July, 1921 
57 
Two sunflowers, both 
equally wilted, were put in 
water. Of one the stem 
was cut and the other not. 
The result is obvious 
REVIVING 
THE WILTED 
FLOWER 
Whether hy White or Black Magic the Stem Cut Under 
Water Gives the Bloom New Life 
JOHN L. REA 
T HE distinction between white magic and 
black lies in the fact that the former was 
never invoked save for the attainment of 
wholly virtuous ends, while the latter was in¬ 
variably called into play by 
the children of darkness 
solely for the purpose of 
committing mischief or 
worse. While we have pretty 
generally succeeded in rele¬ 
gating the black vanity to 
the realm of fiction, usually 
of the more lurid sort, many 
of us are still prone to run 
after charms of one sort or 
another. Sometimes, though 
not often, what mankind 
has taken to be the effect 
of magic has proven to be 
but the result of some purely 
scientific process. On the 
other hand, many a crude 
attempt at scientific manip¬ 
ulation has had, in reality, 
no more of reason to recom¬ 
mend it than the baldest 
charm of them all. 
As I look back now it 
seems to me that our grand¬ 
mothers were depending 
altogether more on the 
power of magic than any 
scientific truth when they 
used to add various things 
to the water in which cut 
flowers were to be placed 
to keep them from wilting. 
The very length of the list 
of supposedly efficacious 
substances rather strength¬ 
ens the belief that science 
had little enough to do 
with the matter. They 
ranged all the way from 
salt to soap suds and in¬ 
cluded soda, ammonia, 
spirits of camphor and 
anynumber of other things. buttercups a>id 
T , i t i- x j attention. Half 
though I have not under- cu t nn d er 
taken any detailed experimentation to deter¬ 
mine if any of these were really helpful, yet 
my early trials lead me to suppose they all 
work equally well, never having observed the 
A peony laid in 
full sun for an 
hour was stem- 
trimmed in water 
A rose beginning 
to wilt in its vase 
was stem-cut un¬ 
der the water 
T wo hours later 
the peony had re¬ 
vived in bloom 
and foliage 
Half an hour later 
water had entered 
the veins of the 
rose stem 
daisies were left without 
of the bunch were stem- 
water and half not 
An hour and a half later the daisies were 
revived and the buttercups picking up 
The others remained wilted 
least benefit to the flowers arising from their use. 
Experiment has indeed shown that putting 
the cut stems into moderately hot water really 
did have some theory back of it. The hot 
water tends to quicken the 
cellular action of the stalks 
and to some extent may 
prove beneficial. But when 
the real remedy for droop¬ 
ing blooms is so near at 
hand and so simple, I won¬ 
der at the very elaborateness 
of these all but useless pro¬ 
cedures. 
The stems of a plant con¬ 
tain numerous veins or pas¬ 
sage-ways, some or all of 
which convey nourishment 
in liquid form to the leaves 
and flowers above. When a 
stem is cut, it usually hap¬ 
pens that a small amount of 
air forces its way into the 
severed ends of part or all 
of these tubes and there re¬ 
mains, as effective as any 
cork in preventing the pas- 
sage of water where it 
should normally be drawn. 
The air, however, sel¬ 
dom penetrates more than 
a fraction of an inch into 
the cut veins, even when 
they are exposed for some 
time. When the stem is 
finally placed in water the 
only necessity is to make 
sure the water will be able 
to enter the tubes. What 
could be more simple and 
obvious than to insert the 
ends of a pair of scissors 
or shears under the surface 
of the water and snip a 
half inch or so off the end 
of each stem ? Here is 
science of the simplest sort 
writing magic again and 
(Continued on page 62) 
