TREES THAT MANUFACTURE 107 



fire and gives out an exquisite bright, sparkling 

 light, like that of the effective lycopodium in the 

 old time melodrama. 



The tropical lace-tree weaves patterns which are 

 the envy and despair of all needle workers and are 

 reminiscent of the wonderful needlecraft of the 

 submerged water plants with their laces, frills, and 

 ribbons! Many trees manufacture fibres and 

 threads. Bark often takes the form of beautiful 

 mosaics. In all trees bark grows on the inside; 

 that is, the active cambium layer keeps adding 

 annual growths on the inner side of the accumula- 

 tions of the past years. The same layer of bark 

 which enclosed the sapling stem of two summers 

 girdles the trunk of the young hopeful of twenty. 

 To take care of the trunk-growth of the tree this 

 initial bark ordinarily stretches and finally cracks 

 open and shows the furrowed surface with which 

 we are all familiar. In the lace-tree, by some 

 caprice of nature, it does not crack open, but con- 

 tinues to stretch until it shows every vein and cell- 

 grouping in a marvellous vegetable lace-tracery, 

 like man-made lace stretched over a frame. 



Trees are the great sources of the natural mor- 

 dant vegetable dyes, which are not complete dyes 

 in themselves but are usually weak acids which, 

 combining with certain metallic oxides, form fast 



