CONTENTS 



CHAPTER IV 



ON FORESTS 



PAGE 



The forests of the Coal Ag-e — Monkey-puzzle and ginkgo — Wood, 

 its uses, colour, and smell — Lasting- properties of wood — Jarrah 

 and deodar — Teak — Uses of birch — Norwegian barques — De- 

 struction of wood in America — Paper from wood pulp — Forest 

 fires — Arid lands once fertile — Britain to be ag-ain covered by 

 forests — -Vanished country homes — Ashes at farmhouses — Yews 

 in churchyards — History of Man versus Woods in Britain . . 55 



CHAPTER V 



FLOWERS 



Man's ideas of the use of flowers — Sprengel's great discovery — 

 Insects, not man, consulted — Pollen carried to set seed — Flowers 

 and insects of the Whinstone Age — Coal Age flowers — Monkey- 

 puzzle times — Chalk flowers — Wind-blown pollen — Extravagant 

 expenditure of pollen in them — Flower of the pine — Exploding 

 flowers — Brilliant alpines — Intense life in flowers — Colour con- 

 trasts — Lost bees — Evening flowers — Humming birds and sun- 

 birds — Kangaroo — Floral clocks — Ages of flowers — How to get 

 flowers all the year round — Ingenious contrivances — Yucca and 

 fig — Horrible-smelling flowers — Artistic tastes of birds, insects, 

 and man . . ... . . . 68 



CHAPTER VI 



ON UNDERGROUND LIFE 



Mother-earth — Quarries and Chalk-pits — Wandering atoms — The 

 soil or dirt — Populations of Worms, Birds, Germs — Fairy Rings 

 — Roots miles long — How roots find their way — How they do 

 the right thing and seek only what is good for them — Root 

 versus stones — Roots which haul bulbs about — Bishopsweed — 

 Wild Garlic — Dandelion, Plantain — Solomon's Seal — Roots throw- 

 ing down walls — Strength of a seedling root . . . 82 



CHAPTER VII 



HIGH MOUNTAINS, ARCTIC SNOWS 



The life of a cherry tree — Cherries in March — Flowering of gorse — 

 Chickweed's descendants — Forest fires in Africa — Spring pass- 

 ing from Italy to the frozen North — Life in the Arctic — Dwarfs — 

 Snow-melting soldanellas — Highland Arctic -Alpine plants — 

 Their history — Arctic Britain — Edelweiss — An Alpine garden . 97 



