vi.] TENACITY FOR LIFE 55 



xerophytes, no doubt due to the inability to lose 

 water. Some echeverias had been put with 

 other plants in a tin box and forgotten for 

 several weeks. When opened the box contained 

 a black mass of corruption, but turning it out 

 the echeverias only were found to be alive. 

 They were planted and grew well. As another 

 example, a flowering spray of an epiphytal 

 orchid had been cut off, laid in the stage in 

 the hothouse and forgotten. It was still in 

 bloom quite unfaded, after six weeks' abandon- 

 ment ! Such epiphytal orchids grow on the 

 upper branches of tropical trees, and are conse- 

 quently xerophytes, having tuberous stem-joints 

 for storing water, though the trees them- 

 selves and the verdure below may be hygro- 

 phytic in consequence of the abundance of 

 water. 



The general result of these observations on 

 the structure of succulent plants is thus seen to 

 be distinctly parallel with those of other kinds ; 

 in that, while on the one hand similar character- 

 istics are noticeable in plants of no affinity, but 

 living in the same circumstances, experimental 

 proofs show how these features can be produced 

 or restrained ; but these characters are regarded 

 by systematic botanists as varietal, specific or 

 otherwise when hereditary. 1 



1 See Anatomical Notes on Strand Plants, by M. A. Chrysler 

 (Bot. Gaz., xxxvi. p. 461, 1904). 



