^be Stori2 ot tbe IRoot 7 



beautifully shaped and highly colored. Were it not 

 for this invasion of our domestic privacy by plant 

 life, we should have no yeast and no vinegar. 



Deep down into the wells climb the lichens and 

 alga3 ; the marl-pit and the lime-kiln are no sooner 

 abandoned by men than nature prepares to send her 

 plant-hosts to take possession. If there is a crack 

 in a rock, a seed falls into it, germinates, rives the 

 rock ; lo ! life triumphs over death, and action over 

 inaction. If the greatest cities in the world were 

 now abandoned of men, within fifty years the houses 

 would be draped with lichens, vines, fungi ; the 

 streets would be a tangle of weeds, creepers, briars ; 

 great forest trees would rise on every side ; the bat- 

 talions of the birds, the cohorts of the winds would 

 bring the seeds and superintend the reconverting of 

 the abodes of humanity to tangled wilderness. 



Vegetable life preceded man upon the earth, and 

 keeps equal pace with him in his progress upon it. 

 Wherever man abides the plants accompany him. We 

 think of the frigid zones as denuded of vegetation ; 

 even there, in the brief summers, poppies bloom 

 and grasses wave close to the retreating snow-line. 

 So the Alpine edelweiss and gentian climb the 

 heights and nod under the edges of the glaciers. 



The existence of plant life is a condition upon 

 which human existence depends. The presence of 



