834 



THE NATURE BOOK 



writers respecting its powers of discrimina- 

 tion may be put to the test. One may 

 pro\'e, for example, that the leaves are 

 very partial to Uttle morsels of steak ; 

 and that they will have nothing whatever 

 to do with cinders, bits of moss or straw, 

 or httle pills of paper. They do not 



even trouble to examine such objects with 

 their red hairs or tentacles. The leaves 

 seem to know instinctively whether the 

 substance which falls upon them is good 

 for food ; and they refuse to waste time 

 and peptic fluid on substances which 

 possess no nutritive value. 



Harold Bastin. 



CHAPTERS IN PLANT LIFE 



I— THE ASSERTIVE PLANT 



By S. LEONARD BASTIN 

 With Photographs by the Author 



OX this crowded earth, one of the chief 

 problems which confront the indi- 

 vidual plant is that of finding room 

 to grow at all. Every available space is 

 so thickly tenanted that it is only the 

 very sturdy, or the very ingenious, sub- 

 ject that can hope to hold its own in 

 the great struggle for a position. The 

 appearance of the June meadows is not 

 in the least suggestive of strife, yet on 

 every foot of the ground there has been 

 waged a battle that has decided the 

 fate of a countless array of units. The 

 tall grass heads, and the graceful Moon 

 Daisies, are but the surface representa- 

 tives of a densely populated world be- 

 neath, the inhabitants of which are so 

 closely packed together that it is pardon- 

 able to wonder how they can exist at 

 all. Indeed, the overcrowding is such 

 that not a trace of the brown earth is 

 visible in the compact turf formed by 

 the innumerable ])lants. It is possible 

 to reaUse how keen must have been the 

 competition for a place when we re- 

 member that for each plant which has 

 come to perfection, several score wiU 

 ha\-e gone down in the struggle. 



Perhaps some of the most aggressive 

 plants in the capturing of positions are 

 those with subterranean stems, which 

 run along under the soil, sencHng up 

 shoots at intervals. Not a few of the 

 grasses are marvellous instances of how 



much space a single plant may cover. 

 The maritime grass Psamma arenaria, so 

 common on our coast sand-hills, spreads 

 over a huge area of ground, as may be 

 proved by pulling up one of the tufts. 

 It will be found that the long stem may- 

 be traced back for several feet to the 

 parent plant. In a very similar manner 

 does the great Bracken Fern thrust out 

 its rhizomes, or underground stems, in 

 all directions, and in this way occupy the 

 ground to the exclusion of almost every- 

 thing else. In a very large number of 

 cases, however, the stems are simply 

 procumbent, running along on the sur- 

 face of the soil. The Speedwells, the 

 Potentillas and the Strawberries are in 

 this way able to monopohse the situation. 

 In one summer a sturdy specimen will 

 succeed in rooting its leaf joints in dozens 

 of places ; these plantlets are doubly 

 strong in that they are not only rooted 

 on their own account, but are still in 

 receipt of assistance from the parent. 

 The chances of seedhngs whose lot has 

 been cast near to one of these pushful 

 species are doubtful in the extreme. It 

 is a version, in the vegetable world, of 

 the old story of the small tradesmen 

 with single shops strugghng against the 

 great com})any with its hundred branches, 

 each one of which is supported from a 

 central estabUshment. Still further to 

 the advantage of the spreading plant is the 



