90 



HUTCHINSON'S POPULAR BOTANY 



have convinced the reader that plants are very wonderful as well as very com- 

 plex organisms. We claim for them that they are not less wonderful than 

 animals man alone excepted. Every individual at least, among the higher 

 plants is like a little city, athrob with life; in which a pulling down and 

 building up is ever going on ; in which there are lanes and alleys, and 

 broadways and aqueducts, and the daintiest of little houses. In one part of 

 the city are the starch factories ; in another, the milk-shops ; in another, the 

 sugar refineries. Here is the jewellers' quarter, where the crystals are 



prepared ; here the per- 

 fumers', " where the most 

 fragrant scents are distilled ; 

 here the varnish-makers' 

 and colourmen's. Infinite 

 in variety, marvellous in 

 execution, is the work that 

 goes on ; and some of the 

 operations may be watched 

 under the microscope. We 

 may see the little artisans at 

 work may enter with more 

 or less intelligence into what 

 is being done ; though how 

 the marvellous results are 

 produced we know not. 

 Here, indeed, we reach the 

 borders of the Unknown 

 Land, which Science has 

 never entered, and where 

 the mysterious facts of Life 

 lie hid. We screw on the 

 highest powers of the micro- 

 scope ; but the secret remains 

 a secret still. The things 

 formed are plain before our 

 eyes, and we may see them 

 forming ; we may note 

 effects, and even the pro- 

 cesses by which those effects are produced ; but behind all is the mysterious 

 principle called Life, and into this we may not enter. Again and again, as 

 we watch those viscid, transparent specks of structureless matter begin- 

 ning to move as we see them throwing out their delicate strands, or 

 rotating slowly in their cells we ask in awe and admiration, How is this ? 

 But the question falls in vain. The little protoplasts work on, but will 

 not answer. 



Photo by] [E. Step. 



FIG. 122. FLOWERS OF GABBYA ELLIPTICA. 



The long, pale yellow catkin consists of a series of cups, each containing 



three flowers. The catkins are five or six inches long, and appear verv 



early in spring. CALIFORNIA, MEXICO, etc. 



