THE true, full life of plants may be said

to begin and to end with their period of blooming. Whilst trees do not blossom until many years have passed over their lofty heads-the fir-tree and the beech, for instance, seldom before the fiftieth year-the humbler plants look upon the time when they are crowned with flowers as the happiest-and last, of their existence. It comes, with some, after a short year, whilst the Agave Americana lives many, though not quite a hundred years, without ever flowering. Then it produces, with amazing rapidity an innumerable host of flowers, growing almost visibly, until it has unfolded its magnificent candelabrum of nearly 50 feet high, and then it perishes. So also the beautiful Tallipot palm: it grows and flourishes, and forms a vast crown of broad leaves at a great height; then only it flowers for the first time, produces its seed and dies; so true is it, that

"He bids each flower his quickening word obey, Or to each lingering bloom enjoins delay."

Plants, however, have not only their age of blooming, but also their season. Whilst most of them open their bright chalices in spring or midsummer, when "the sun smiles on the earth and the exuberant earth returns the smile in flowers," others do not bloom until fall or even winter. The autumnal crocus, which gives us saffron, blooms not until almost all the other flowers are gone. The black hellebore sends its pale green flowers as a Christmas present, and the fragrant blackthorn blossoms, while the cold north-east winds blow, in spite of cold and frost. The vernal crocus sends up its golden cups in early March, however cold it may be in the reign of what Coleridge calls "the dark, frieze-coated, hoarse, teeth-chattering month," and the silvery almond flower blooms on a leafless bough. Nay, the very hour of blooming is appointed to plants with mysterious accuracy. A few years ago I went to see near Upsala, the cottage of old Linné, the father of modern botany, and among all the precious relics carefully preserved, there was no token of the pious reverence with which his countrymen honor his name, more touching than his floral clock. In a half circle, carefully arranged around his writing table, stood a number of plants which opened their flowers each at a certain moment,

so that they revealed at a glance to the great master, the hour of the day, with unerring precision. For, as every bird has his hour when he awakes, and sends up his hymn to praise his Maker, so every flower also has its time. They open commonly to the light, some in the morning, closing at night, whilst others will not open at all except in clear bright weather. The degree of light which they require, determines mostly the hour of the day at which they will unfold their beauty. Thus the daisy, like a true day's eye, opens its white and crimson-tipped star to meet the early beams of the morning sun; and the morning-glory closes its sweet-scented flowers before the sun has risen high; the dandelion opens at half-past five, and closes at nine; the scarlet pimpernel waits patiently until mid-day, and dreads rain so anxiously that it folds quickly up, even before the impending shower, and remains closed during the passage of a cloud. Hence its name of the "poor man's weatherglass." Others love late hours: the evening primrose opens its golden eyes in the sweet hour of eve, and retires before the glare of day. The brilliant white lotus, opening when the sun rises, and closing when he sets, still loves shade so well, that, when it has no shelter to screen it, it folds up its pure leaves as soon as the sun reaches the zenith, as though unable to endure the too ardent rays of the luminary that called it into life. There are, on the other hand, also bats and owls found among plants, wide awake all night long. The convolvulus of the tropics blooms only at night, and so does the magnificent cactus, the large flowered torch-thistle. Late in the silent night, when all other flowers are sleeping, this strange plant, with its dry, bare stem, unfolds its gorgeous, vanilla-scented flowers. There are few others known of greater beauty; they sometimes measure a foot in diameter, and when several of these magnificent creatures are open at once, upon the same plant, they seem like stars shining out in all their lustre, and verifying the poet's assertion, that

"Darkness shows us a world of light
We never see by day."

But it is a short glory indeed: at midnight they are fully blown, and as soon as the morning dawns upon them, they fold up their charms, and a few hours

later they are decayed, leaving not a trace of their gorgeous beauty behind them.

Not all plants, it is well known, have flowers to gaze on us with gentle, childlike eyes;" the ferns and allied plants bearing seed without apparently blooming first. Where they occur, however, we find the variety of their color surpassed only by that of their shape. The purest colors occur in Alpine plants, where living flowers skirt the eternal frost; it is among these that we must look for the loveliest sky-blue, the purest snow-white, and the most beautiful rosecolor, until we reach the very glory of luxuriant rhododendrons forming a bright purple girdle around snow-covered peaks. By their side the flowers of the plain look impure and stained. But they have no odor, fragrance being given to the children of the low lands only. So with man-it is not proud beauty that is most lovely; there is a far more potent charm in the sweet perfume that surrounds the meek and the gentle. Trees are different, for here Nature seems to have wished to compensate the North for the absence of gay colors, by giving sweet odors to whole classes of plants. Thus the humble reed is there aromatic enough, to form with sugar a favorite luxury; as dew falls there spreads abroad the fruitlike perfume of the golden furze; the birch-tree exhales in early spring a sweet rose fragrance, and the pine is aromatic from the root to its graceful cone. Some flowers have unpleasant odors. The largest on earth, which takes its name from its discoverer, Raffles, and which is more than three feet in diameter, has an animal smell. closely resembling that of beef, and the so-called friar's-cowl smells so strongly of spoiled meat, that it attracts the blue-bottle fly, and tempts it to deposit its eggs there, as if it were carrion. Poisonous plants have, generally, a sickening and noxious smell, like our aconites, the ailanthus, and Kentucky locust, which exhale a subtle poison and are fatal to many insects. In all instances, however, fragrance is given to plants for some special and beneficent purpose, mostly to attract animals and to tell them where a table is spread for them. It is well known that all animals smell what they want to eat, often at a prodigious distance, and as Nature calls by their smell the vulture and the buzzard to perform that duty, which is their highest enjoyment, so all theory of botany lies, with animals. in their exquisitely developed smell. Nor ought we to omit mentioning here, in humble gratitude, that Columbus, when his crew mu

tinied, and his brave heart nearly failed him. felt his hopes revived and his courage restored by the sweet odor of sassafras, which the land-breeze brought upon its wings from the distant shores of the New World.

The oddest shapes of flowers are probably found among the Orchidaceae of this Continent, whose flowers, rich in every shade and variety of color, portray in their extraordinary formation almost the entire scope of animated nature, beasts, birds, and fishes. Some represent a helmet with its visor up; others look like ants and larger insects. The bee, the fly, the spider and the lizard, are each accurately copied in some varieties; one looks for all the life like a dove, and is irreverently called the Holy Ghost; and another resembles a large and beautiful butterfly so closely as to deceive even the instinct of birds.

It is perhaps one of the most curious, and, as yet, most mysterious features in the life of plants, that the appearance of flowers is in some instances accompanied by very remarkable phenomena. In many of our creepers, in the lilies and the common gourd, a kind of fever-heat is perceptible at the time of inflorescence. Sometimes it appears in paroxysms, then again it rises and falls regularly, and so distinctly, that in one plant, which has perhaps only been subjected to more careful observations than others, the heat has been noticed to increase daily from 60 to 110, or even 120 degrees, and then again to fall to the temperature of the atmosphere. Some have thought that this very striking peculiarity of certain flowers might be connected with the power of others to emit light. The gentle daughter of Linné, when walking on a dry, sultry summer evening through her fa ther's green-house, first observed flashes of phosphorescent light on a few plants. Since then more have been observed to be so endowed, and the common nasturtium of our gardens, if plucked at the time of a bright sunshine. and at once carried into a dark room, will become visible to the eye, after it has rested awhile, by a gentle light emitted from its leaves. In fact, most of our yellow or orange-colored flowers, our marigold and monkshood, will in serene summer evenings give out light, and sometimes in the form of sparks, at others in a steadier, but more feeble glow. In a few plants this peculiar gift is not limited to the flowers only, but common to all leaves. Thus many lichens, creeping along the roof of caverns, lend an air of enchantment to them, by the

soft and clear light they diffuse, while another plant, abounding in the jungles of the Madura district in the East Indies, gives an extraordinarily vivid light, which illuminates the ground around it for some distance.

Equally striking and peculiar is the clear, loud sound with which the dazzling white flower of certain palm-trees opensa sound already noticed in times of antiquity, as we learn from Pindar, who speaks of the season, when "the first opening shoot of the date palm proclaims the arrival of balmy spring." This, however, seems to be the only exception to the general stillness, with which Nature proceeds in her work, ever showing how calm and unpretending the growth of every thing beautiful is in God's visible world. It is a frequent remark that we never hear a rose opening or a tulip shooting forth its gorgeous colors," and yet of the same quiet flowers it was said: Consider the lilies of the field: I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these!

When the beauty of flowers is gone, their leaves drop quietly, silently to the ground; but a part of the flower always remains, attached to the stem, and this contains the fruit or the seeds of the plant by which it continues its existence and reproduces itself. It is in the process of preparing these parts that plants show most distinctly how well they know what time of the year it is. In autumn they feel that winter is coming, and prepare for it, by completing all the necessary processes with far greater activity than they have shown at any other period of their life. It is, of course, not an innate consciousness of the season, that impels them to do so, but an extremely delicate and now much heightened perception of outward influences, inappreciable to our less refined senses. The production of seeds is the great end of the life of the majority of plants, though not of trees and all those who live for many years. But the humbler plants see in it the great purpose of their lives: for this they have grown and worked and lived, for this they have unfolded the whole rich apparatus of flowers, and now their best cares are bestowed upon the ripening fruit. No precaution is neglected to preserve it; the little capsules which hold the precious seed of future generations, are surrounded with thorns, or covered with down, cased in leather, buried in large masses of succulent flesh, or carefully packed away in hard, air-tight shells. A mother could not have better care for the cradle of her

beloved one. Then when the seed is ripe, and has to be turned out into the wide world to seek a resting-place and a home, it is furnished with a crest of feathers, or intrusted to a tiny embarkation. Nature gives it wings to fly with or a boat to swim in. And so admirably is the minute grain protected, that the smallest have often survived for centuries. Raspberryseeds, it is well known, have been found in a barrow, thirty feet deep, alongside with coins of the Emperor Hadrian, and yet, when sown, they have borne fruit. The pyramids of the Pharaohs are crumbling into dust, but grains of wheat, found in their interior and once more intrusted to the tender care of their mother earth, have joyously sprouted and made an ample return.

The fruit undergoes, of all parts of the plant, perhaps the largest number of remarkable changes, even after it has already reached its full size and complete shape. Acid, whilst growing, it becomes sweet as it ripens, and is sugary when perfectly mature. Fermentation makes it vinous, and, dried up, it turns sour or bitter. Fruits vary in taste, apparently to suit, by the kindness of an All-wise Providence, the changing wants of man. During the oppressive heat of summer, nature ripens for him juicy and refreshing cherries, peaches and melons; the more sugary figs and mulberries disappear, with the former, as fast as the bright days that produced them. When the warm sun is leaving us and cold chills begin to threaten, more vinous fruits ripen, like pears and apples, with their warm, nutritious juice. At last, when autumn already veils the sun in cold mists, and cuts off its warmth from us by dark clouds, the grape gives us, in its fermented juice, the most powerful cordial. Winter brings oily and farinaceous nuts, almonds, and olives, which keep long and warm well. Still it must not be forgotten that those fruits which are, so to speak, necessaries of life, the wheat of the North, and the date, cocoanut and breadfruit of the South, are constantly found in all stages of development, and last longer than a short season.

But fruits do more; they actually tell us when they are ripe and wish to be gathered. They mostly change their color for this purpose: as long as they are unripe, they are green like the leaves, among which they are concealed, or reddish like the bark to which they closely adhere, as is the case with plums. As they approach maturity, they assume brighter colors, so that the very change announces them to be ripe, and their rich

red, blue, yellow or black, invites those for whose use they were intended. Others appeal to us by their smell-and some even to our ear. The chestnut-burr snaps in the keen air, when the silent groves are already clad in autumn's garb; acorns and beechnuts are heard to fall in the clear atmosphere, and the ripe cocoanut strikes the ground with such force that the sound is heard for many miles. Other fruits of palms, which, until ripe, were hid under the protecting screen of broad leaves, burst with a noise like a pistol shot, a signal at which more than one guest is seen to hurry up to the rich treat. Among the latter none are perhaps more curious than the land-crab of the West Indies. They are exceedingly fond of these nuts, and yet it is vain for them to look up to a height which even man can but rarely reach; so the tree itself rings the dinnerbell when all is ready, and as night falls the hungry gourmands are seen to rush in armies to the feast to which they have been so quaintly invited.

After the fruit has ripened and the seed has been sent adrift, comes mostly the "last scene of all, that ends this strange, eventful history." For plants also die, and when they have bloomed and given seed, they droop and hide themselves in the ground, to rise once more and ever again with the coming spring. The grass withereth and the flower fadeth, now under a burning sun, and now for want of moisture; excessive cold kills even the proud oak and glorious elms; the action of poisons or the ravages of an insignificant beetle make an end to their lives, but they die-happy plants!-without pain, without consciousness, still and silent as they have lived. Their time of life varies greatly, from the athletic oak, that stands the storms of a thousand years, a monument of nations. to the humble mushroom under its shade, which rises in a night, to perish in the morning. But the season comes for all, when the wind passes over them, and they are gone, and the place thereof knows them no more. And the vine is dried up, and the fig-tree languisheth, the pomegranate, the palm-tree also, and the apple-tree, even all the trees of the field are withered. But how sweet is not here also even the parting, how full of comfort for the present, how full of hope for the future! The dying breath of the fading flower, is its sweetest perfume, a deep flush overspreads their rich crowns, before they fall. Even the leaves, when they shrink and tremble in the autumn breeze, are full of unwonted sweetness. And what can equal the oft de

scribed glory of fall, when the grasses take their humble russet garb, and the maple wears its " gorgeous crimson robe like an Oriental monarch." For leaves also change some only as the ermine whitening in the cold season, or as birds who change their plumage in winter; such are the evergreens; others change to live no more; as man does, before he also returns, dust to dust. Their bright green grows pale, their vigor declines, their delicate tracery, that had so often made us marvel and worship the hand that made them, is effaced, and no longer serves to pass the lifeblood of the tree. Then they shrink and shrivel, they flutter awhile anxiously on their tender leafstalks, as if reluctant to leave their sweet summer home, and then comes the rude boisterous gale, and tears them for ever from the parent tree. "The bare skeleton of the tree becomes transparent, rising in spectral grandeur, as it stretches, full of woe, its bare branches against the cold evening sky, and rattles in the fierce tempest. A new, ghastly light is shining through its stripped anatomy. And it is a light, as with man-the same light of heaven, which in the waning lustre of life makes his spirit become lovelier every hour, giving him a sublimer faith, a brighter hope, a kindlier sympathy, a gentler resignation. Like the autumn leaf, he also glows into decay, and kindles into death. The sun of another world, already risen upon his soul, though human eyes cannot behold it, burns through the delicate texture of his thoughts, feelings and desires, and shines, already here on earth, in all the radiancy of truth, hope and peace."

Varied, therefore, as the appointed time of plants is, it has its fixed, irrevocable term. Not all leaves fall at the same time. The pine-tree keeps its leaves two or four years; the fir and spruce change only every ten years; some trees drop annually certain branches. The dead foliage of some oaks clings to them, long after all others have been swept away, and the young elm waits all winter and drops not a leaf until its successor pushes it out of its resting-place. Some fall to form a soft litter beneath; others remain to afford shelter in bleak winter. But no art of man can arrest the falling leaf when its day has come. Artificial heat, removal to a warmer climate and great care may succeed in bringing out new crops almost without pause--but the process exhausts the ill-used plant, and it dies a premature death. Still even the decayed leaf is not lost. It enriches the soil, and fall produces spring, the dying leaves helping to

bring forth the bright verdure of the coming year. The general signal for the shedding of leaves is the maturity of the seed; that greatest purpose of the life of plants once accomplished, they die, or at least, rest for a season. Thus death comes to some after a few days; bushes and low trees keep their seeds during the winter, welcome food for starving birds; and the humble chickweed brings forth seed seven or eight times a year, not resting even during winter, and keeps open table for many a tiny wren or hungry sparrow; showing us once more Providence so much greater, as its creature is feebler.

This kind of decay excepted, plants, it is thought, are not subject to the destructive operation of internal causes; vegetable life succumbs to outward influences only. The vitality of trees is certainly almost incredible. No kind of mutilation can, apparently, destroy them. Who has not seen old willow trees, adhering but with a small portion of their bark, to their roots, and yet continuing to live and to perform their duty? How beautifully does not the chestnut of our own noble forests send out a crown of young shoots to hide the vacant space where once it reared its mighty stem? The whole vitality of the inner wood may, in fact, be destroyed; if only some layers of the bark survive, the tree will vegetate with undiminished vigor, and continue its life for an almost unlimited period. They will, in very old age, lose some of their height by decay at the top, for it seems as if the sap could no longer ascend the whole height from the deeply buried roots to the lofty crown, but they continue still to increase in girth, and patiently wait for the stroke of the axe or the fierce rage of the tempest. Thus it is that England boasts of many a yew or an oak tree, that has survived the massive church, by the side of which it was planted; and, spring after spring, yet shelters the ruins of its once so proud companion, with its dark, refreshing verdure. The tender leaf even resists in its fragile texture, the winds and rains, the burning sun and the nipping cold of a whole season. Greek and Roman sepulchres, stately palaces and lofty monuments over the graves of the great and the renowned, have disappeared; nothing is left to mark the place where they once stood, but the dark cypresses that saw them rise, and overshadowed them for ages.

But even after death, plants live on, as it were, and are useful to man. Vast tracts of heath, covering large, low basins, and formed by the annual accumulation

of vegetable matter, which in water becomes to a certain degree decomposed or carbonized, finally produce those blackened remains of plants which we call peat.

Or extensive forests, covering valleys, and hillsides, are overflooded, and the uprooted trees form a gigantic barrier, which prevents the flowing off of the waters. An extensive marsh is formed, particularly well adapted for the growth of various kinds of mosses. As they perish they are succeeded by others, and so for generations in unceasing life and labor, until, in the course of time, the bottom, under the influence of decay and the pressure from above, becomes turf. Far below lies hard coal, the upper part is light and spongy. At various depths, but sometimes as much as twenty feet below the surface, an abundance of bogwood is found, consisting mostly of oak, hard and black as ebony, or of the rich chocolate colored wood of the yew. Such ancient forests every now and then rise in awe-inspiring majesty from their grave. The whole city of Hamburg, its harbor, and broad tracts of land around it, rests upon a sunken forest, which is now buried at an immense depth below the surface. contains mostly limes and oaks, but must also have abounded with hazel-woods, for thousands of hazel-nuts are brought to light by every excavation, not exactly made for nuts. Our own city of NewOrleans, it has been recently discovered, is built upon the most magnificent foundation on which city ever rose. It was the boast of Venice, that her marble palaces rested in the waters of the Adriatic on piles of costly wood, which now serve to pay the debts of her degenerate sons, but our Venice has not less than three tiers of gigantic trees beneath it. They all stand upright, one upon another, with their roots spread out as they grew, and the great Sir Charles Lyell expresses his belief that it must have taken at least eighteen hundred years to fill up the chasm, since one tier had to rot away to a level with the bottom of the swamp before the upper tier could grow on it!

It

But there is still another vegetable world buried beneath our feet. For the trees of so-called primeval forests, belonging to a period of hoary antiquity, and far surpassing in exuberance the rankest tropical jungles of our day, have not, like modern woods, undergone decay, but are treasured up in subterranean houses. There they were transformed into vast enduring beds of coal, which in these latter ages has become to man the source of