Posts by Aurelian

While color of flowers seems as though it were attraction enough, it is very likely that their fragrance or perfume is still more seductive in its power of luring insect visitors and repelling useless ones. Poets have called this perfume the soul of the flower, and in its almost intangible beauty it might well be so called were it not for the fact that it appears to be of not the slightest use, except as a lure. In all the equipment of seduction there is none like this fragrance of flowers for attracting insects.

Chlorine is found in small amounts in the sap and in the ash of nearly all plants. However, it does not appear to be essential to the growth of a plant, except possibly in the case of certain species, such as asparagus, buckwheat, and, perhaps, turnips and some other root crops. Whether the benefit which these crops derive from the application of common salt to the soil in which they are growing is due to the direct food value of either the chlorine, or the sodium, or to some indirect effect, is not yet known. The presence of chlorine in the sap of plants is undoubtedly due to the inevitable absorption of soluble chlorides from the soil and apparently has no connection with the nutritional needs of the plant.

Just inside the calyx is what most people call the “flower,” which is really composed of more highly colored sepals, but which we call petals (Figure 39A). Where these are joined together the collection, which forms tubular flowers like the lily of the valley, is called a corolla. It is, of course, the petals or corollas of flowering plants that give our landscapes their greatest beauty, their most gorgeous coloring. While this from one point of view amply justifies a prodigal nature in strewing the earth with beautiful flowers, the true value of the color to the plant is in quite other directions, which will be explained a little later.

In the light of what has been said about flowers it may well be questioned how anything can be a plant and still have no flower. The fact is that flowers as we commonly understand them are unknown in the plants about to be discussed, but that what corresponds to a flower, and performs the function of a flower all plants must and do have. In the case of most flowering plants the possession of flowers is one of the beauties of nature in its most resplendent mood, while in the so-called flowerless plants the functions of flowers are performed by tiny microscopic organs, even the existence of which has been only recently discovered. Because flowering plants produce their sexual organs in such a gorgeous setting, for all the world to see their matings they have been called phanerogams, which means literally visible marriage, while the flowerless plants which perform similar functions in more secret ways are called cryptogams, meaning hidden marriage.

These cryptogams or flowerless plants occur in far greater numbers in the world than flowering plants, but their size in most cases is very much less. Many individuals are so small, as in the case of bacteria, that a single one can only be seen after it has been magnified many hundreds of times by the microscope.