CONTRIBUTIONS 



TO THE 



HISTORY OF DERRYFIELD 



BY WILLIAM E. MOORE. 



CHAPTER VI. 



BRIEF BOTANICAL SKETCH — EVIDENCES OF ARCTIC LIFE — PARTIAL LIST 

 OF TREES, SHRUBS AND FLOWERS. 



All plants are animals, minus the power of locomotion. This 

 lack is in large measure supplied by their wonderful power of 

 adaptation, and in the myriad methods of dispersion by which 

 they really move. Having neither wings nor feet, they do not 

 walk but contrive to be transported. They lie in wait for the 

 wind upon which they ride ; lakes and rivers bear them from 

 shore to shore, from mountain to plain, and ocean currents waft 

 them to friendly or inhospitable coasts. They hide in the depths 

 of earth and lurk in the crannies of rocks ; they cling to claws 

 and talons of bird or beast, and with deceitful simulation procure 

 themselves to be swallowed, that peradventure they shall be cast 

 out upon propitious soil, to await their resurrection morn. We 

 behold everywhere this curious paradox of the plant-world, inca- 

 pable of motion and yet migratory ; and we may well look with 

 amazement upon the exercise of this marvellous instinct which 

 enables plants, under all the countless mutations of climate and 

 soil, to reproduce and perpetuate their kind. 



The word extinct, written after the names of vegetable forms 

 which no longer exist, need not here concern us. That this 



