50 PHENOMENA OF PLANT-LIFE. 



Some forms run through their little span in a few 

 weeks, perhaps in a few days ; others endure for 

 months, years, ages ; yea, scores of ages, as happens 

 with those gigantic American trees that seem appoint- 

 ed to watch the rise and fall of nations ; but all ap- 

 pear to have a definite period assigned to them, or at 

 all events, a maximum of perfection, after attaining 

 which they decay with less or greater quickness. 

 This is the primary reason why flowers exist. Since 

 plants die, as other things do, sooner or later, unless 

 there were special arrangements made for their re- 

 newal, the earth, in a few centuries at furthest, would 

 become bare of vegetation, and the surface be like 

 those dreary plains of sand in northern Africa, which 

 a fanciful author thinks are the exhausted seats of the 

 world's first life. It is not that the plant has a lease 

 like that which the landlord determines with his ten- 

 ant. Such is not the case either, with the lease of 

 life in animals. The idea of the lease in both classes 

 of nature, is that of a certain relative length of life, 

 which may be abridged or extended according to cir- 

 cumstances, but the term of which is as certainly 

 fixed, as that of the summer, which may be cut short 

 by cold rains and early frosts, or last with a calm, 

 sweet glow of warmth and lovely hues, till it is time 

 almost, to think of Christmas. Coming to this inevi- 

 table termination, seeds must be produced in order 

 that a new generation shall arise ; the seed is the 



