206 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
or first plants ; because they are the very first plants which 
gain a foothold on the barren rock, and, dying there, prepare 
the way for a higher vegetation. At tills season of the year, 
when the landscape is no longer decorated with flowers, the 
moss- and lichen-covered rdck has a peculiar interest attached 
to it, of which it is deprived in summer. There grows the 
vegetation of winter ; and our attention is no longer turned 
away from these lowly protophytes by the more gorgeous and 
showy plants which surround them in warm weather. 
Al l the year round there is ceaseless activity in Nature. 
Plant-life never expires. Even in the depth of winter, there is 
much organic beauty abroad. Ch6ose your time judiciously, 
when the sun is up and the weather is clear and frosty, and, if 
the snow is not on the ground, you will find good botanizing even 
in winter, if you attend to mosses. You will find these plants 
almost everywhere. On rocks, fallen trees, on the banks of 
rivulets, or on the surface of the stones in their pebbly beds ; 
and, if you have a microscope and “ Hooker’s British Mosses,” 
where these minute plants are most beautifully figured, you 
will be at no loss for amusement. 
But the active portion of vegetation is not wholly crypto- 
gamous. In the strongest January frost, the trees of the 
mountains — the noble and hardy firs and pines — ripen then- 
seeds. These trees abound in resin, and maintain their tem- 
perature above the freezing-point even in the severest weather. 
Their fluids are never congealed, owing to then viscidity, and 
they can, therefore, resist the cold. The sap continues to 
ascend in them, although its upward flow is very considerably 
diminished. 
There appears, also, to be some continuance of vital activity 
amongst the evergreens which bear true leaves — such as 
the ivy, laurel, and holly. From the very nature of things, 
these plants must change, then leaves ; but they do it in a less 
rapid and visible manner than the deciduous-leaved trees, one 
leaf replacing the other in such a way that the tree is never 
totally deprived of foliage. In the spring of the year there is 
a partial leaf-fail from the branches of evergreens. The leaves 
of these plants are more or less in action during winter. 
A low degree of warmth will, even in the depth of winter, 
start the sap of plants. Thus, if incisions be made into the 
stem and branches of a young maple in winter, if the weather 
should become mild, the sap will be seen to trickle from the 
wound. 
As a general rule, however,, winter is a state of repose to all 
the higher Phanerogams, or flowering-plants, the only really 
active portions of vegetation being Coniferie, Evergreens, and 
the lower orders of the Cryptogamia. Yet, even if these higher 
