haschisch of the 

 Count of Monte Cristo — HeckHng-, scotching, and retting — 

 Hempseed and bhang — Users of haschisch — Use of india-rubber 

 — Why plants produce rubber — With the Indians in Nicaragua — 

 The Congo Free State — Scarcity of rubber — Columbus and Tor- 

 quemada — Macintosh— Gutta-percha . ... 301 



CHAPTER XXV 



ON CLIMBING PLANTS 



Robin-run-the-Hedge — Bramble bushes — Climbing roses — Spiny, 

 wiry stems of smilax — The weak young stem of a liane — The 

 way in which stems revolve — The hop and its little harpoons — A 

 climbing palm — Rapidity of turners — The effect of American life 

 on them — Living bridges — Rope bridges in India — The common 

 stitchwort — Tendrils — Their behaviour when stroked or tickled — 

 Their sensibility — Their grasping power — The quickness with 

 which they curve and their sense of weight — Charles Darwin — 

 Reasonableness of plants — Corkscrew spirals — The pads of the 

 Virginian Creeper — The ivy — Does it do harm? — Embracing 

 roots — Tree ivy . . . . • > • 3^3 



CHAPTER XXVI 



PLANTS WHICH PREY ON PLANTS 



The kinds of cannibals — Bacteria — Spring flowers — Pale, ghostly 

 Wood-flowers — Their alliance with fungi— Gooseberries growing 

 on trees — Orchid-hunting — The life of an orchid — The mistletoe 

 — Balder the Beautiful — Druids — Mistletoe as a remedy — Its 

 parasitic roots — The trees it prefers — The Cactus Loranthus — 

 Yellow Rattle and Eyebright, or Milk-thief, and their root- 

 suckers — Broomrape and toothwort — Their colour and tastes — 

 The scales of the toothwort which catch animalcula — Sir Stam- 

 ford Raffles— A flower a yard across — The Dodder— Its twining 

 stem and sucker-roots — Parasites rare, degenerate and danger- 

 ously situated . . . . ... 327 



CHAPTER XXVII 



PLANTS ATTACKING ANIMALS 



Brittle Star v. algs — Fungus v. meal-worm — Stag-headed cater- 

 pillars — Liverwort v. small insects — Natural flower-pots — Water- 

 cups of Bromeliads — Sarracenia and inquiring insects — An 

 unfortunate centipede — Pitcher plants : their crafty contrivances 

 — Blowflies defy them and spiders rob them — Bladderwort's 



9 



