56 



THE POPLAR AND THE WILLOW. 



female, the monoecious kinds answering to households such as contain 

 representatives of both sexes, while the dioecious kinds are noted for 

 their inhabitants being of only one sex. There are plenty of herbaceous 

 plants which illustrate the same economy, especially in the class 

 denominated " sedges," and of these also there are examples both of 

 the monoecious and of the dioecious structure. Some botanists are 



Willow. ^Female flowers. 



Willow. Male flowers. 



inclined to consider these plants, poplars, willows, sedges, and the like, 

 of higher position in the scale of nature than such as are bisexual, or 

 formed like the apple or rose. If resemblance to the animal economy 

 in this respect be paramount, of course there can be no demur ; but 

 resemblance to animal powers and functions exists in plants under so 

 many different aspects, and is often so rich and startling, and in a 

 different way every time, that no particular plant can be selected without 

 ignoring equally just claims by many others. What, for instance, 

 becomes of the sensitive-plant, with its marvellous susceptibility to 

 touch; what of those strange vegetable carnivora, the Dionasa and the 

 sundew, the Nepenthes and the Sarracenia, plants which are so 

 organized as to capture insects, and remind us of predatory birds and 

 quadrupeds ? No one plant, no race of plants, is in all particulars 

 preeminent, nor is any one kind nearest to man, or even to animal life. 

 Nature is everywhere the echo and solution of its lord and master, 

 therefore touches him, in its phenomena, at every point. 



