FORMS AND ECONOMY OF PLANTS. 33 



they endure the enervating daliance of the luxurious vale ; nor can 

 either dwell with the aquatic plant immersed in a liquid element. We 

 have noticed many of the habits of plants ; and, in the progress of 

 our remarks, we shall notice how they minister to our wants as food, 

 clothing, medicines, in the arts, and for the support of inferior ani- 

 mals. The interest with which they must be viewed, with their num- 

 berless shoots urging into life and action their millions of buds, that 

 are expanded into light and being by the genial sun, rivalling one 

 another in their efforts to produce the fairest flower and choicest fruit 

 these, we say, render them objects of peculiar attention. But a 

 change comes over them, as we have seen, and as we daily witness, 

 with fellow mortals. They die and mingle with the soil, and from 

 their decomposed remains spring up new beings. 



The various forms of plants, in this connection, cannot fail to strike 

 us with wonder. Although this is remarkable in the 100,000 different 

 species of insects, yet the variations are not so obvious in the range 

 of such minute objects as in plants, nor is it more prolific in wonders. 

 In every situation capable of sustaining life we find plants arise and 

 continue their species in endless perpetuity. The germs are every 

 where found where the soil is upturned, and where they may have re- 

 mained dormant, perhaps for centuries. Islands formed of coral-reefs, 

 and even sterile rocks, cinders and lava of recent volcanoes, are found 

 covered with vegetable forms. The germs that float invisibly in the 

 air, successively follow each other and plant the most barren places 

 with verdure, which, rising from grasses to shrubs, and from shrubs to 

 trees, soon present all the varied forms of meadows, thickets and for- 

 rests. Thus, considered in reference to their utility, the beauty of 

 their forms and colors, their fruit and fragrance, or the continuation 

 of their species, they forcibly impress us at all times with admiration 

 and delight. 



The utility of plants is unbounded and illimitable. No where do 

 they rise in vain. The lofty tree, whatever its intrinsic properties, 

 presents its cooling and refreshing shades for flocks and herds, and of- 

 fers an asylum for the insect tribe and for the songsters of the air. As 

 food, the bread-fruit tree of the Pacific, and the cabbage tree of our 

 own and other southern climes, the sugar maple of the United States, 

 the tea tree of China, the sugar cane, the cotton shrub, and the coffee 

 tree, and the innumerable fruit trees which every where yield in rich 

 profusion their varied products ; the fountain tree of the Canaries that 

 yields pure water ; the tallow tree of China ; the Mulberry tree, nour- 

 ishing myriads of beings that industriously supply us with siks ; the 

 salt tree of Chili that daily supplies the people with salt ; the cinna- 

 mon, pimento and clove that furnish our spices ; the Peruvian bark, 

 the senna, manna and innumerable other medicinal plants ; those too 

 yielding their healing balsams, turpentine, resins, oils and gums all, 



