CHAP, vi.] SUCCULENCY DUE TO SALTS 51 



very heavy, they absorb this water and convey 

 it to the interior of the plants. 



The use of the fleshiness is to store up water 

 by preventing an excess of transpiration, so that 

 the desert plants do not become desiccated in 

 the prolonged rainless period of drought in the 

 hottest summer months. 



I will now give an epitome of the evidence 

 that succulency is due to response in the plants 

 to drought or salts ; and that when this result 

 has been thoroughly established, in the majority 

 of cases it is hereditary, inasmuch as no change 

 takes place when the seeds are sown and plants 

 raised in totally different environments. 



The following paragraphs are quoted, in part, 

 from my Ecological work on " The Origin of 

 Plant Structures, by Self- Adaptation to the 

 Environment," 1 to which I would refer the 

 reader for further details. 



The presence of salts has been proved experi- 

 mentally by M. Lesage to be the immediate 

 cause of succulency in maritime plants of tem- 

 perate climates ; as he was able to induce it in 

 garden plants. To these plants of salt marshes 

 may now be added. At Bad Nauheim, near 

 Frankfort, the brine from the natural salt spring 

 is pumped up to some 100 feet over an erection 

 of faggots. As the water trickles down and is 

 collected below, it of course evaporates and the 



1 International Scientific Series, vol. Ixxvii. 1895, p. 48. 



