PERSONALITY OF PLANTS 
seem to be largely instinctive and mechanical, 
but that is probably because we have not investi- 
gated them sufficiently. The Persian poet 
Osmai believed that the plants had affairs of 
the heart as real as those recorded in the human 
world. Here is his account of one:— 
“T was possessor of a garden in which was 
a Palm Tree, which had every year produced 
abundance of fruit; but two seasons having 
passed away without its affording any, I sent 
for a person well acquainted with the culture 
of Palm Trees, to discover for me the cause of 
the failure. 
“An unhappy attachment,’ observed the 
man, after a moment’s inspection, ‘is the sole 
cause why this Palm Tree produces no fruit.’ 
‘He then climbed up the trunk, and looking 
around, discovered another Palm at no great 
distance, which he recognized as the object of 
my unhappy tree’s affection; and he advised me 
to procure some of the powder from its blos- 
soms and to scatter it over the branches. This 
I did; and the consequence was my Date Palm, 
whom unrequited love had kept barren, bore 
me an abundant harvest.” 
[94] 
