14 SAGACITY AND MORALITY OF PLANTS. 



which exist together on the Sertularian or co-opera- 

 tive principle. The flowers are simply leaf-organs 

 naturally aborted and modified to serve a use alto- 

 gether outside the individual wellbeing of the plant 

 which produces them. Nay, in many instances, as 

 we shall see further on, flowers are often produced 

 at a great physiological expense, and with much 

 individual loss to the parent plant. 



Moreover, leaves and flowers exercise quite dif- 

 ferent functions in plant economy. The former 

 accumulate energy ; the latter expend it. Leaves 

 assimilate carbon and liberate oxygen ; flowers 

 actually require oxygen, and liberate carbonic acid. 

 In the latter respect they behave as if they were 

 animals. Leaves store up food materials, either in 

 bulb, corm, tuber, rhizome, or stem. Flowers ex- 

 haust this banking account by drawing upon it. 

 Hence, we have only to supply the Hyacinth bulb 

 with water, and it develops in the glasses placed 

 for the purpose in our window, and brings forth 

 both green leaves and the spike of coloured and 

 sweetly -perfumed flowers. All these have been 

 mysteriously metamorphosed out of the food -stuffs 

 contained in the dry and seemingly quite inert bulb 

 we purchased for sixpence. 



Now we can understand the fact, variously in- 

 terpreted and usually mis-stated, that some plants 

 live for years before producing flowers. The Aloe, 

 according to popular belief, flowers only once in a 



