852 



KNOWLEDGE 



[Oc 



1882. 



as their employers, an injiistioo by so carefully hiding their 

 honest real. But how if it wen? not so? f/tfor instance, 

 iJteM public pard-'n.i or-' tised diirin;/ the morniiuj hours ns 

 n prirale park I or if, in jxtrla of them, vieinherg of Sir 

 Joifph I/(H>k-er's fiuni/i/ ;/o shootinp orfishiniff 



Personally I ha\ c no feeling wliatever in this matter. I 

 do not even know Sir Joseph Hooker by sight I do not 

 care mysi'lf alx>ut the Gardens. I have visited all the best 

 l>otanic gartU-ns in America, Australia, New Zealand, and 

 Europe, I have seen nearly all the plants cultivated at 

 Kew in their native homes, and surrounded by natural 

 l>eauties sui h as scarcely all Britain can match. But I am 

 an Englishman : I \-iew this matter as a question of right 

 and wrong ; and I urge my fellow countrymen to notice 

 that throughout the wide extent of the English-speaking 

 communities of the world there has not been perpetrated a 

 ;,Tosser -wrong than that mile of brick wall. In such 

 degree, as respects l>oth time and extent of space, as these 

 Gardens, the people's property, arc turned from their real 

 purpose, and converted (by walling and excluding the true 

 owners) into private pleasure grounds, the nation is de- 

 frauded. It is an outrage on right and justice when this 

 v*Tong is done by persons paid to preserve and improve the 

 people's property. That long wall is a disgrace to Eng- 

 land, a discredit to every Englishman who. having .seen it, 

 does not do all that lies in his power to have it replaced 

 by such an enclosure as shall protect without hiding those 

 public garden.s. 



When Mr. Ayrton, as First Commissioner, wronged and 

 insulted Sir Joseph Hooker, it was quickly shown that this 

 people's sense of justice is keen ; Sir Joseph Hooker seems, 

 however, to have read the lesson the wrong way. He 

 treats those who took his part against oppression as his 

 oppressor treated him. The present First Commissioner 

 may rest well assured that n-hen he floes his duty in this 

 mnller he irill nreire the siijijiort of erer)/ honest iiimi in the 

 lond. 



TEASEL PHILOSOPHY. 



By Gkaxt Alle.v. 



ON the liank beside the little stream whicli has worn 

 itself a deep chine in the soft lilue mud of the lias, 

 a tall lilac te.osel is just now opening the buds between its 

 stout prickles, under the warm rays of a favouring 

 sun. Everything in nature is wonderful, especially if you 

 have the trick to know it ; and yet there are few things 

 more wonderful than the teasel, which is a perfect marvel 

 of minute prevision, from the tip of its root to the topmost 

 floret of its long cylindrical flower-head. Let us look at it 

 bit by bit, from the ground upward. First of all, you see 

 the lower leaves an- long and narrow ; l^it I advise you not 

 to touch them incautiously, for though they look harmless 

 enough e.\Ki\(\ the midrib is armed beneath with a long row 

 of very formidable stout curved prickles, sufficient to pierce 

 and tc-ar the toughest hide. From head to foot, indeed, the 

 teasel in w<-Il defended against animal foes, for its flowers 

 are pri<'kly, its stems are prickly, its leaves are prickly, and, 

 in short, it is prickly everywhere all over. Of course, it 

 acioired these prickles in much the same way as the roses 

 acqaired their thorns, the gorso its stiff, piercing leaves, and 

 the thistles their murderous defensive annour. All these 

 plants originally grew in ojvm places much overrun by 

 wild, herbivorous animals; and, therefore, those among 

 them alone survived which posses.sed in an incipient form 

 Bome Buch natural means of defence against their four- 

 footed fw-s. At first, no doubt, the prickles on the evolv- 

 ing teasel were nothing more than a line of hairs, such as 

 one may wc in various parts of other plants ; but these 



hairs would naturally dilVer in stoutness and sharpness on 

 one individual or another ; and those teasels which had 

 them stoutest and sharpest would most often escape, while 

 those which had tliem weakest and bluntest would soon be 

 browsed down by ancient deer or modern cattle. As the 

 survivors would always cross with one another, the prickly 

 character would tend to be maintained ; and as some of 

 their oflspring would every now and then be even pricklier 

 than their ancestors, it would also tend to bo increased so 

 long as any benefit could be derived by the species from 

 extra defensive appliances. Thus the teasels would at last 

 ac(juire their present very inhospitable characteristics. 



Again, observe that thi; stem-leaves of the teasel are 

 united at their base, so as to form a sort of cup or basin, 

 with the stem in its midst, capable of holding a fair 

 quantity of water. Although the weather has been dry 

 for three days past, you will see, if you look into it, that 

 each of these cups contains at this moment about a wine- 

 glassful of clear liquid : so that the plant practically con- 

 sists of a dozen little reservoirs placed storey above storey, 

 at a small distance from one another. Now what is the 

 use of this singular and quaint-looking arrangement 'I At 

 first sight, it might appear purely accidental ; one might 

 im.agine that the leaves happened to grow in that particular 

 fashion, and that the water lodged there for no special 

 reason whatsoever. ]5ut there are very few accidents in 

 organic nature ; most things that turn up in plants or 

 animals are either beneficial to the org.anism, in which case 

 they get specially selected, or else hurtful to the organism, 

 in which case they get rapidly weeded out. Now Sir 

 John Lubbock has shown that the cups of water do 

 subserve a useful function in the economy of the teasel. 

 Ants and many other creeping insects are very fond of 

 honey, and in order to g(!t at it they often climb up the 

 stems of honey-bearing plants and rille the nectaries in the 

 opening flowers. By so doing, they rob the blossom of its 

 main attraction for bees or butterflies ; while on the other 

 hand they confer no service upon it in return ; first, 

 because their bodies are not adapted to the shapes of the 

 flowers, and, secondly, because they do not go, like flying 

 insects, straight from one plant to another of the same 

 species, but, being guid(^d by scent alone, climb up dif- 

 ferent stems indiscriminately, wherever the smell of honey 

 lures them on. Thus they do not aid cross-fertilisation, 

 but rather prevent it. Hence it is an advantage to plants 

 to exclude ants and other such creeping honey-thieves. 

 But, as all residents in the tropics well know, there are 

 two ways of keeping ants from climbing up tables or 

 safes to pilfer fruit or sugar. One way is by putting 

 the legs of the table in little .shallow i)ans of water, across 

 which th(! ants cannot swim. The other way is by gum- 

 ming fur around the legs, and so forming an impenetrable 

 thicket, through which the littk; foragers cannot possibly 

 force their way. Both those plans have been anticipated 

 by the honey-bearing plants. Some of them, like, the dead- 

 nettles, protect themselves by bushy hairs, especially 

 around the calyx and llower-.stalk ; others, like the teasel, 

 protect themselves by cups of water on the stem, past which 

 the boldest ant cannot venture. 



But why are there more cups than one ? Well, to begin 

 with, symmetry alone would tend to make all the upper 

 leaves grow alike ; only under very sjiecial circumstances 

 would a plant difTerentiate a single pair of leaves for a 

 particular difl'erentiated function. But, besides that, a 

 number of cups serve the purpose better than a single one 

 would do ; for if an ant starts at tlus bottom, he will 

 be stopped by the lowest cup ; but if he mounts a 

 neighbouring haulm of grass which happens to touch 

 the stem a little higher up, he will then bo baulked 



I 



