Of Flowering, and its Results. igl 



na ceous store in the roots of the Carrot, Beet, &c., when they 

 begin to flower, leaving them light, dry and empty j and from 

 the* rapid diminution of the sugar in the stalk of the Sugar 

 Cane (as also that of maize) at the same period. The stalks are 

 therefore cut for making sugar just before the flowers expand, 

 as they then contain the greatest amount of saccharine matter. 

 Xhe consequence of this exhaustion may be illustrated by the 

 facility with which annual plants are converted into biennials, 

 or their life prolonged indefinitely, by preventing their flower- 

 ing ; while, whenever they bear flowers and seed, whether 

 during the first or any succeeding year, they commonly perish. 

 go a common annual Larkspur has produced a double flowered 

 variety in the gardens, which bears no seed, and has therefore 

 become a perennial. So, also, cabbage stumps, which are 

 planted for seed, may be made to bear heads the second year, 

 by destroying the flower shoots as they arise ; and the process 

 may be continued from year to year, thus converting a biennial 

 into a kind of perennial plant. The effect of flowering upon 

 the longevity of the individual, is strikingly shown by the 

 Agate, or Century Plant — so called because it flowers in our 

 conservatories only after the lapse of a hundred, or a least a 

 great number of years ; while in its native sultry clime it gen- 

 erally flowers in the course of five or six years. But whenever 

 this occurs, the sweet juice with which it is filled at the time is 

 consumed at a rate correspondent to the astonishing rapidity 

 with which its huge flower stalk shoots forth, and the whole plant 

 inevitably perishes when the seeds have ripened. So, also 

 the Conjpha, or Talipot-Tree, a magnificent oriental Palm,' 

 which lives to a great age, and attains an imposing altitude,' 

 (bearing a crown of leaves, each of which is often thirty feet 

 in diameter,) flowers only once ; but it then bears an enormous 

 number of blossoms, succeeded by a crop of nuts sufficient to 

 supply a large district with seed, while the tree immediately 

 perishes from the exhaustion consequent upon this over pro- 

 duction. 



Flowering and fruiting, then, draw largely upon the plant's 

 resources, while they give back nothing in return. In these 

 operations, and perhaps in these alone, do vegetables act as 

 true consumers; decomposing their own products, and giving 



