YOUNGER YEARS OF A PLANT. 175 



In similar beautiful adaptation to outward circumstances, 

 we find that the stem of the graceful palm-tree is high 

 and slender, but built up of unusually tough, woody fibres, 

 so that it sways gently to and fro in the breeze, and yet 

 resists the fiercest storms, while the lofty bare trunk gives 

 free passage to every breath of air, and the broad flat 

 top tempers the burning sun and shades the fruit hanging 

 down in rich clusters. The solemn and imposing fir tree, 

 on the other hand, branches low, but just high enough to 

 let man pass beneath, and then drops its branches at the 

 extremities, like a roof, exposing, on terrace after terrace, 

 its small fruit to all aspects of the sun, and, in winter, 

 letting the heavy snow glide down on the smooth polished 

 leaves. If the palm were a pyramid like the pine, it would 

 fall before the first storm of the tropics ; if the pine were 

 tall and shaped like a broad parasol, the snow and ice 

 of the north would break it by their heavy weight. Yet, 

 both the burning tropics and the arctic zone have their 

 evergreens. At the south it is the towering palm that 

 protects, with its gigantic leaves, all that lives against the 

 fierce heat, and lets the ground be covered with green 

 creepers and countless ferns, to keep it fresh and cool. 

 At the north it is the dark pine, whose lofty, dense py- 

 ramid and ample branches, covered with ghastly moss, 

 protect, in like manner, the ground underneath, so that 

 reindeer and man may find 'their abundance of soft dry 

 leaves and thick layers of downy mosses. 



It is this part of the plant which gives it, in common 

 life, its proper rank and name in the vegetable kingdom. 

 When the stem is not woody and dies after the flowering 



