The Story Of The Plants (Paperback, illustrated edition)

THE STOEY OP THE PLANTS 13Y GEANT ALLEN. WITH 49 ILLUSTRATIONS. LONDON GEORGE NEWNES, LTD. SOUTHAMPTON STEEET, STEAND 1899 PEEFACE. IN this little volume I have endeavoured to give a short and succinct account of the principal phenomena of plant life, in language suited to the comprehension of unscientific readers. As iar as possible I have avoided technical terms and minute detail, while I have tried to adopt a more philosophical tone than is usually employed in elementary works. I have treated my readers, not as children, but as men and women, endowed with the average amount of intelligence and insight, and anxious to obtain some sensible information about the world of plants which exists all round them. Acting upon this basis, I have freely admitted the main results of the latest investigations, accepting throughout the evolutionary theory, and making the study of plants a first introduction to the great modern principles of heredity, variation, natural selec tion, and adaptation to the environment. Hence I have wasted comparatively little space on mere structural detail, and have dwelt as much as possible on those more interesting features in the interrelation of the plant and animal worlds which have vivified for us of late years the dry bones of the old technical botany. My principle has been to unfold my subject by gradual stages, telling the reader one thing at a time, tad building up by degrees his know 6 PBEFACE. ledge of the subject. My treatment is, therefore, to some extent diagrammatic, especially in the earlier chapters but I endeavour as I proceed to correct the generalisations and fill in the gaps of the first crude statement. I trust that advanced students who mayglance at this little book will forgive me for such concessions to the weaker brethren, especially when they see that at the same time I have ventured to lay before untechnical readers all the latest results of the most advanced botanical research, as far as could be done in so small a compass. I have even made bold to speak at times of carbonic acid, where I ought strictly to have said carbon dioxide, and to glide gently over the distinction between hydro-carbons and carbo hydrates, which could interest none but chemical students. I have been well content to make these trivial sacrifices of formal accuracy in order to find room for fuller exposition of the delightful relations between flowers and insects, birds and fruits, soil and plant, climate and foliage. In one word, I have dwelt more on the functions and habits of plants than on their structure and classification. At the same time I have tried to lead on my reader by gradual stages to the further study of plants in the concrete and I shall be disappointed if my little book does not induce a considerable pro portion of those into whose hands it may fall to pursue the subject further in our fields and woods by the aid of a Flora. G. A. THE CROFT, HINDHEAD. April, 1895. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAOB I. INTRODUCTORY, . 9 II. HOW PLANTS BEGAN TO BE . . . 14 III. HOW PLANTS CAME TO DIFFER FBOM ONE ANOTHER 26 IV. HOW PLANTS EAT .... 35 V. HOW PLANTS DRINK . . .,57 VI. HOW PLANTS MARRY . 78 VII. VARIOUS MARRIAGE CUSTOMS . . .93 VIII. MORE MARRIAGE CUSTOMS . . . 113 IX. THE WIND AS CARRIER .... 135 X. HOW FLOWERS CLUB TOGETHER . . 147 XI. WHAT PLANTS DO FOR THEIR YOUNG . . 102 XII. THE STEM AND BRANCHES . . - 170 XIII. SOME PLANT BIOGRAPHIES . ..198 XIV. THE PAST HISTORY OF PLANTS . 221 CHAPTBE I. INTRODUCTORY. I PEOPOSB in this volume to write in brief the history of plants, their origin and their develop ment. I shall deal with them all, both big and little, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that springeth out of the wall. I shall endeavour to show how they first came into existence, and by what slow degrees they have been altered and moulded into the immense variety of tree, shrub, and herb, palm, mush room, and sea-weed we now behold before us...