Part 13

Since every organism, considering it, throughout its generations, as an unit, has been created, or made to commence existence, it is manifest that it was created or made to commence existence at some moment of time. I will ask some kind geological reader to imagine that moment, and to accompany me in an ideal tour of inspection among the creatures, taking up each for examination at the instant that it has been called into existence. Do not be alarmed! I am not about to assume that the moment in question was six thousand years ago, and no more; I will not rule the actual date at all; you, my geological friend, shall settle the chronology just as you please, or, if you like it better, we will leave the chronological date out of the inquiry, as an element not relevant to it. It may have been six hundred years ago, or six thousand, or sixty times six millions; let it for the present remain an indeterminate quantity. Only please to remember that the date was a reality, whether we can fix it or not; it was as precise a moment as the moment in which I write this word.

Well then, like two of those "morning stars" who, when "the foundations were fastened," "shouted for joy," we will, in imagination, take our stand on this round world at exactly ---- minutes past ---- o'clock, on the morning of the ----th of ----, in the year B.C. ----. The noble Tree-fern before us (Alsophila aculeata) has this instant been called into being by the creating voice of God. Here it stands, lifting up its columnar stem, and spreading its minutely fretted fronds all around, in a vaulted canopy above our heads, through the filagree work of whose expanse the sunbeams play in a soft green radiance. It has this instant been created.

But I will suppose, further, that we have the power to call into our council some experienced botanist; who is not acquainted, as we are, with the fact of this just recent creation, and whom we will ask to give us his opinion on the age of this beautiful plant.

The Botanist.--"You wish to ascertain the age of this Alsophila. I know of no data by which this can be determined with precision, but I can indicate it approximately. Let us take it in order. The most recent development is the growing point in the centre of the arching crown of leaves. Around this you would see, if your eyes were above the plane, close ring-like bodies, or, perhaps, more like snail-shells, protruding from the growing bud; then young leaves, partially opened in various degrees, but coiled up scroll-wise at their tips, and around these the elegant fretted fronds, which expand broadly outwards in a radiating manner, and arch downwards.

"Now every one of these broad fronds was at first a compactly coiled ring; but it has, in the course of development, uncoiled itself, growing at the same time from its extremity, and from the extremity of each of its formerly wrapped-up pinnae and pinnules, until at length it has attained the expanse you behold. This process has certainly occupied several days.

"But let us look farther. The outermost fronds that compose this exquisite cupola, you see, are nearly naked; indeed, the extreme outermost are quite naked, being stripped of their verdant honours, their pinnae and pinnules, and left mere dry and sapless sticks,--the long and taper midribs of what were once green fronds, as graceful as those that now surmount them. Some of them, you see, are hanging downward, almost detached from the stem, and ready to drop at the first breath of wind. Now remember, each of these brown unsightly sticks was once a frond, that had passed through all the steps of uncoiling from its circinate condition. This whole process has certainly occupied several months.

"Look, now, below these withered midribs, lifting up the most drooping of them. The stem is marked with great oval scars; and see, this old frond-rib has come off in my hand, leaving just such a scar, and adding one more to the number that were there before. And look down the stem; it is studded all over with these oval scars. There are a hundred and fifty at least; but I cannot count them nearly all, for towards the lower part they become more undefined, and the growth of the stem has thrown them further apart; and besides, there is, as you observe, a matted mass of tangled rootlets, like tarred twine, which, springing from between the lower scars, increases downwards, till the whole inferior extremity of the stem is encased in the dank and reeking mass.

"You can have no doubt that every one of these scars indicates where a leaf has grown, where it has waved its time, and whence, after death and decay, it at length sloughed away. The form of the uppermost, which are not distorted by age, agrees exactly with the outline of the bulging base of the candelabrum-like frond; the arrangement of the scars is that of the fronds; and you may notice in every scar marks where the horseshoe-shaped plates of woody fibre have been broken off, which once passed into the interior of the stem from the midrib of the frond.

"These scars, then, are ocular demonstrations of former fronds; we may no more doubt that fronds were once growing from these spots, than we may that the green and leafy arches were once coiled up in a circinate vernation. They are the record of the past history of this organism, and they evidently reach far back into time. The periodic ratio of development of new fronds may be, perhaps, roughly estimated at six in the course of a year. Now there are about a dozen unfolded or unfolding, as many withering midribs, and about a hundred and fifty leaf-scars that we can count with ease, not reckoning such as are indistinct, nor such as are concealed beneath the tangled drapery of roots.

"I have no hesitation, then, in pronouncing this plant to be thirty years old; it is probably much older, but it is, at least, as old as this."

Such is the report of our botanical adviser; such is his argument; and we cannot but admit that it is invulnerable; his conclusion is inevitable, but for one fact, which he is not aware of. There is one objection, however, to which it is open--a fatal one; you and I know that the Tree-fern is not five minutes old, for it was created but this moment.

Here is another act of creation. It may be the same day as that of the Tree-fern, or one as remote as you please from it, before or after. A few moments ago this was a great mass of rough, naked limestone, but by creative energy it has been suddenly clothed with a luxuriant mantle of Selaginella. How exquisitely beautiful the aggregation of flattened branching stems, studded with their tiny imbricated leaflets of tender green, bloomed with blue! and how thick and soft the carpet that thus conceals the angles and points and crevices of the unsightly stone! Broad as is this expanse of verdure, covering many square yards without a flaw, and rooted as it is at ten thousand points of its creeping stem, we shall yet find that it is one unbroken structure. Our friend the botanist would infer unhesitatingly that every part of this widespread ramification has originally proceeded from one central shoot, and that several years' growth must have concurred to form this compact mass.

Yet we know that such an inference would be false. The plant has been this instant called into being.

On the summit of this rounded hill is a very different plant from the last. Beautiful it also is, but grandeur and majesty are its leading attributes. It is a dense and massive clump of the Tulda Bamboo. How noble these straight-jointed stems, cylinders of polished green, shooting their points right upwards, and towering to a height of eighty feet! The numerous panicles of tufty blossom are gracefully bending from the summits, and from the tip of every branch, nodding in the breeze. There are scores of the tall stems, as straight as an arrow, beset at every joint with diverging horizontal branches, crossing and recrossing in inextricable confusion. And see, amidst the crowd, there are others as thick and tall, but without a single side-shoot, clothed, however, to atone for the deficiency, in swaddling-clothes peculiarly their own.

These swathed stems are infant shoots,--vigorous and promising children, indeed; these brown triangular sheaths, covered with down, are the clothing of infancy; they increase in number, and are closer together towards the summit of the shoot, where the growing point is rapidly extending. When the stems have attained their full height, these sheaths will fall off, the polished shafts will stand revealed in their glossy beauty, and the lateral pointed branches will at once start forth from every joint, and pierce horizontally through the dense tangled bush.

Now these young shoots do not bear testimony to so great an age as you would suppose. The whole seventy feet of their altitude have been attained within thirty days! But then their massive size and vigour indicate a mature age in the clump. For all the hundred stems that are crowded together in this dense Bamboo-clump are organically united; they are parts of one and the same plant, the root-stock of which has been creeping to and fro year after year, sending up in constant succession its arrowy stems, until it has attained the present magnificence. Many years must have elapsed between the present condition of the grove, and that of the slender blade that shot up from the tiny seed in this spot.

Yes, so you may think. But it is not so, for the great Bamboo-clump has been created in its pride and glory this very hour!

Yonder is a considerable area of land covered with the green blades of young wheat, and very healthy and strong it looks. No, it is Couch-grass! The whole green sward which we see is a single plant; the creeping stem of which has spread its ramifications in all directions beneath the surface of the soil; and still the long succulent shoots are extending in every direction, as shewn by the green leaf-blades. This is a rapidly growing plant, it is true; yet still there must be an accumulated growth of many months here, if not years! No, it was created this morning.

Contrasting with this humble grass, observe that luxuriant Screw-pine. See its singular crown of foliage at the summit of its equally singular stem. Its great prickle-edged stiff leaves grow in long diagonal rows, each sheathing its successor, and alternating with those of the next row. How rich and fragrant an odour is diffused from its crowded blossoms!

Every one of those sword-like leaves is, of course, the record of a period of time. A tree of this size makes a "screw," or imperfect spire, of leaves in about three years; and there are about sixteen pairs of leaves in each screw, which will give us nearly eleven leaves for the development of each season. Now, on the trunk, there are numerous waved lines quite covering its surface, which are the traces of old leaves that have in succession been produced and decayed away;--the trunk is, in fact, composed of these leaf-bases. By counting these, we may obtain then an approximate notion of the age of this plant;--an approximate notion only, because in its young stages the development of leaves probably took place more rapidly than it does now. There are then on this trunk about one hundred and fifty horizontal rows of scars, and each row numbers four leaf-bases, so that the trunk is inscribed with an autographic record of six hundred leaves. If then we reckon eleven leaves as the produce of a single season, and add the four screws which are still flourishing, we shall obtain a result of about fifty-five years as the age of this Pandanus. This, for the reason just assigned, would probably be considerably too much; perhaps, forty years would be nearer the truth.

There are, however, other marks of age here, though they are less definite. The great hardness of the surface-wood, which we perceive on trying to indent it, is an indication of age, as it is produced by the successive bundles of woody fibre, which, year after year, have passed down from each leaf, curving, in their descent, towards the circumference of the stem, and, therefore, constantly augmenting the density of the outer portions.

Another very curious proof of age is seen in the number of aerial roots which descend from various points of the trunk towards the soil. You would at first be inclined to think them posts, which a carpenter had set to "shore up" the tree, as props to prevent its being blown down. And truly this is their purpose; but they are natural adjuncts, not artificial. These thick rods, some of which have not yet reached the ground, have been shot forth in turn from the stem, in order to afford it additional support in the loose sandy soil. And mark, by the way, a beautiful contrivance here. Because the growing tender extremity of the root has to pass through the sun-parched air in its progress towards the earth, there is a curious exfoliation of its extremity, forming a sort of cup, which, collecting the scanty dews, retains sufficient moisture for the refreshment of the spongy rootlet. Now, I say, these supporting roots, since they must have originated from the trunk, after the latter had attained a considerable height, are so many evidences--and cumulative evidences--of age, though their testimony cannot be so well made to bear on a known period as that of the leaf-bases.

Should we not then be amply warranted in asserting this Screw-pine to be many years old, if we were not assured that, as a fact, it has been this instant created?

A phenomenon analogous to that which we have just observed is presented by yonder Pashiuba Palm (Iriartea exorhiza). Its straight arrowy stem has shot up to the height of fifty feet, like a slender iron column. On the summit there is the usual divergent crown of leaves that distinguishes this most graceful and queenly tribe; and at the foot, a tall open cone of roots, strangely supporting the column on its apex.

"But what most strikes attention in this tree, and renders it so peculiar, is, that the roots are almost entirely above ground. They spring out from the stem, each one at a higher point than the last, and extend diagonally downwards till they approach the ground, when they often divide into many rootlets, each of which secures itself in the soil. As fresh ones spring out from the stem, those below become rotten and die off; and it is not an uncommon thing to see a lofty tree supported entirely by three or four roots, so that a person may walk erect beneath them, or stand with a tree seventy feet high growing immediately over his head."

"In the forests where these trees grow, numbers of young plants of every age may be seen, all miniature copies of their parents, except that they seldom possess more than three legs, which gives them a strange and almost ludicrous appearance."

This tall Pashiuba before us, however, is supported on several scores of roots, in various stages of development, some descending through the air, some already fixed in the soil. As the presence of these, moreover, implies the decay and disappearance of earlier ones, their number and height may be accepted as a fair testimony to the age of the tree; independent of what we might have deduced from the trunk and other sources. (My reader will bear in mind, that, throughout this chapter, I am supposing that we have the opportunity of seeing each organism at the moment following that of its creation.) The Iriartea before us, then, notwithstanding its marks of maturity, is but--a new-born infant, I was about to say, rather--a new-made adult.

Another and more massive Palm appears, where a moment ago there was nothing but smooth ground and empty air. It is the Sugar Palm (Saguerus saccharifer), remarkable in its appearance for the swathes of what looks to be sackcloth of hair, in which its stem is enveloped. Each of its great pinnate leaves forms with the dilated base of its midrib a broad sheath, which springs out of a loose fold of this coarse cloth that is wrapped around it. And not only the bases of the still flourishing leaves are swathed in this natural textile fabric, but the dead and dry leaf-bases of the former leaves, which may be traced all down the stem. But let us look at this strange cloth: what is it? It is composed of the exterior fibres of the leaf-bases themselves, which in process of growth have partially separated themselves, and from which the parenchyma and the lamina have decayed away. The appearance of a woven fabric is deceptive; there is no interlacing; but its semblance is produced by the fibres lying in layers one over the other, and by some of them having a direction at right angles to the others. Originally all the fibres were parallel and longitudinal, but as they have been, in the growth of the leaf, pulled out laterally, the main fibres, which are indefinitely divisible, have adhered to each other at various parts, and the result has been that innumerable constituent fibrillae have been stretched across from fibre to fibre.