plantstooD an& /iRotlon 133 



snapdragon. Yonder the little brooklet slips along 

 without a ripj^le, cherishing on its border loosestrife 

 and jewel-weed. Out in the roadway, defiant of 

 summer dust, almost in the wheel-track, the mullein 

 lifts its dry, gray foliage and unfolds its tardy pairs 

 of clear yellow bloom beside that exquisite flower 

 the evening primrose, of which the harsh, dusty 

 stem and leaves are such rude contrast to the fra- 

 grant salvers of j^ale gold — the blossoms of one night. 



We have ample oj^portunity in some or all of 

 these to study the motion, food, and some of the 

 varied products of the plant world. 



Motion ? What motions have plants other than 

 as the wind sways them ? True, there is an upward 

 motion ; they " grow up,'- inch after inch, foot after 

 foot, the law of growth overcoming the law of gravi- 

 tation. The sap rises in the vessels by root-pressure, 

 by capillary attraction, by the forming of a vacuum 

 in the leaf-cells by evaporation, and so the climbing 

 sap builds up the plant. This getting up in the 

 world is not a trifle in plant-life any more than in 

 human life. 



Many a plant seems to have an extreme ambition 

 to rise, and if its stem proves too weak to support 

 any decided advancement in growth it takes meas- 

 ures to secure aid. It twines, bodily perhaps, around 

 the nearest support, as do the trumpet-creeper and 



