CHAPTER I
THE ACTIVITY OF VEGETABLES |
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| Plants which move—Sensitive Plant—A tourist from Neptune—The World's and the British harvest—Working of green leaves—Power of sunshine—Work done by an acre of plants—Coltsfoot, dandelion, pansies, in sunshine and in cold—Woodsorrel and crocus—Foxglove—Leaves and light—Adventures of a carbon atom—The sap—Cabbages and oaks requiring water—Traveller's tree—The water in trees—An oasis in Greece—The associate life of its trees and flowers | 13 |
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CHAPTER II
ON SAVAGES, DOCTORS, AND PLANTS |
| Savages knew Botany—First lady doctors and botanical excursions—True drugs and horrible ornaments—Hydrophobia cure—Cloves—Mustard—Ivy—Roses and Teeth—How to keep hair on—How to know if a patient will recover—Curious properties of a mushroom—The Scythian lamb—Quinine: history and use—Safflower—Romance of ipecacuanha—Wars of the spice trade—Cinnamon, logwood, and indigo—Romance of pepper—Babylonian and Egyptian botanists—Chinese discoveries—Theophrastus—Medieval times—The first illustrated book—Numbers of plants known—Discoveries of painters and poets | 27 |
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CHAPTER III
A TREE'S PERILOUS LIFE |
| Hemlock spruce and pine forests—Story of a pine seedling—Its struggles and dangers—The gardener's boot—Turpentine of pines—The giant sawfly—Bark beetles—Their effect on music—Storm and strength of trees—Tall trees and long seaweeds—Eucalyptus, big trees—Age of trees—Venerable sequoias, oaks, chestnuts, and olives—Baobab and Dragontree—Rabbits as woodcutters—Fire as protection—Sacred fires—Dug-out and birch-bark canoes—Lake dwellings—Grazing animals and forest destruction—First kind of cultivation—Old forests in England and Scotland—Game-preserving | 40 |
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CHAPTER IV
ON FORESTS |
| The forests of the Coal Age—Monkey-puzzle and ginkgo—Wood, its uses, colour, and smell—Lasting properties of wood—Jarrah and deodar—Teak—Uses of birch—Norwegian barques—Destruction of wood in America—Paper from wood pulp—Forest fires—Arid lands once fertile—Britain to be again covered by forests—Vanished country homes—Ashes at farmhouses—Yews in churchyards—History of Man versus Woods in Britain | 55 |
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CHAPTER V
FLOWERS |
| Man's ideas of the use of flowers—Sprengel's great discovery—Insects, not man, consulted—Pollen carried to set seed—Flowers and insects of the Whinstone Age—Coal Age flowers—Monkey-puzzle times—Chalk flowers—Wind-blown pollen—Extravagant expenditure of pollen in them—Flower of the pine—Exploding flowers—Brilliant alpines—Intense life in flowers—Colour contrasts—Lost bees—Evening flowers—Humming birds and sunbirds—Kangaroo—Floral clocks—Ages of flowers—How to get flowers all the year round—Ingenious contrivances—Yucca and fig—Horrible-smelling flowers—Artistic tastes of birds, insects, and man | 68 |
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CHAPTER VI
ON UNDERGROUND LIFE |
| Mother-earth—Quarries and Chalk-pits—Wandering atoms—The soil or dirt—Populations of Worms, Birds, Germs—Fairy Rings—Roots miles long—How roots find their way—How they do the right thing and seek only what is good for them—Root versus stones—Roots which haul bulbs about—Bishopsweed—Wild Garlic—Dandelion, Plantain—Solomon's Seal—Roots throwing down walls—Strength of a seedling root | 82 |
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CHAPTER VII
HIGH MOUNTAINS, ARCTIC SNOWS |
| The life of a cherry tree—Cherries in March—Flowering of gorse—Chickweed's descendants—Forest fires in Africa—Spring passing from Italy to the frozen North—Life in the Arctic—Dwarfs—Snow-melting soldanellas—Highland Arctic-Alpine plants—Their history—Arctic Britain—Edelweiss—An Alpine garden | 97 |
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CHAPTER VIII
SCRUB |
| Famous countries which were covered by it—Trees which are colonizing the desert—Acacia scrub in East Africa, game and lions—Battle between acacia and camels, etc.—Australian half-deserts—Explorers' fate—Queen Hatasu and the first geographical expedition recorded—Frankincense, myrrh, gums, and odorous resins—Manna—Ladanum—Burning bush—Olives, oranges, and perfume farms—Story of roses—Bulgarian attar of roses—How pomade is made—Cutting down of forests and Mohammed | 107 |
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CHAPTER IX
ON TEA, COFFEE, CHOCOLATE, AND TOBACCO |
| English tea-drinking—Story of our tea—Assam coolies—Manufacture in India and China—Celestial moisture—Danger of tea—The hermit and his intelligent goat—Government coffee and cafÉs—Chicory—Chocolate—Aztecs—Kola and its curious effects—Tobacco—Sir Walter Raleigh—Great emperors and tobacco—Could we grow tobacco?—Story of a Sumatra cigar—Danger of young people smoking tobacco | 120 |
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CHAPTER X
ON DESERTS |
| What are deserts like?—Camel-riding—Afterglow—Darwin in South America—Big Bad Lands—Plants which train themselves to endure thirst—Cactus and euphorbia—Curious shapes—Grey hairs—Iceplant—Esparto grass—Retama—Colocynth—Sudden flowering of the Karoo—Short-lived flowers—Colorado Desert—Date palms on the Nile—Irrigation in Egypt—The creaking Sakkieh—Alexandria hills—The Nile and Euphrates | 131 |
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