44 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



great events. But plants and animals consist, at best, 

 only of perishing individuals, and have no power given 

 them to speak to future ages. What we know, there- 

 fore, of their wanderings is little, but even that little 

 gives us such an insight into the inner life and motion 

 of Nature, that it is well worth recording. 



Plants have ever travelled most and furthest of all 

 children of this earth. Much has been said and much 

 has been written about poor flowers, these true and gen- 

 uine children of their mother earth, coming directly out 

 of her bosom, and ever busy to draw from the air of 

 heaven food for their great parent. Often have they 

 been pitied because they are chained to the soil, whilst 

 their own shadow, as in mockery, dances around them 

 and marks the passing hours of sunshine. Trees have 

 been called the true symbols of that longing for heaven 

 which is innate in man's soul. Bound for life to one 

 small spot on earth, they are represented as stretching 

 out widely their broad branches, far beyond the reach of 

 humble roots?- trying to embrace the balmy air, to drink 

 in the golden light of the sun, and to arrest the very 

 clouds in their aerial flight. 



But in reality plants travel far and fast. It is true, 

 they perform their journeys mostly in the seed ; but there 

 is, perhaps, no earthly kind of locomotion which they do 

 not employ for their purpose. Wind and water, the beasts 

 of the field and the winged creatures of heaven, above 

 all, Man himself all have been pressed into their service, 

 to carry them from sea to sea, and from shore to shore. 

 Countless powers of Nature are incessantly at work to 



