82 THE WILD CLEMATIS. 



clematis clinging round a few stinted, half-vegetating 

 thorns, constituting the only fence, miserable as it is. 

 The runners or branches are very strong and flexile, 

 and are much used by our peasantry as a binding for 

 hedge fagots. The tubes, lymph ducts, and air-vessels 

 of this plant appear in a common magnifier beautifully 

 arranged, being large, and admitting the air freely to 

 circulate through them. Our village boys avail them- 

 selves of this circumstance, cut off* a long joint from a 

 dry branch, light it, and running about, use it as their 

 seniors do the tobacco-pipe. They call it " smoke wood," 

 and the action of the breath constantly agitating the 

 fire, it will long continue kindled. The pores are well 

 seen by drawing some bright colored liquor into them. 

 I have often observed the long feathered part of the 

 seed at the entrance of holes made by mice on the 

 banks, and probably in hard seasons the seed may yield 

 these creatures part of their supply. The diversity of 

 form and arrangement in the pores of the roots, stems, 

 and branches of plants, and the nerves, air-vessels, and 

 fibres of the leaves, are extremely wonderful and 

 beautiful ; and it is possible that all the genera, species, 

 and varieties, have more or less a different conformation 

 of some of these parts. It is from the agency of these 

 vessels, imbibing both from the air and the earth, com- 

 pounding, decomposing, and -discharging, in a way we 

 know little about, that the sweetness of our fruits, the 

 oil, the bread, and wine to glad the heart of man, pro- 

 ceed ; and grateful should we be for them. From the 

 vegetable world man derives his chief enjoyments : 

 much of his fuel, most of his food, and the chief of his 

 clothing, have once circulated in the tubes of a plant. 

 The clematis plant possesses the power of preserving 

 its verdure, and even thriving, in situations and seasons, 

 when most other shrubby vegetation fails or languishes. 

 With us its roots run amid loose stones, and in rocky 

 places, far from any spring or apparent moisture ; and 

 yet, in those uncommonly dry summers of 1825 and 

 1826, it seemed to flourish with more than usual vigor 

 throwing out its long tendrils, of a fine healthy green 

 color, adorned with a profusion of blossoms, itself and 



