THE WILD CLEMATIS. 
82 
clematis clinging round a few stinted, half-vegetating 
thorns, constituting the only fence, miserable as it is. 
The runners or branches are very strong and flexile, 
and are much used by our peasantry as a binding for 
hedge fagots. The tubes, lymph ducts, and air-vessels 
of this plant appear in a common magnifier beautifully 
arranged, being large, and admitting the air freely to 
circulate through them. Our village boys avail them- 
selves of this circumstance, cut off* a long joint from a 
dry branch, light it, and running about, use it as their 
seniors do the tobacco-pipe. They call it u smoke wood,” 
and the action of the breath constantly agitating the 
fire, it will long continue kindled. The pores are well 
seen by drawing some bright colored liquor into them. 
I have often observed the long feathered part of the 
seed at the entrance of holes made by mice on the 
banks, and probably in hard seasons the seed may yield 
these creatures part of their supply. The diversity of 
form and arrangement in the pores of the roots, stems, 
and branches of plants, and the nerves, air-vessels, and 
fibres of the leaves, are extremely wonderful and 
beautiful ; and it is possible that all the genera, species, 
and varieties, have more or less a different conformation 
of some of these parts. It is from the agency of these 
vessels, imbibing both from the air and the earth, com- 
pounding, decomposing, and discharging, in a way we 
know little about, that the sweetness of our fruits, the 
oil, the bread, and wine to glad the heart of man, pro- 
ceed ; and grateful should we be for them. From the 
vegetable world man derives his chief enjoyments : 
much of his fuel, most of his food, and the chief of his 
clothing, have once circulated in the tubes of a plant. 
The clematis plant possesses the power of preserving 
its verdure, and even thriving, in situations and seasons, 
when most other shrubby vegetation fails or languishes. 
With us its roots run amid loose stones, and in rocky 
places, far from any spring or apparent moisture ; and 
yet, in those uncommonly dry summers of 1825 and 
1826, it seemed to flourish with more than usual vigor 
throwing out its long tendrils, of a fine healthy green 
color, adorned with a profusion of blossoms, itself and 
