42 FLASHLIGHTS ON NATURE 



plants, indeed, proceed much as the soldanella 

 does in the matter of laying by materials for future 

 growth in the leaves, and using these up in the act 

 of flowering. Take, for example, the famous and 

 often somewhat exaggerated case of the so-called 

 " aloe," or American agave. It is commonly said 

 that " the flowering of an aloe " takes place but 

 once in a hundred years. This is a poetical fiction. 

 As a matter of fact, the agave flowers on an average 

 after fifteen or twenty years, and then dies down 

 utterly. Every visitor to Italy or the Riviera knows 

 this huge plant well a gigantic house-leek in form, 

 with its big spiny leaves and its points, sharp as a 

 needle, which defend it as by a bristling row of 

 bayonets. Now, the agave lays by its material for 

 future growth in the thickened base or lower portion 

 of its leaves ; it thus forms a huge rosette, very 

 much sw r ollen and enlarged at the bottom. For 

 years it goes on with exemplary patience, collecting 

 supplies for its one act of flowering ; then at last, 

 feeling its time has come, 'it suddenly sends up a 

 huge stalk, or trunk, like a vast candelabrum, fifteen, 

 twenty, or even thirty feet high, and supporting at 

 its top a great bunch of big yellow blossoms. This 

 enormous stem, with its colossal cluster of branch- 

 ing blossoms, takes only a few weeks to grow ; and 

 as it rises and flowers, or still more as the immense 

 capsules ripen their seeds, the bases of the leaves, 

 once swollen and thick, become by degrees flaccid 

 and empty. The stem and blossoms have drained 

 them dry. At last, as the seeds fall, the whole 

 plant dies away, having used itself up for ever in 



