A VERY INTELLIGENT PLANT 



263 



young furze bush in its earliest infantile stage, 

 when it is still essentially a two-leaved seedling. 

 This seedling grows from a small bean scattered 

 by the parent plant in a very curious way, which 

 I will explain later. Thousands of the beans lie 

 on the ground in every common, and only a few 

 germinate, under favourable circumstances, into 

 two-leaved seedlings, like 

 those represented in these 

 illustrations. The leaves 

 of the first pair spread 

 out flat on the surface of 

 the unoccupied soil and 

 drink in the sunlight. 

 They also drink in, what 

 is equally important to 

 them, the carbonic acid 

 of the air, and manufac- 

 ture from it the living 

 material of fresh leaves 

 by the aid of the sun- 

 light. For the first few 

 days of its life, the 

 young gorse plant lives 

 mainly on the food laid 

 up for it in the bean by 



the parent bush ; but as soon as this is exhausted, 

 and it has accumulated a little stock of its own 

 by its private exertions, it begins to manufacture 

 new leaves and branches that it may rise above 

 the tangled mass of competitors by which its birth- 

 place is surrounded. 



NO. 2. THE GORSE PLANT AT 

 ONE WEEK OLD. 



