FREAKS OF PLANT LIFE. 



these have, therefore, not been considered as falling- 

 within the limits of this volume. On the other hand,, 

 chapters are introduced on subjects which have not 

 yet been submitted to exhaustive examination, but 

 which have, nevertheless, great popular interest and 

 fall legitimately within the scope of the title. Free 

 use has been made of all sources of information, 

 under the conviction that the better these experi- 

 ments are known and understood, the greater and 

 more general will be the appreciation of the labours 

 of those who have contributed so much to the eluci- 

 dation of obscure phenomena in plant-life. 



Text-books remind us of the importance of the 

 vegetable world in its relationship to the animal. 

 They also illustrate the grandeur and beauty which 

 the plant has conferred on the world. It is difficult 

 to form any adequate conception of the vast extent 

 and unlimited variety of vegetable life. All we can 

 do is to pick up here and there some object of 

 special interest, gaze at it, marvel at it, try to com- 

 prehend it, if we can, and then pass on, leaving 

 behind us a trackless ocean of wonderful things, to 

 be picked up by our successors, and marvelled at as 

 we have done. It will be very long before the store- 

 house is exhausted. 



Wc learn to appreciate what has been written of 

 wild forests only by experience. " A very similar 

 feeling (to that of a sea-voyage) possesses the 



