78 The Living Plant 



where new cells would be seen in process of birth, and engaged in 

 forcing the older apart to make room for themselves; while minor 

 actions without number, mechanical, physical, and chemical, 

 would appear in vigorous progress in various parts of the organ- 

 ism. Truly if one could see these actions under the conditions 

 here imagined, he would have no trouble at all in connecting 

 with plants the idea of real work. 



We are not, however, dependent solely on imagination, or 

 the moving-picture machine, for a conception of the reality of 

 plant work. The rapid closing of the leaf of a Venus Fly-trap 

 upon a captured insect, or the sudden collapse of the Sensitive 

 Plant when touched, suggest some such idea. Everybody has 

 noticed that the great granite curbstones along streets where 

 shade trees are grown, become heaved from the regular lines in 

 which they are laid, while the pavements themselves . are often- 

 times thrown into irregular swells; this is all brought about by 

 the growth of the roots of the trees, which thus exhibit a work as 

 real as that of a jack-screw or derrick. If the reader has not al- 

 ready observed these phenomena, let him do so when next he 

 walks through a shaded street. In a similar manner young roots, 

 insinuated between the stones of buildings, tombs, or walls, 

 force the masonry apart in their growth, and finally accomplish 

 the destruction of the edifice. Occasionally asphalt pavements 

 are burst upwards by the growth of some kinds of plants, including 

 even soft-bodied Fungi, as the accompanying photograph well 

 proves (figure 26). And the technical literature of plant physi- 

 ology tells of the thousands of pounds pressure exerted by large 

 gourds, like Squash, when suitably harnessed to recording machin- 

 ery. And, finally, experiment proves that every operation of 

 plant life, even the least of them all, involves some movement, 

 and therefore real work; so that animals and plants are working, 

 and often right hard from the physical point of view, when they 

 merely are keeping alive, a conclusion from which the reader 

 is welcome to draw any comfort that he can. 



