The TO0HG HATtfBAMST: 



A Monthly Magazine of Natural History. 



Part 50. JANUARY, 1884. Vol. 5. 



DEFENCES OF PLANTS. 



By J. P. Soutter, Bishop Auckland. 



OF the various agencies which com- 

 bine together to produce a 

 luxuriant vegetation to beautify our 

 earth and sustain its inhabitants, the 

 defences of plants have not occupied a 

 very large share of attention. Much 

 more care and thought has been 

 bestowed upon the nutritive and re- 

 productive organs of plants, and their 

 defensive apparatus has been but 

 slightly alluded to. Yet when we 

 consider that the whole animal creation 

 is arrayed against the vegetable world, 

 — that setting apart the carnivorous 

 animals who prey upon their fellow- 

 beings, the entire supplies of existence 

 must be furnished by plant-life,— it 

 will readily be seen that those plants 

 which are best armed and most im- 

 pregnable to animal assaults will prove 

 the fittest survivors in the continual 

 warfare. 



It involves no disparagement to the 

 Creator to maintain that the theologi- 

 cal teachings which have prevailed so 

 long are now untenable. That the 

 ground was cursed because of Adam's 



transgression, and that thorns and 

 thistles are a direct result of the fall, 

 finds no support from geological evi- 

 dence, which conclusively proves that 

 spiny plants existed at a period long 

 before the appearance of man upon 

 our globe. Also, had thorns and 

 thistles been specially created as a 

 punishment for man, one would natu- 

 rally have looked for them being co- 

 extensive with his distribution, and 

 most abundant where he most did 

 congregate ; whereas, we find that 

 where the population is densest, spiny 

 and thorny plants are least prevalent, 

 and they tend to disappear altogether 

 under cultivation ; whilst in arid 

 deserts utterly unfitted to support 

 human life, plants bristling with such 

 sharp defences are the characteristic 

 species. It is more reasonable then 

 to believe that spines and prickles 

 have been gradually evolved as a pro- 

 tection to the plant against its natural 

 enemies, and that those who were best 

 armed have held their ground the 

 longest in the continual struggle for 

 existence. 



We might arrange the defensive 

 armour of plants into two groups— 



