WOOD-CRAFT. . 45 



if this fails there can ot course be no reproduction. 

 No growth can take place without sunlight, for 

 growth is but the transformation of solar energy. 

 Where all are striving to attain the same end, there 

 must be a tailing series from the first to the last. 

 All plants cannot acquire the magnitude of forest 

 trees. That would be a success limited to conipara- 

 tively few ; but such conquerors would do their best 

 to retain the gained position from one generation 

 to another. The Tree-ferns have preserved their 

 arboreal habit since the Devonian period, as have 

 also the Pines. Club-mosses are dying out ; they 

 have lost all claim to arboreal magnitude (unless 

 we except the erect New Zealand species of a few 

 feet in height). Indeed, we may regard them as 

 trading on the fortune of their distant geological 

 ancestors ! 



But what sheer strength and robustness cannot 

 effect, vegetable wood-craft may. The reason why 

 trees grow to great heights is that their leaves may 

 reach the sunlight. A great store of tissue has to 

 be laid by for this purpose in the tree -trunk, and 

 every year witnesses an addition to it, so that it 

 may sustain the burden of the leaves and branches. 

 Hosts of plants, however, have found it possible to 

 get to the light without being at the expense of 

 building up these huge stems. Nevertheless, they 

 manage to overtop the highest trees even in tropical 

 forests ; and this they do with wonderfully little 



