THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 85 
failed disastrously. While they develop foliage and an inflorescence 
after a fashion, they do not form perfect flowers and they perish 
early with aims unaccomplished. Four months later the normal 
growth takes place even at a very low temperature. 
Many seeds, rootstocks and tubers act similarly. In all such 
cases the materials contained in the cells are vitally active. The 
contents of their cells slowly pass through various chemical 
changes, preparing them for their future function. Neither heat 
nor moisture will hasten this transformation. 
It is right enough then, after all, to speak of a time of dormancy 
if we do not carry it far enough to involve the idea of death. A 
seed, bulb, potato-tuber, are inert enough surely, but they are po- 
tential with life. A comparison is sometimes made between 
them and a lucifer match. The latter, too is quiet enough, and 
may remain so for months or years. When heat or friction is 
applied, a key has been touched which sets tremendous energy in- 
to being. We have* violent oxidation with its accompaniments 
of heat and li!2:ht. Several springs must be plied to start up the 
vital engine in a plant. There is oxidation here, also, but accom- 
panied by the subtle, elusive, mysterious force called life. 
Of course we all know that certain plants, very many, may 
have their resting period, their long vacation, shortened without 
harm. These, like hyacinths, will respond even in November or 
December to the stimulus of heat and moisture. By mid-Janu- 
ary certainly and perhaps earlier, one can force a budding spray 
of Forsythia into a golden splendor of bloom. We even see lilies- 
of-the-valley and lilacs, neither of them naturally early bloomers, 
thus compelled to blossom in winter. It stands to reason that it 
is easier to do this with plants whose time of blooming is early, 
the Mayflower, hepatica, cherry, willows, alders, birches and the 
like. 
Kerner tells of a curious and instructive experiment he once 
tried. He drew the shoot of a clematis plant rooted in the open, 
after it had lost its foliage in the autumn into the interior of a 
neighboring hothouse. Leafy shoots were developed from the 
buds of the upper portion thus warmed even in December ; while 
the lower portion of the same plant, situated outside the hot house 
