I find it good to think of plants as mysterious fellow-existences, about which the half is not yet known—to speculate on their psychological properties—on what has been called "The cerebral processes of plants."

Darwin has thus expressed himself on this interesting question:

"It has," he says, "always pleased me to exalt plants in the scale of organized beings, and I therefore felt especial pleasure in showing how many and what admirably well-adapted movements the tip of a root possesses.... It was impossible in accordance with the principle of evolution," he goes on to say, "to account for climbing plants having been developed in so many widely different groups, unless all plants possess some slight power of movement of an analogous kind. This I proved to be the case."

In his "Power of Movement in Plants" he still farther expresses this conviction: "The tips of all young growing parts of the higher plants continually revolve, bowing successively towards every point of the compass." And he declares that "it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the tip of the radicle endowed with such diverse kinds of sensitiveness and having the power to direct the movements of the adjoining parts, acts like the brain of one of the lower animals, the brain being seated within the anterior end of the body, receiving impressions from the sense-organs and directing the several movements."

Great truths gain ground by inches. This assumption of the great scientist is not yet generally admitted, although, as I think, well established by experimental proof. An interesting paper in "Forest and Garden," prepared by T. D. Ingersoll of Erie, Pennsylvania, and entitled "Signs of Intelligence in a Madeira Vine."

I here copy verbatim:

"Two or three years ago I began, without any great seriousness, an experiment on some Madeira Vines, which presently began to prove more interesting than was anticipated. Before this my attention had been attracted to peculiar movements made by this plant in the course of its spiral ascent of a stick. If allowed to grow a few inches above the support the extremity of the plant will sway backward and forward a few hours and then will enter upon a regular revolving movement, always from right to left, or contrary to the direction in which the hands of a watch move. One revolution consumes about three hours. One of my plants began to grow on April first, and at the end of fourteen days was twelve inches tall and showing signs of uneasiness—now bending away from a vertical position and again standing nearly upright. On the 16th it was eighteen inches high, and, being too top-heavy to stand erect, it began to fall away from the pot, which stood upon a table, towards the floor. This was done gradually and apparently with conscious care. It seemed to feel at times that it was letting itself down too fast, when it would stop with a jerk, like a nodding child half asleep. When near the floor it began describing ellipses, about three inches in diameter, with its upturned extremity. On the 19th it was twenty-six inches in length, and would describe a crescent-shaped loop, seventeen inches in length by six inches in breadth, in about two hours. On the 23d it was three feet four inches long, revolving with less regularity, and at times drooped as if weary or discouraged in trying to find something upon which it might entwine itself. Thus far no opportunity had been given the plant to climb, since it was desirable to see what it would do to meet the absence of some support. On the 26th a new route of traverse was undertaken at 6 a.m., and at nine o'clock the extremity, which was near the floor at the left side of the pot, had described a circle six inches in diameter. It then slowly swept around to the right side and made another irregular circle, and then returned to the left side of the pot; these movements occupied just twelve hours. The track of the tip of the vine was carefully traced with a pencil upon a sheet of paper laid beneath it, and the entire line of traverse measured no less than six feet nine inches. During the evening the plant became quiet, and probably remained so all night. At 10 a.m. the next day, however, it began pointing its tip in various directions, and at noon assumed the form of a corkscrew, about four inches long, which posture it retained until night and then straightened out. On May first the vine was lifted and tied to a vertical support—a large thread—where it remained entirely quiescent for two days. Then it began growing again as if it had recovered from what had been for six days a condition near the point of death.

"Another vine was observed carefully during several days of cloudy weather. It uncoiled itself from the stick and reached away toward the light at an angle with the horizon of forty-five degrees. It was carefully recoiled about its stick, but after it had grown some three inches more it unwound itself and stood away toward the window as before. Time after time during the continuance of the cloudy weather it was brought back to its support but invariably left it. Then followed a fortnight of bright sunny weather, during which the vine showed no disposition to escape from its stick or stop its twining growth. Attempts were made to induce another plant to twine in the direction opposite to its normal one, but no ingenuity could deceive the plant as to its proper course. All the experiments seemed to show how much like an animal was the plant in its sensitiveness, not only to changes of light and temperature, but to harsh treatment. Whenever restrained or forced, no matter how tenderly, out of its natural method of growth, all progress was retarded and the health of the vine disturbed in a marked degree. Plants seem to be creatures of feeling and the similarity of movement and apparent purpose between them and the lower orders of animals are used to strengthen their theory by those who hold to the doctrine of the identity of life in the two kingdoms."

Dr. Dwight, in his paper in "Scribner's" entitled "Right-handedness" still further develops the theory of brain power in plants. "The spiral growth," says this writer, "of a graceful climbing plant, at first sight, suggests nothing like right or left-handedness, but the analogy when once seen is very striking. As the young plant begins its upward course it is clear that to make the coils which it is its nature to describe, it must either turn to the right or left. It might be supposed that its deviation to either side is the result of an accident, but this is impossible, for, though the individual plants of some kinds do twine indiscriminately to either side, some only curl to the right and others to the left. More remarkable still, some species twist in the opposite direction to that of the larger families to which they belong, and finally, sometimes a particular plant grows the wrong way. This is analogous to being left-handed."

From Mrs. Pratt's "Flowering Plants of England" I take this account of the curious movements of the seed-vessel of the "Musk Stork's Bill."

It is a relation of Mr. Mallet of Dublin of his personal observation of the capsule movements of this remarkable flower. "Each seed," says the writer, "of which there are five to each flower, is enclosed in a carpel, attached by its upper extremity to a tail or awn, which possesses the most wonderful hygrometric sensibility, as, indeed, does every other part of the plant. These five awns lie in grooves in the receptacle of the flowers, and this receptacle is central to and is the axis of all parts of the flower and the fruit.

"When the whole system has arrived at a certain point of aridity the awns, which are provided with an exquisite power of torsion, hoist themselves out from their grooves and at the same moment a number of downy filaments, hidden in the back or inward face of the awns, bristle forth; they all now become detached and fall to the ground. But here they still continue to twist, and from the position in which they always lie keep tumbling over and over, and thus receding from the parent plant until at length they become perfect balloons, ready to be wafted away by every zephyr."

The theory that "plants can see," or, at any rate, manage to find food and support by some special sense, which the unscientific mind cannot better name than to call it sight, has been corroborated in the "Rural Press" by Mrs. King, who thus describes her husband's observation of this interesting habit on the part of a creeping plant in India:

"He was sitting on the veranda, with one foot up against a large pillar near to which grows a kind of convolvulus. Its tendrils were leaning over into the veranda, and, to Robert's surprise, he presently noticed that they were visibly turning toward his leg. He remained in the same position and in less than an hour the tendrils had laid themselves over his leg.

"This was in the early morning, and when at breakfast he told me of this discovery we determined to make further experiments. When we went out into the veranda the tendrils had turned their heads back to the railing in disgust. We got a pole and leaned it up against the pillar quite twelve inches from the nearest sprays of convolvulus.

"In ten minutes they had begun to curve themselves in that direction and acted exactly as you might fancy a very slow snake would do if he wished to reach anything. The upper tendrils bent down, and the side ones curved themselves until they touched the pole, and in a few hours were twisted quite round it.

"It was on the side away from the light, and, excepting the faculty of sight, we can think of no other means by which the tendrils could be aware that the pole had been placed there. They had to turn away from the light to reach it, and they set themselves in motion visibly within a few minutes of the pole's being there."

My own experience with climbing plants has long since convinced me that they have "a will of their own," and that if their will differs from my own no amount of coaxing will induce them to take the path which is laid out for them.

Well, if plants had but tongues they could, no doubt, tell us things well worth hearing in regard to their special mode of existence.