n8 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



March, 1908 



Snow Does Not Always Prevent Flowering 



The Himalayan 

 arum (Sauromatum 

 guttatum), a plant 

 which is a most in- 

 teresting one for 

 amateurs to gro w, 

 has been enabled to 

 scheme out its mode 

 of living in a way 

 which indicates a 

 clear knowledge of 

 the seasons. In the 

 natural habitat of 

 this species the year 

 is sharply divided 

 up into two periods, 

 one wet and the 

 other dry. Now it 

 would seem that this 

 plant depends for 

 the fertilization of 

 its blossoms upon a 

 certain insect which 



is about only during the dry season. This 

 makes it necessary that the Bowers should 

 be produced at that time. But vigorous 

 growth is impossible when everything is 

 parched and dry, and the clever plant has 

 found an ingenious way out of a difficult 

 situation. During the wet season, when the 

 arum produces its leaves and roots freely, a 

 great effort is made to store up as much 

 nutriment as is possible in the bulbous root. 

 At the approach of the dry weather the 

 leaves and even the roots of the plant die 

 away altogether. But after a short time the 

 bulb begins to send up another shoot, which 

 is really a flower bud, and such is the vigor 

 of the plant that it is able to develop this 

 quite perfectly in all respects without making 

 any roots at all. Perhaps still more clever 

 are those plants which are able to exist for 

 years, and do not seem to suffer, even though 

 there is no chance of making any active 

 growth. Some of the mosses (Selaginella) 

 often referred to, and indeed sold as, Ana- 



The Oak in Full Summer Dress 



statica (the Rose of Jericho) seem to be al- 

 most incapable of dying. For years they will 

 lie in a dry state seemingly devoid of any 

 life at all, but immediately the rain comes 

 they assume a pleasant fresh-green appear- 

 ance and start to increase very much in size. 

 Observers say that these plants when in their 

 dry condition are often blown over miles of 

 country, and that in this way the distribution 

 of the species is brought about. 



Although in some ways not quite so 

 startling, the change which comes over the 

 plants at the approach of winter is as re- 

 markable as that which takes place in the 

 spring. During the late summer the plants 

 exhibit a very clear knowledge of what they 

 are confronted with, and are careful to take 

 steps to meet the altered conditions. With 

 the waning of the summer there is a very de- 

 cided slackening in vegetable activity, and so 

 provident are they that long before it seems 

 to be really essential, the growth and ex- 

 tension of the indi- 

 vidual is abandoned 

 for the year and 

 preparations are 

 made for the rigor- 

 ous weather which 

 is at hand. The 

 growing shoots re- 

 solve themselves 

 into buds, which are 

 well worth watch- 

 ing in the fall, when 

 it will soon become 

 evident that it is not 

 only in the spring- 

 time that they are 

 of interest. 



Few people are 

 aware of the extent 

 to which the plant 

 pushes its prepara- 

 tions for the spring 

 at the end of t h e 

 summer. Pull a 



The Oak Preparing for Winter 



