313 
and the thickening and strengthening of the coil when 
adhesion is secured^ also hold out to us striking exhibitions of 
creative skill. Indeed, the world is full of wonders of which 
the explanation is wanting, if the supernatural is ignored. 
The leaves seem to enjoy the light of the sun, and certainly 
the delicate leaves of some tropical plants bend their surfaces 
so as they may best catch its rays. This tendency has been 
attributed also to some flowers, and is immortalised by the 
poet : — 
“ The heart that has truly loved never forgets, 
But as truly loves on to the close, 
As the sunflower turns on her god when he sets 
The same look which she turn’d when he rose.” 
It is quite possible that our Scientists/^ who delight in 
destroying the poetry of nature, may succeed in finding some 
mechanical reason for this ; but I think they cannot so explain 
the remedial expedients that we next notice. 
For instance, the gale in October last broke in half a large 
elm of mine, and I then discovered that the upper portion, 
which seemed sound and flourishing, had been living, like a 
young spendthrift, at the expense of its decaying parent. 
The middle portion, from some injury, had fallen into decay, 
and the top had actually sent down adventitious roots, some 
almost as thick as my finger, to feed upon the rotten portion, 
making their way between the bark and the wood for 15 feet 
or 20 feet.* 
These adventitious roots present, in the tropical plants, 
strange vagaries. A plant of Vanilla in my hot-house 
flourishes by their means, and has sent down long roots into 
the soil on the opposite side of the house, though the original 
stem has quite withered away. 
It is a matter full of interest to behold the sensitive plant 
fold and droop its leaves in regular succession as the shock is 
communicated from one part of the plant to another. 
We watch something which is quite beyond our present 
powers of explanation ; for we do not imagine for a moment 
that the plant has any nervous system through which feel- 
ing could be communicated : nevertheless, in the marvellous 
adaptation of things which we call Nature, we have before us an 
instance of the typical unity impressed on the creatures. There 
is a sort of feeling after the endowment of' a higher order of 
creation. It is a perilous ascent, however, and if the plant 
* Compare my Contrast hetvjeen Crystallisation and Life, p. 28 (the 
woodcut). Second edition. 
VOL. XVI. 
Y 
