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THE STUDY OF PLANT LIFE
~First Impression October 1906.~
~Second Impression February 1907.~
~Second Edition 1910.~
~BY THE SAME AUTHOR~
ANCIENT PLANTS
BEING A SIMPLE ACCOUNT OF THE PAST VEGETATION OF THE EARTH AND OF THE
RECENT IMPORTANT DISCOVERIES MADE IN THIS REALM OF NATURE STUDY
Illustrated. Demy 8vo, 4s. 6d. net
“Miss Stopes’s book is an enterprising and able attempt to popularize
a difficult subject. The really keen student will undoubtedly be
stimulated to pursue the study of fossil plants further, and even those
who are not students will get some new ideas and derive a certain
amount of interest from a book which is sometimes brilliant but never
dull.”--=Nature.=
“Dr. Marie Stopes has made a name for herself in this special line.
Anyone who takes an intelligent interest in the subject cannot fail to
be charmed with the pleasant manner in which Dr. Stopes conveys her
information.”--=Athenæum.=
[Illustration:
PLATE I.
COMMON BRACKEN FERN (~see~ p. 133)]
THE STUDY OF
PLANT LIFE
BY
M. C. STOPES
D.SC.(LOND.), PH.D.(MUNICH), F.L.S.
Lecturer in Palæobotany at the University of Manchester
~Second Edition~
LONDON: BLACKIE & SON, LIMITED
NEW YORK: D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY
1910
PRINTED AT
THE VILLAFIELD PRESS
GLASGOW
PREFACE
As a result of the present efforts to raise the standard of education
in this country, many different “Methods of Teaching” are receiving our
grave consideration. So insistent are their advocates, that we stand
in some danger of forgetting that ~learning~, rather than teaching,
is the essential factor in education. It is not the knowledge given
us ready-made by the teacher, but that which we ~learn~, acquiring it
by our own efforts, which enters into our being and becomes a lasting
possession.
Therefore this little book does not pretend so much to teach as to act
as a guide along the road for those who desire to learn something about
the plants around them; hence it points out how much they can easily
see for themselves of the wonderful life and work of the silent plants.
It is planned for children, whose quick sympathies are more readily
drawn towards the ~life~ of things than to the dry facts of morphology
or classification. Its “Leitmotif” is therefore the story of life,
and those of its activities which find expression in the plant world.
Perhaps it may serve to awaken interest in some older people who have
not yet been initiated into these mysteries.
As is inevitable, most of the actual facts in this book are already the
common property of botanists, though some of the suggested work, such
as the mapping, is only now being adopted by the Universities.
The most interesting subjects are often left out of the more elementary
books, or even if given are frequently set forth in such a lifeless
and pedantic fashion, that little real interest or understanding has
been awakened in the young student. The present work attempts to avoid
the time-worn methods of arranging the subject. Children generally
know more about the behaviour of animals than that of plants (being
themselves animals and frequently having kittens or other pets); hence,
the parallels between the life-functions of plants and those of animals
are pointed out whenever possible. Once the idea of their “livingness”
has been fully realised, it is time to go on to the study of the
details of the plant’s body, and then to the communities of plants
which grow together. In this way the child can work out from its own
observations a complete and logical idea of the ~living~ plant, instead
of having merely acquired a detailed but fruitless knowledge of barren
facts.
To burden a child’s memory with long names is not only useless but
harmful, therefore an effort has been made to use only short and simple
words. A few scientific terms are introduced where they are really of
value as describing things which are not generally noticed, and so do
not come into the usual English vocabulary. In such cases it is far
better for the child to learn the correct scientific name than to be
provided with a clumsy translation consisting of several English words
which can never give the precise meaning.
The use of a microscope is not to be recommended for those beginning
the study of plant life, and the chapters have been planned so that no
greater magnification than that of a good hand lens will be needed.
This, however, makes it difficult to explain the life histories of the
fern and other primitive plants; hence in the chapters bearing on them
stress has not been laid on many of the fundamental points which are
only to be seen with the microscope, but on those facts which can be
observed without it.
The chapters on the families of plants attempt to bring out the
reasons for the separations of the few great groups only; detailed
classification of the flowering plants has so long been considered the
chief part of botany, that it is to be found in nearly every schoolbook
on the subject.
If this book should be used as the text-book for young children, the
teacher will probably find it necessary to enlarge on the instructions
for the work suggested in the last three chapters, which were added
chiefly for the guidance of those who may assist the youthful students
in carrying out the practical work therein outlined.
I sincerely hope that those who wish to learn, and are prepared to
study the plants themselves, may get some help from this little
guide-book.
M. C. STOPES.
The University, Manchester,
~July 1906~.
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
The public and the critics have been so kind to the first edition of
this book that I am encouraged to offer them a second. There are no
considerable changes in it, but I have profited by some suggestions
regarding points of detail which several friends have been good enough
to offer, and hope that the book has now fewer blemishes, and will be
more useful. In Chapter XXXIV. two interesting photographs of drowning
trees have been added, which illustrate a problem in Ecology less
generally studied than its converse.
It has been very pleasant to hear from many teachers, some in distant
parts of the earth, that the book has been useful to them, and I hope
they will continue to allow me the privilege of their criticism or
appreciation.
M. C. STOPES
The University, Manchester,
~October 1910~.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
For the right to reproduce the photographs I am much indebted to the
following gentlemen, to whom I express my warm thanks: viz. to the Rev.
J. S. Lea, of Kirkby Lonsdale, for Plate VII. and fig. 149; to Prof.
F. W. Oliver, of London, for Plate VI.; to Dr. O. V. Darbishire, of
Manchester, for Plate IV. and fig. 130; to Prof. K. Fujii, of Tokio,
for Plate III.; to Dr. F. F. Blackman, of Cambridge, for fig. 144; to
Mr. Crump, of Halifax, for fig. 140; to Mr. R. Welch, of Belfast, for
Plates I. and V., and fig. 138; to Dr. H. Bassett for figs. 154 and 155.
To Dr. W. E. Hoyle of Manchester, and to Miss Mary McNicol, B.Sc., I am
also much indebted for their kindness in reading the proof-sheets.
I have drawn all the text illustrations specially for this book.
M. C. S.
CONTENTS
PART I.
THE LIFE OF THE PLANT
CHAP. PAGE
I. Introductory 1
II. Signs of Life 4
III. Seeds and Seedlings 8
IV. Food Materials of the Older Plant--1. In the Soil 14
V. Food Materials of the Older Plant--2. In the Air 18
VI. The Food Manufactured by the Plant 23
VII. The Circulation of Water 28
VIII. Light and its Influences 35
IX. Growth in Seedlings 40
X. Movement 45
Summary of Part I. 49
PART II.
THE PARTS OF A PLANT’S BODY, AND THEIR USES
XI. Roots 53
XII. Stems 58
XIII. Leaves 64
XIV. Buds 72
XV. Flowers 78
XVI. Fruits and Seeds 86
XVII. The Tissues Building up the Plant Body 92
PART III.
SPECIALISATION IN PLANTS
XVIII. For Protection against Loss of Water 99
XIX. Specialisation for Climbing 104
XX. Parasites 109
XXI. Plants which eat Insects 114
XXII. Flower Structures in Relation to Insects 118
PART IV.
THE FIVE GREAT CLASSES OF PLANTS
XXIII. Flowering Plants 125
XXIV. The Pine-Tree Family 127
XXV. Ferns and their Relatives 133
XXVI. Mosses and their Relatives 138
XXVII. Algæ and Fungi 141
PART V.
PLANTS IN THEIR HOMES
XXVIII. Hedges and Ditches 145
XXIX. Moorland 153
XXX. Ponds 159
XXXI. Along the Shore 165
XXXII. In the Sea 173
XXXIII. Plants of Long Ago 178
XXXIV. Physical Geography and Plants 182
XXXV. Plant Maps 188
XXXVI. Excursions and Collecting 194
Index 197
PART I.
THE LIFE OF THE PLANT
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY
Many people do not realise that plants are alive. This mistake is due
to the fact that plants are not so noisy and quick in their ways as
animals, and therefore do not attract so much attention to themselves,
their lives, and their occupations.
When we look at a sunflower, surrounded by its leaves and standing
still and upright in the sunlight, we do not realise at first that it
is doing work; we do not connect the idea of work with such a thing of
beauty, but look on it as we should on a picture or a statue. Yet all
the time that plant is not only living its own life, but is doing work
of a kind which animals cannot do. Its green leaves in the light are
manufacturing food for the whole plant out of such simple materials
that an animal could not use them at all as food. Even its beautiful
flower is creating and building up the seeds which will form the
sunflowers of the future. All animals directly or indirectly make use
of the work done by plants in manufacturing food, for they either live
on plants themselves, or eat other animals which do so.
Plants are living, and therefore require food of some kind as well as
air and water in the same way, and for the same purposes as do animals.
As a rule, we cannot see them breathing and eating, but that is because
we do not look in the right way. In our study of plants we must first
learn how to see and question them properly, and when we have done this
they will show themselves to us and tell us stories of their lives
which are quite as interesting as any animal stories.
Now the sunflower we have just thought of is probably growing in a
garden well looked after by a gardener, who sees that it gets all the
light and water and just the kind of soil it needs. It is therefore
protected and cared for to a certain extent, but who looks after the
wild plants which manage to grow everywhere? These have not only their
own lives to live, but by their own efforts must overcome difficulties
which are not even felt by the cultivated ones.
They succeed in a wonderful way, and some plants manage to grow under
very difficult conditions, even in places where they get no water for
months under a burning sun, or in forests where the overshadowing trees
cut off the light and rain, or under the water where they get no direct
air. They have to do all the usual work of plants, and at the same time
struggle against the hardships of their surroundings. They are like men
fighting for their lives with one hand and doing a piece of work with
the other.
The result of this is that they sometimes make themselves
strange-looking objects, and in some plants which have had a very hard
struggle it is difficult to know which part of the plant is which.
Look, for example, at a Cactus (~see~ fig. 48), which grows in the
desert; it appears to have neither stem nor leaves like an ordinary
plant, and to consist merely of a roundish green mass covered with
needle-like prickles. Yet when you come to study the Cactus you will
find out that the thick, fleshy mass is really its stem, and the
prickles its leaves which have taken on these strange shapes. By means
of its unusual form the Cactus can live where our common plants would
die of the dry heat in a day or two. The power plants have of changing
their bodies so as to fit themselves to live under all kinds of
conditions is one of the strongest proofs that they are alive.
All the parts of plants have some special life-work, just as we have
legs and arms for different purposes, and every part is formed in some
way to suit the needs of the plant and help it to get on well in its
home.
The main thing to realise at the beginning of the study of plants is
that they are living things, and therefore to try to discover the
importance of the shape and arrangement of all their parts and their
relation to the life of each plant as a whole.
We will begin by looking carefully for all the signs of life in them,
and noting how often these are the same as those of the animals, even
though the whole plant-body is so different from that of an animal.