180 PASQUE-FLOWER. 



gin to vegetate, and shoot to the height of 

 at least two inches in about three weeks; 

 but in the latter none appear. Still the 

 vital power continues unimpaired; requir- 

 ing only to be stimulated by the ministry 

 of heat and moisture ; and thus it would 

 have remamed dormant, yet existing, if ages, 

 instead of days, had passed over it. If the 

 under soil of old botanic gardens is thrown 

 up, species reappear which have been unseen 

 in the same spot within the memory of man ; 

 earth, likewise, taken from a considerable 

 depth is often covered with young plants. 



Very curious, too, is that dormant faculty 

 within a seed, wliich urges the young root 

 in a direction opposed to the stem : that, 

 while the stem presses upward, the root 

 goes dow^lward, with its own elaborate and 

 beautiful machinery, its sap-vessels and ab- 

 sorbing vessels, to draw moisture from the 

 earth. The descent of one, and the up- 



