Glimpses of the animate world; or, Science and literature of natural history, for school and home . rub, which nevertheless carries with it a les-son and a moral. 3. By the laws of germination, there are, we aretold, these three things necessary for a plant—humidity, heat, and oxy- genized air. Thefirst of them isindispensable, in-asmuch as with-out it the grainor seed wouldnot swell, and,without swelling,could not burstits shell or skin;and heat, in unionwith water, bringsvarious gases to young plants—especially oxygen—whichare necessary for their ex-istence. 4. With these facts be-fore us, a
Glimpses of the animate world; or, Science and literature of natural history, for school and home . rub, which nevertheless carries with it a les-son and a moral. 3. By the laws of germination, there are, we aretold, these three things necessary for a plant—humidity, heat, and oxy- genized air. Thefirst of them isindispensable, in-asmuch as with-out it the grainor seed wouldnot swell, and,without swelling,could not burstits shell or skin;and heat, in unionwith water, bringsvarious gases to young plants—especially oxygen—whichare necessary for their ex-istence. 4. With these facts be-fore us, and a knowledge that rain seldom falls in mostplaces where the rose of Jericho thrives, how are we toaccount for the extraordinary circumstance of this plantbeing periodically abundant and flowering at precisely thesame season year after year, when, by the acknowledgedlaws of germination, there has been that succor wantingwhich is indispensable to propagate vegetation ? Now ap-pears the most remarkable and most direct interpositionof Nature for her offspring—an interposition little short. The Rose of dead plant and a leafy branch. STRANGE PLANTS ANT) THEIR WAYS. 6( of miraculous, and, indeed, apparently so fabulous as to beunworthy of record. But the fact has been establishedbeyond doubt that, for its own purposes, this little plantperforms annual journeys over a large extent of country,and into the ocean, whence, at a stated period, it, or ratherits offspring, returns to the original haunts, takes root,thrives, and blossoms. 5. In the height of spring, when Nature casts her brill-iant vesture, set with flowers and flowerets of a hundredvaried hues, over the fertile valleys and hills of Syria andpart of Palestine ; when every breeze is laden with rich in-cense from orange groves or honeysuckle dells—then, un-heeded amid the rich profusion of vegetation, or isolatedamid the desert sands, blossoms the tiny rose of house-tops, where the suns fierce
Size: 1597px × 1565px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectnaturalhistory, booky
