72 



and such salts as maybe contributed from the soil through 

 the roots; and also to recombine their elements in infinite 

 ways to form woody and leafy tissues, and, in short, build 

 up the plant on wider and wider lines. 



11 If we pause a moment to consider the infinite variety of 

 flavours, odours, and chemical products which exist in the 

 plant world, and remember that of all these, nutritious, 

 noxious, or even deadly poisonous, are fashioned by these 

 little green grains, and that every leaf in the fair prospect 

 we may be enjoying is an actual and busy laboratory, 

 engaged in this varied work, our conception of the wonders 

 of Nature, and especially of the wonders of chlorophyll, 

 cannot fail to be immensely widened. There is, indeed, 

 absolutely nothing else in creation, nothing so pervasive 

 and so essential to life, which can be compared to it ; and 

 the more we investigate, the greater becomes our wonder 

 and sense of reverence at the creative power which under- 

 lies it. 



"From the more microscopic forms of plant life to the 

 giant Sequoias, it is the tiny green grains which, in con- 

 junction with the formative cell, the twin wonders of 

 creation, enable them to exist and reproduce themselves, 

 and as we have already indicated, in those lowly forms of 

 plant life, the fungi, which manage to exist without their 

 actual presence within their substance, \hey can only do 

 so by feeding, as carnivorous animals do, on organic 

 matter previously shaped by chlorophyll, and consequently 

 charged with nutritive elements. The green leaf, in short, 

 forms the one and only link between the solar forces and 

 life itself, and in viewing the wide expanse of verdure of 

 hill and dale and fields and forests in their spring and 

 summer garb, we are the actual witnesses of the wondrous 

 process of transformation upon which our very existence, 

 and that of life in every other form, is absolutely dependent. " 

 Chas. T. Druery, V.M.H., F.L.S. 



