TREES THAT MANUFACTURE 121 



agy !' Some of them led me to a seat, others rushed 

 for water from the river, and two or three brought 

 sand heaped up in their hands. . . . While the 

 men were rubbing me I was able to discern to some 

 extent the cause of my distress. Countless hairs, 

 like tiny arrows, almost transparent, pointed at 

 either end, and from a third to a fourth of an inch 

 long, had dropped on me in an invisible shower 

 from the agy-tree as I passed and stood under it. 

 Ere I came away that afternoon, very cautiously 

 I ventured to examine the tree at a little distance, 

 and found that these tiny hairs grew outside a 

 thickish pod or shell, not quite so large as a small 

 banana." 



One of the South American acacias manufac- 

 tures electricity for its protection or more prop- 

 erly speaking, it is an electrical dynamo. On touch- 

 ing it, one receives a shock so distinct that he is 

 not desirous of coming nearer. Scientists are now 

 working on the theory that certain electrically*- 

 charged trees exchange electrical or magnetic im- 

 pulses through the air. And who can say that they 

 have not a means of sending wireless messages? 

 Surely such phenomena could be no more wonder- 

 ful than the scientifically recognised work of tele- 

 graph plants and weather-prophet plants. 



