Omphalos Part 8

We will neglect the flower, curious and beautiful as it is, and examine this crowded ma.s.s of roots and fleshy leaves and oval bulbs.

Tracing the slender lengthened footstalk to its origin, we see that it springs from the lower part of a flat, ovate, or nearly round, ridged, pseudo-bulb, of a purplish-green hue, of which there are many, much crowded together. The point of issue of the flower-stalk is concealed by an enveloping husky scale, which is the withered condition of a former leaf. From the base of another bulb a thick obtuse cone is pushing forth, which is the commencement of a new leaf-shoot; and here is one considerably advanced. In this latter there is nothing very remarkable; it is a thick, growing shoot, formed by fleshy leaves nearly doubled together, each sheathed by its predecessor. But soon this will cease to grow, and the point will dilate into an oval bulb, which will be a reservoir of nutriment for the future flower. In fact it will add another to the matted ma.s.s of bulbs which are already acc.u.mulated, crowned with two great thick, leathery, ovate, brown-spotted leaves, and marked with the scars of the leaves which are now growing, but which will then have sloughed away.

In this _Oncidium_, then, we have evidently a record of many bygone processes. Before the flower could open, the flower-stalk must have been developed; before this, the pseudo-bulb must have been formed; before this, there must have been a well-formed leaf-shoot, which must have been first a conical bud pushing forth from some anterior bulb;--or, if that shoot had been the first of the ma.s.s, then it must have looked back to a seed, which of course looked back to the capsule of a pre-existent flower, and so on.

Yet this is all fallacious; for the b.u.t.terfly-flower is but just created.

As beautiful, if less curious, is the crowded spike of purple blossom that adorns the tall stalk of this terrestrial Orchis. The flower-stalk springs from the midst of a few large spotted leaves, which terminate below in an irregular fleshy tuber of glutinous consistence. This tuber is shrivelled, and is in process of exhaustion and decay; but a horizontal stem has pushed out underground, which has at its extremity a second tuber, as yet immature, but plump and swelling. This growing tuber contains the elements of the leaves and flower-spike of next season: the shrivelling one was, last year at this period, in exactly the same condition as the swelling one is now; it too was pushed out horizontally from a preceding one which was then shrivelling, and so backward. These pre-existing stages can with certainty be announced by the vegetable physiologist; who yet would be deceived in this instance, because the plant has been but just created.

This elegant _Gladiolus_ that displays its tall spike of crimson blossoms from the midst of its flattened folded leaves, affords us a similar example of retrospective energy. If I dig away the light soil from around its base, I discover two globose corms, fleshy swellings of the stem, acc.u.mulations of nutriment obtained during the vegetative activity of the plant, and destined to support it during the season of inaction, and therefore stored up for that purpose.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CORM OF GLADIOLUS IN JUNE.]

The uppermost of these globose corms is that of the present season; it is as yet small and immature, being in process of formation by the a.s.similation, consolidation, and deposition of new matter by the action of the leaves. This is sheathed in the tubular bases of the leaves, which expand above; and it is seated on a larger, riper, and more spherical corm, which is wrapped in a brown fibrous skin. This is the matter which was deposited in the course of last spring and summer, and the brown skin is the remains of the leaves of last year. This corm has remained inactive, since the decay of last year's leaves, until this winter, when the root fibres, which we see descending from the lower surface, began to form, and an upward prolongation of the stem followed, which, as it grew, swelled into the upper corm.

In the centre of the under surface of the corm of last season, in a depression surrounded by the white root-fibres, there are some almost decayed remains of a deep brown hue. These are the last vestiges of the preceding year's corm, and they exhibit the condition in which the large corm will be next spring, when the small half-formed one will be in the state and position of this larger one, and will in like manner be surmounted by its rising successor.

Thus there are in this plant ocular proofs of two years' history before the present; yet these proofs are invalidated by the fact of its creation this day.

Behold now that singular plant, the Gra.s.s-tree (_Kingia australis_), displaying what seems an immense tuft of wiry gra.s.s elevated on the summit of a trunk which is formed of the united bases of myriads of decayed leaves, the representatives of many generations of these organs. The silvery leaves which const.i.tute the existing crown, and the numerous spikes of blossom which stand up in a circle diverging from the midst of them, give to this plant a most striking effect. That, however, is not our present concern, but the evidences which we may be able to gather from it of a previous history. For some distance below the living leaves, the trunk is connected by the withered, hanging, but still persistent leaves of several successive developments, a ragged drapery, of which we might certainly say--

"----when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most."

The lower portion of the stem is, however, dest.i.tute of the decayed leaves themselves, the lozenge-formed bases of them alone remaining, still separable, indeed, but sufficiently compact to make in the aggregate a sub-cylindrical column of loose texture, which may in familiar parlance be termed a _trunk_. This portion is marked by alternate enlargements and constrictions of the outline, which appear to indicate seasonal growths.

The specimen before us is about twenty feet in height, exclusive of the crown; supposing these swellings to mark a year's growth, and to be continued in the same proportion on that part of the trunk which is masked by the decayed leaves as on the exposed part, we should conclude this tree to be about thirty-five years old; for there are about thirty-four such swellings, each of which contains about four hundred of the lozenge-shaped bases of the fallen leaves.[56]

Remember, however, that we are looking at the Gra.s.s-tree, not as it now appears on the sandy plains of Western Australia, in the nineteenth century, but as it came out of the hands of its Almighty Creator at some precise but unknown period of past time.

This White Lily, crowned with its cl.u.s.ter of nodding flowers, magnificently beautiful, each a fair emblem of the spotless purity of a n.o.ble virgin--if we remove the soil from its base, we shall find that the stem springs out of a fleshy bulb. This is covered with thick yellow scales, by taking away each of which in turn, we see that the bulb is made up of such, surrounding the central ma.s.s which has pushed upward, in the form of the stalk, with its leaves and flowers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SECTION OF LILY-BULB IN JULY.]

Now the whole of this beautiful array which we see was formed last summer, when, if we had divided the bulb longitudinally, we should have seen every leaf, every tiny blossom, folded together, and most snugly packed within the encircling scales, which are, indeed, undeveloped leaves; while from the base of the bulb so formed we should have seen pushed up on the outside of it, but yet within the common envelope of the exterior scales, the flower-stem of last season. There could not possibly have been this raceme of virgin blossom, if it had not been formed during the preceding season within the bulb; so that its existence is a record of a year's growth at least.

Yet this is the first hour of the lovely Lily's life; an hour ago it was not.

The face of the rugged cliff that rises perpendicularly above us was, a few moments ago, quite naked and bare, or diversified only by a few stunted p.r.i.c.kly shrubs that sprang from its crevices. Now, by the mighty fiat of G.o.d, it is in an instant festooned from top to bottom with a most graceful drapery of round pale-green leaves, and slender stems no thicker than whipcord, and mult.i.tudes of spiral tendrils that climb, and hook, and catch, and entwine among the th.o.r.n.y bushes, and around the angles and prominences of the rock. We trace this curtain of verdure downwards, and find that it resolves itself into some half a dozen of wiry-stems, that issue from different points of the surface of what seems a boulder of brown stone, or a block of rough-hewn timber, at the foot of the cliff.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TESTUDINARIA.]

This angular block is, however, worthy of closer examination. It is of no definite form, huge and uncouth, lying as if cast accidentally on the ground. Its whole surface is divided into a mult.i.tude of polyhedral pieces, that look as if they had been cut into these forms by human art. Each division has a small angular face, and its sides display close parallel lines, all following the directions and angles of the outer face, but each line enclosing a slightly wider area than the one above it. These woody plates closely resemble in their angular forms and their concentric lines the plates of a Tortoise's sh.e.l.l, and hence our botanical friend, to whom we will appeal for an opinion as to the age of the block, will call the generic name _Testudinaria_.

"Well, I cannot give you any very precise judgment on the matter. The block itself is the tuber of a sort of yam, which grows above ground instead of below. It is a woody ma.s.s of great age. The angular plates are the bark, and they are so divided in consequence of the gradual growth of the tuber, tearing open its periphery to obtain more room. The concentric lines on the edges of the plates will not give us any adequate idea of the age of the ma.s.s, for though they indicate seasonal growths, the earlier layers have been worn away in the lapse of ages, and there are many layers of bark that have not yet been burst by the expansive force of the growing wood. It is known that these blocks are of very slow growth; in tropical regions they last, with scarcely perceptible increase, from generation to generation. From such vague data as we possess, I might loosely conjecture this tuber to be a thousand years old."

We thank our scientific friend, and think it a very satisfactory report on an organism, which we saw called into existence five minutes ago, before our eyes.

Come away; for I wish you to look at this _Encephalalartos_. A horrid plant it is, a sort of caricature of the elegant Palms, somewhat as if a founder had essayed a cocoa-nut tree in cast iron. Out of the thick, rough, stiff stem spring a dozen of arching fronds, beset with sharp, sword-shaped leaflets, but having the rigidity of horn, of a greyish hue, all harsh and repulsive to excess. In the midst of this rigid coronal sits the fruit, like an immense pine-cone.

The swelling column that const.i.tutes the stem is but a ma.s.s of pith, surrounded by a thin case of wood, and enclosed by the remains of former leaves. The whole surface is covered with the lozenge-shaped scars of these, in vast number. Thousands of these there must be in this trunk of eight feet high, and a foot thick. The leaves of the existing crown are few and very durable, so that it would be no unreasonable conjecture to suppose that this great Cycadaceous plant is seven or eight centuries old.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ENCEPHALARTOS.]

Nay, for this also has been created even now!

What shall we say to _this_ singular phenomenon? Observe yonder gigantic Fig (_Ficus Australis_) growing out of the face of that vast rocky precipice. It is not so much to the ma.s.sive grandeur of the trunk, nor to the widespread head of dense foliage, that I call your attention, as to the broad expanse of roots, from the thickness of your body to that of your little finger, which have crossed and interlaced and separated and re-united, in all imaginable ways, until the whole forms a great flat network of wood, investing the surface of the rock, and following all its projections and angles with singular faithfulness, for a s.p.a.ce of many square yards.

Would you not say, admitting that the Figs are rapid growers, that many years must have elapsed since the minute seed was dropped in yonder crevice, by some vagrant parrot that wiped his beak after breakfast on the point of rock? Would you not say that many years must have pa.s.sed from the time when the tiny shoot peeped from the rocky c.h.i.n.k, to the present moment, when the leafy honours of the crown above and the woody wall of the roots below combine to repay the protection which the plant in infancy received from its stony foster mother?

Of course you would; and most truly too, did you not know that the Fig-tree is now rejoicing in the first hour of its new-created being.

So with its n.o.ble congener here, the many-trunked Banyan (_Ficus Indica_). Although not an old tree, its canopy of broad downy leaves is already supported by so many secondary trunks, that it is not easy to say which of the larger stems is the mother trunk, and which the hopeful daughters. Every one of these stems, some just protruding from the horizontal limbs, others hanging midway between the leafy roof and the earth, some just inserting their slender spongy tips into the soil, others thick and pillar-like--is an evidence of progressive development, and therefore of lapsed time; only for the qualifying fact, that the development in this case is _prochronic_.

Here is the great _Euphorbia grandidens_ of Africa. Its stout trunk is marked with a number of holes, some four or five inches apart, arranged in perpendicular rows. In some cases they are rather depressions or pittings than holes, and look like what would result from borings made with an auger in pitch in warm weather, the margins of which had nearly closed, subsequently. What is the explanation of these marks? They are all records of time. From each of these spots once grew one of those angular p.r.i.c.kly branches, that look like our commonest sorts of _Cactus_, and which are now confined to the summit of the trunk, arching out from it, somewhat like the branches of a candlestick.

It is the habit of this plant, when the stem has acquired a certain thickness, that the branches should, after a time, decay and drop off at the point of their union with the trunk, or rather a little below the surface, so as to leave the shallow holes or pits which we see. After their decadence, the growing bark gradually swells around the scars, and has a tendency to obliterate them. This may account for the non-appearance of them on the lower parts of the stem.

Here, then, are demonstrations of several successive stages of development. First, the stem must have been in existence before any lateral branches could have sprung from it. Secondly, the branch shot out. Thirdly, it put forth its spines and leaves. Fourthly, it died and sloughed away. Fifthly, the growing bark encroached on, and finally obliterated the cicatrice.

In this individual, all these stages are illusory, or rather they are prochronic.

See this n.o.ble Tulip-tree (_Liriodendron tulipiferum_), a giant of this primeval forest; its towering trunk is crowned with a head of large ma.s.sy foliage, of a rich deep verdure, among which shine numbers of great golden tulip-like blossoms, as fragrant as beautiful.

It is, however, the leaves that grow on the terminal twigs that I wish you specially to notice. These, which, as you see, are large, and of a remarkably elegant form, are fixed at the end of long petioles, which are set alternately on the twig. Notice, now, the manner of their development; the young unexpanded leaves grow within two large leaf-like bracts, forming an oval sac, which, as the young leaf increases, swell, and at length burst, and are left on each side of the base of the leaf-stalk. There is a succession of these. On this growing twig, for instance, I find three leaves already expanded (_a a a_ in the accompanying figure), and as many pairs of these bracts (_b b b_) at their bases; the twig is terminated by a pair (_c_) convex outwardly, and whose edges are in contact with each other; if, now, I cut off one of these (as represented at _d_), I expose the next leaf (_e_) folded together, and bent downward, in its pretty manner of _vernation_; beside it is another pair of bracts (_f_), whose edges are not only in contact, but mutually adherent, and that with considerable force. On tearing these apart, I discover another smaller leaf, and another smaller pair of adhering bracts, which again contain a similar set, only yet more minute, and so on in succession, till I can no longer trace them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TWIG OF TULIP-TREE.]

Now it is manifest that the uppermost of the three leaves, together with the developing terminal bud, was at one time enclosed in the pair of bracts immediately below its base; that, before that, the middle leaf, with all above it, was similarly incarcerated in its own proper tracts; and, at a period anterior to that, the lowest leaf also. Each pair of bracts is therefore a record of a past period; and together they testify to a succession of past periods.

And yet their combined testimony is utterly worthless, because the n.o.ble tree was created in its magnificence this very day.

The beautiful twiner (_Bignonia_), which has cast its ample festoons over the topmost branches of yonder towering Mora-tree, almost concealing the natural foliage with its own elegantly pinnate leaves, and adorning it with its gorgeous trumpet-shaped flowers, is distinguished by a curious property, indicative of the years that have pa.s.sed over it. In its adult maturity, as we now see it--the glory of this tropical forest--we should find, if we cut across the main stem, that its wood is divided into lobes arranged in a radiate or star-like fashion, like the divisions seen on dividing an orange transversely; and these lobes are thirty-two in number.

But this condition has not existed through the life of the plant. The wood has always been lobed, but the number of the divisions has varied, and that in geometrical ratio. Before the present stage, the const.i.tuent lobes were sixteen, which became thirty-two by the subdivision of each.

In an earlier stage there were eight lobes, and, earlier still, four, which was the commencing number; the duplication having proceeded in each case by the fission of each of the existing lobes into two.[57]

Now though this phenomenon will afford us, on the data we at present possess, no insight into the age of the plant, considered as an actual chronological period, an examination of a transverse section would always determine which stage is then present, and, by consequence, how many previous stages have been pa.s.sed through. And thus we obtain a distinct clue to the former history of the organism, though we cannot mark it off into months and years.

Yet the fact of creation stultifies all the conclusions that we might form from such premises; since it does, _ipso facto_, contradict every such thing as a previous history.

On this _Anona_ there is an intruder more strictly parasitical; it is a _Loranthus_, with long, club-shaped, richly-coloured blossoms. The branches of the supporting tree--a nurse who feeds her foster-child on her own vital juices--are over-spread for a large s.p.a.ce with the shoots; which, springing each from its own disk, appear like so many distinct individuals, but are really all parts of a single plant, springing from a single seed. (For this curious fact we are indebted to the observations of Mr. Griffith, who has investigated the singular history of these parasites.)

The ripe seeds firmly adhere to the substance on which they are applied, by means of their viscid envelope, which soon hardens into a transparent glue. In the course of two or three days, the radicle curves towards its support, and, as soon as it reaches it, becomes dilated and flattened.

An union is gradually formed between the woody system of the parasite and that of the stock, after which the former lives exclusively on the latter, the fibres of the sucker-like root of the parasite expanding on the wood of the support in the form of a _pate d'oie_. Up to that time the parasite had been nourished by its own alb.u.men, which is now exhausted. As soon as the young parasite has acquired the height of one or two inches, when an additional supply of nourishment is required, a lateral shoot is sent out, which is, especially towards the point, of a green colour. This at one, or two, and subsequently at various points, adheres to the support by means of sucker-like productions, which are precisely similar in structure and mode of attachment to the original seminal one. The fibres of the parasite never penetrate beyond their original attachment; in the adult the sucker-bearing shoots frequently run to a considerable distance, many plants being literally covered with parasites, all of which have originated from one and the same seed.[58]

[Ill.u.s.tration: YOUNG PLANT OF LORANTHUS.]

In this case, again, how delusive would be any inference of actual lapse of time deduced from the condition of a plant, which had been created as an adult capable of reproducing its race!