66 PHENOMENA OF PLANT-LIFE. 



marked out by nature for elegant and sacred purposes 

 that shall be all their own, and these they never fail 

 to fulfil. Nature never forgets either her festivities 

 or her tender sympathies. When spring and summer 

 come, the chaplets are always ready, beautiful as 

 gladness, and dipped in odors ; when there is anything 

 sad or solemn, she is ready again, and with a smile 

 that gives a poetical side even to death. 



Sea-weeds, those lovely and fragile forms tossed 

 upon the sands from the country of the mermaids, — 

 or, in their larger and stouter forms, hanging in black 

 tapestry from the water-beaten cliff, — sea-weeds, 

 again, are flowerless plants. Yet they reproduce 

 themselves as regularly as those that bear stamens 

 and pistil. Sea-weeds differ from all other plants in 

 the complete fusion of all their parts into an homo- 

 geneous mass. There is no distinction of root, stem, 

 and leaves ; any and every portion is a miniature of 

 the whole. True, they hold fast to rocks, and beauti- 

 ful is the spectacle when the tide is at its full, and the 

 white-bubbled waves come lashing and surging, and 

 the long black thongs and branches, with their great 

 vesicles, float and toss in the water like a strong 

 swimmer in his merriment, secure all the while in 

 their living anchorage : but the attachment is still not 

 that of a root, but simply of a powerful adhesion. If 

 anything can be compared to foliage, it will be the 

 slender and thread-like portions ; but the functions 



