Part 7 (1/2)
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 a.s.sume 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 quant.i.ty. 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 n.o.ble Tree-fern before us (_Alsophila aculeata_) has this instant been called into being by the creating voice of G.o.d. 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-sh.e.l.ls, 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 pa.s.sed 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 ma.s.s 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 ma.s.s.
”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 pa.s.sed 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: LEAF-SCARS OF TREE-FERN.]
”I have no hesitation, then, in p.r.o.nouncing 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 ma.s.s 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 ma.s.s.
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 ma.s.sive clump of the Tulda Bamboo. How n.o.ble 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 alt.i.tude have been attained within thirty days! But then their ma.s.sive 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-gra.s.s! 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 acc.u.mulated growth of many months here, if not years! No, it was created this morning.
Contrasting with this humble gra.s.s, observe that luxuriant Screw-pine.
See its singular crown of foliage at the summit of its equally singular stem. Its great p.r.i.c.kle-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 flouris.h.i.+ng, we shall obtain a result of about fifty-five years as the age of this _Panda.n.u.s_. This, for the reason just a.s.signed, 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 pa.s.sed down from each leaf, curving, in their descent, towards the circ.u.mference 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 ”sh.o.r.e 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 pa.s.s 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 c.u.mulative 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 a.s.serting this Screw-pine to be many years old, if we were not a.s.sured that, as a fact, it has been this instant created?