LABURNUM, BROOM, AND GORSE 



other plants are denuded of their leaves, it pro- 

 bably derives advantages rather than disadvantages 

 from the change. 



After all, then, the laburnum, broom, and 

 gorse, although presenting such different aspects, 

 are, at the bottom, closely connected, and are 

 simply divergent descendants of some ancestral 

 form, a form that may itself have ceased to exist 

 ages ago. Yet, by the mere examination of the 

 structural details of these apparently dissimilar 

 plants, we are now enabled to read their past 

 histories and trace their relationships ; indeed we 

 can go farther and form a mental picture of that 

 remote ancestor from which they diverged. 



Botany, I know, has a bad name, and is looked 

 upon by many as a dry and uninteresting science, 

 but when a brief study of three common plants 

 reveals glimpses into the unceasing warfare that 

 has, throughout the ages, ever been fought- be- 

 tween plants and animals, and shows that only 

 those species have survived that have utilised to 

 the utmost their opportunities, surely it cannot be 

 so dr3^-as-dust a science as it is sometimes made 

 out to be. 



It is true that the science of botany may be 

 pursued by different methods from those I have 

 adopted in this chapter. I might, after examining 

 these three familiar plants, have arrived at the 

 conclusion that they were Dicotyledonous Phane- 

 rogams of the division Calyciflorae, and the natural 

 order Leguminosae, belonging to the sub-order 

 Papilionaceae. I might further have added that 



95 



