LATER YEARS or A PLANT. 



VI. 



".', fater pirs of a flaul 



"Soft whilst we sleep beneath the rural bow'rs, 



The loves and graces steal unseen away; 

 And where the turf diffus'd its pomp of flow'rs 

 We wake to wintry scenes of chill decay." SHENSTONK. 



nnHE true, full life of plants may be said to begin and 

 to end with their period of blooming. Whilst trees 

 do not blossom until many years have passed over their 

 lofty heads the fir-tree and the beech, for instance, seldom 

 before the fiftieth year the humbler plants look upon the 

 time when they are crowned with flowers as the happiest 

 and last, of their existence. It comes, with some, after 

 a short year, whilst the Agave Americana lives many, 

 though not quite a hundred years, without ever flowering. 

 Then it produces, with amazing rapidity, an innumerable 

 host of flowers, growing almost visibly, until it has un- 

 folded its magnificent candelabrum of nearly fifty feet 

 high, and then it perishes. So also the beautiful talipot 

 palm : it grows and flourishes, and forms a vast crown 

 of broad leaves at a great height ; then only it flowers 



