Sunflower Family (Composite Family)
Such a number of flower people came dancing and running in that it was difficult to see who was who, with the exception of the big Sunflower who led them.
“I’m Daisy,” called a charming gold and white flower fairy. “And I love everybody, no matter whether everybody loves me or not.”
“Oh, we love you!” shouted Mary Frances and Eleanor. “You are a dear!”
“I hope you love all the Sunflower family,” spoke up a big Chrysanthemum.
“Oh, please love me!” “And me!” “And me!” “And me!” begged Dahlia, and Goldenrod, and Aster, and Cosmos.
“And me!” said the Bachelor’s Button in a deep masculine voice.
“And me!” repeated a dudish-looking Dandelion, at whose comical dress the girls couldn’t help smiling, for he was rigged up in the height of an old-fashioned style, with a high collar and a knotted green tie; with “pumps” on his feet—and he carried a grass-blade cane!
“I know they love me!” There stood Black-eyed Susan, with arms akimbo.
“We’ve loved you for years!” declared the girls.
“Here comes that Everlasting Flower!” exclaimed Dandelion.
“What a way to speak!” whispered Eleanor; but the speech of Dandelion was soon explained when a crisp Strawflower, or “Everlasting,” came stiffly in.
“Everlastingly late,” said the new-comer dryly, “but nothing like so common as some flowers,” glancing at Dandelion.
“Don’t disgrace the family by quarreling,” warned the big Sunflower.
“It’s so hard to keep such a big family straight,” he said with a sigh, yet he went on proudly, “You see, ours is the very largest flower family. There are from 11,000 to 12,000 members of the Sunflower or Composite Family.”
“I wonder how many different kinds of plants are known,” said Mary Frances to Eleanor.
“About 120,000,” answered Jack, who overheard from his pulpit. “I wish we could show you all the different flower families, and tell you about them, but as we haven’t time, we will explain about just a few more. Bet, will you begin?”
Then Bouncing Bet began to speak in her sweet musical voice.
“The beans and peas you eat belong to the same family as the clover. It is the Pulse family. The cranberry and the honeysuckle and the rhododendron and trailing arbutus are of the Heath family.”
“And may I ask,” interrupted Mary Frances, “to what family you belong?”
“And Jack?” added Eleanor, eagerly.
“Thank you for the questions, dear children,” smiled the delighted little fairy. “I will tell you: Jack-in-the-Pulpit belongs to the Arum family. Calla lily and——”
Here the fairy looked at him and giggled. “Shall I tell them, Jack?” she asked.
“Go ahead,” replied Jack a little grimly. “Maybe they better hold their noses while you mention that other member of my family,” he suggested.
“Well, the beautiful white calla lily and—and—” Bet hesitated.
“Say on,” said Jack, “or I’ll tell, myself.”
“Well, Skunk Cabbage, then,” said Bouncing Bet, “Calla Lily and Skunk Cabbage belong to Jack-in-the-Pulpit’s family.”
“Mercy!” Mary Frances exclaimed before she knew it.
“Oh,” gasped Eleanor.
“I beg your pardon—indeed, I do!” said Mary Frances to Jack.
“Oh, never mind,” he replied, “I must say we are not very proud of that branch of the family, but they have one thing about them which is very interesting. They are the very first flowers in the Spring—oftentimes blooming in February. There are other members of the Arum family, though, of which we are prouder.”
“He’ll tell you about them later,” smiled Bouncing Bet.
“Your family isn’t the same as his, then?” queried Eleanor.
“No,” she replied, “I belong to the Pink family.”
“Oh,” asked Mary Frances, “are all your family pink in color?”
“Oh, no,” Jack answered her. “She’s all dressed up in her Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes. She just borrowed that ‘queen’s lace’ gown. Queen’s lace belongs to Wild Carrot, you know, and Wild Carrot belongs to the Parsley family. Run, Bet, and take off your party clothes. Dress in your own clothes; then they’ll recognize you.”
Bet bounced away, laughing, and returned almost immediately in her every-day dress of—you know, calico-and-gingham-like petals.
“Now we know you, Miss Bet,” cried Mary Frances; “but even your every-day dress is light pink! Are you sure all your family doesn’t wear pink all the time?”
“Oh, no,” answered Bouncing Bet, “you’ll soon see that that is not the case when I mention my cultivated cousin, Carnation; and another cousin, Sweet William.”
“And you’ll be glad to know also,” laughed Jack, “that among her relatives is Dusty Miller.”
“Now, Jack,” laughed Bet, “that’s an old joke of yours! Please go on and tell something about some other members of your own family.”
[CHAPTER XLII]
Water Babies
JACK cleared his throat and began:
“Well, I don’t want to seem to be too proud or conceited, but to me it is quite a pleasant thing to think that the roots of Jack-in-the-Pulpit, or Indian Turnip, which is my other name, have been used as a medicine many a time; and that the roots of my cousin Calamus, or Sweet Flag, are valuable as a tonic. Some of the Arum family like dry soil and some like damp, marshy places. I do not like very dry places myself, and Cousin Calamus Sweet Flag likes his feet wet all the time.”
“Isn’t it wonderful,” Mary Frances leaned forward in her interest. “Isn’t it wonderful, how plants growing side by side are so different?”
“They eat the same things, yet are so different,” smiled Bouncing Bet. “For instance, isn’t it surprising that an onion and a lily may grow side by side? By the way, the Onion and Lily-of-the-Valley and Tiger Lily and Day Lily, and Hyacinth, and Dog-toothed-Violet, and Solomon’s Seal, and, yes, Asparagus, all belong to the same family.”
“Oh,” murmured the girls, “to think that the onion and the lovely Lily-of-the-Valley are cousins and belong to the same family!”
“Yes, and Onion is cousin of Easter Lily, and Tulip too,” Bet added.
“What about Water Lilies?” asked one of the girls.
“Now,” answered Bouncing Bet, “you’ve mentioned another member of the same family as the onion, for by this time, no doubt, you have guessed that I am naming members of the Lily family. Water Lily is one of their greatest beauties. How she ever manages to be so fragrant, so lovely, living in mire and slime, only her Maker knows. She is our dearest Water Baby.”
“Oh, please tell us of more Water Babies,” begged the girls.
“There’s a whole family of big water babies, that you know well,” Jack broke in. “That is the Cattail family.”
“How interesting!” cried Mary Frances. “I thought cats didn’t like water.”
Just then the silvery bell of the fairy clock struck the half-hour and Jack turned toward all the fairy flower folks who were present.
“Time’s up! Thank you, kind friends,” said he, “and now, after a dance, you may go.”
With that, the sweetest music the girls had ever heard began to play, and the fairies began to dance, keeping time perfectly with their tiny feet.
“I’m afraid it’s a dream, and that I’ll wake up,” whispered Eleanor to Mary Frances.
“So am I!” Mary Frances whispered back, and took hold of her little friend’s hand.
Suddenly the music stopped and every fairy except Jack and Bet disappeared.
“It was so beautiful,” said Mary Frances, still speaking in a whisper, “that we can never thank you.”
“We’re so glad you enjoyed our little surprise,” Jack replied, “for it shows how you love us flowers. Now I want to tell you something about the way in which we grow, and how to feed us. You have a garden, and I feel certain you would like to hear about that.”
“I’ve studied quite a little about seed-babies,” replied Mary Frances. “I love the little things dearly.”
“Good,” cried Bet; “you’ll love them even more after you’ve heard what Jack is going to tell you.”
“Do water babies grow in the same way as other plant babies?” asked Mary Frances.
“In quite the same way,” replied Jack. “I’m going to show you how the roots of plants take up the food needed, and how the leaves help make that food right for their digestion.”
“Why, I thought—” began Eleanor.
“Yes?” asked Jack, expectantly.
“I thought that plants breathed with their leaves.”
“Well, they do breathe with their leaves too, but they also breathe with their stem surface; or, in trees, with the surface of the trunk. In fact, they breathe all over.”
“I know,” said Eleanor, “that I’ve been taught to wash the leaves of house plants in order that the leaves might get air.”
“Very wise, indeed,” said Jack. “Air is very, very important to the leaves, as you will see when I have told you about their way of growing.”
Just then he took a tiny silver bugle from his shoulder and blew a long note.
Four little elves appeared. They were dressed in light brown and dark brown leaves. On their heads, each wore a cap of a different color. One was red; one was yellow; one, tan; and one, pink. They all stood “attention,” looking at Jack.
“Bring in the magic tree,” said Jack, and off ran the elves.
In a moment they returned, half carrying and half dragging a plant which looked like a tiny tree. It was growing in a glass tub, which, although small, seemed a heavy burden for the little fellows.
“Oh!” Mary Frances sprang up. “Oh, please, let me help,” she begged as she stooped down to take it.
“Better not, better not,” warned Jack. “That is a fairy tub and will go to pieces if you touch it.”
By that time the little elves had it in place, and they smiled their thanks to Mary Frances as they wiped the perspiration from their foreheads with tiny handkerchiefs made of colored Autumn leaves.
Jack jumped down from his pulpit.
“That will do, attendants,” he said. “Thank you,” and the little elves ran away.
“We have here,” he continued, “a fairy view of the way in which plants grow. Come, Bet!”
With that, both the little fairies sprang to the top of the tub, and a wonderful thing happened.
The tub and the tree began to grow so fast that before you could count three, they were as high as the girls’ knees, and before you could count seven, the top of the tree was even with Eleanor’s head.
“That’s tall enough, tree,” cried Jack, and both tub and tree stopped growing.
“Can you see, young ladies,” he asked as he bent over the side; “can you see the roots of the magic tree through the glass?”
The girls could see them plainly.
“Did you notice how they pushed their way through the stones and pieces of rock, and even moved them as they grew!”
“I did!” answered each of the girls.
“I thought it wonderful,” continued Mary Frances, “but I supposed it was a fairy way of growing.”
“No,” Jack shook his head; “that is the way all plants grow, whether small or large, only they grow slowly. Notice the smallest roots. They are hollow and have very thin delicate coverings.”
“You will see why in a minute,” he went on, “but now I wish to call your attention to something else. In between the stones and sand you will notice decaying leaves and——”
“Humus!” cried Mary Frances jumping up in excitement.
“Good!” he said. “Humus soup is what the plants eat. The tiny roots draw it up through their thin walls. In the humus soup is not only decaying vegetable matter, but very tiny bits of mineral matter, too—like pepper and salt for the plant, maybe.”
The girls laughed.
“Listen!” he went on earnestly; “for any plant to produce one pound of dry matter, the roots must take up from 300 to 500 pounds of water.”
“Oh, now, I see why plants must have water,” said Mary Frances. “Now, I understand why it is so necessary to cultivate—to hold the moisture in the ground.”
“To make humus soup,” Eleanor added.
“Fine!” cried Jack, rubbing his tiny hands in glee. “It’s splendid to teach such interested persons. It took human beings many, many years to find these things out. If only their eyes and ears had been open to us fairy folks, it wouldn’t have taken so long.”
“Now, human people, in growing garden plants, want to give them the best kinds of food,” he continued. “So, after studying to find out what is in the soil that plants need most, they have gathered those things together from various places, and have made Commercial Fertilizers.
“They are to be had in a powdered form, and are very concentrated plant food. Nothing is better to use, however, than barnyard manures.”
“One of the best commercial fertilizers is Nitrate of Soda.” (See Chapter LVIII entitled, “Some Hints on Growing Vegetables.”)
[CHAPTER XLIII]
How Plants Grow
“WHAT becomes, please, of the humus soup after the plant roots take it up?” asked Mary Frances thoughtfully.
“It’s a wonderful story,” Bouncing Bet spoke in her sweet voice. “You see, the plant food soup is carried up into the larger roots, into the sapwood of the tree, into the branches and into the leaves; and the leaves——”
“Give us shade!” Eleanor did not realize that she had interrupted.
“They do,” smiled Bet. “But that is not their work.”
“Oh, do leaves work?” Eleanor was surprised.
“They work very, very hard,” Bet replied. “They do such wonderful work that a leaf has been called a leaf factory, or a leaf-mill.”
“You think that leaves do not resemble the factories or mills you have seen,” went on the fairy. “It is not in appearance that they resemble mills and factories, but in the work they do; for they manufacture starch. I suppose there is really no starch in the whole world that leaves have not made.”
“Oh,” exclaimed Mary Frances; “even the starch in our dresses—is that made by leaves?”
“Yes,” Bet smiled, “even that; and the starch in your bread and the——”
“Tell them the story, Bet,” said Jack, who was much interested.
“All right,” answered the little fairy, turning to pick a leaf from the magic tree. “Please do not interrupt, and I will tell you about—