After a short and silent supper, we lay down and pulled the covers over us. The music of the forest grew louder as darkness increased. It seemed almost as though the whole vegetable world was remarking on these visitors who had invaded their home.
And then above the music of the woods we’d hear the drone of flying, while we dropped off to sleep. Some of the giant insects were hovering near, as usual, to keep an eye on these creatures from another world.
I think that of all experiences with the plant life of the Moon that with the Vanity Lilies was perhaps the most peculiar and the most thrilling. In about two days the Doctor had made extraordinary strides in his study of this language. That, he explained to me, was due more to the unusual intelligence of this species and its willingness to help than to his own efforts. But of course if he had not already done considerable work with the trees and bushes it is doubtful if the lilies could have got in touch with him as quickly as they did.
By the end of the third day Chee-Chee, Polynesia and I were all astonished to find that John Dolittle was actually able to carry on conversation with these flowers. And this with the aid of very little apparatus. He had now discovered that the Vanity Lilies spoke among themselves largely by the movement of their blossoms. They used different means of communication with species of plants and trees other than their own—and also (we heard later) in talking with birds and insects; but among themselves the swaying of the flower-heads was the common method of speech.
The lilies, when seen in great banks, presented a very gorgeous and wonderful appearance. The flowers would be, I should judge, about eighteen inches across, trumpet-shaped and brilliantly colored. The background was a soft cream tone and on this great blotches of violet and orange were grouped around a jet-black tongue in the center. The leaves were a deep olive green.
But it was that extraordinary look of alive intelligence that was the most uncanny thing about them. No one, no matter how little he knew of natural history in general or of the Moon’s Vegetable Kingdom, could see those wonderful flowers without immediately being arrested by this peculiar character. You felt at once that you were in the presence of people rather than plants; and to talk with them, or to try to, seemed the most natural thing in the world.
“The flowers would be about eighteen inches across”
I filled up two of those numerous note books of the Doctor’s on his conversations with the Vanity Lilies. Often he came back to these flowers later, when he wanted further information about the Moon’s Vegetable Kingdom. For as he explained to us, it was in this species that Plant Life—so far at all events as it was known on either the Moon or the Earth—had reached its highest point of development.