What a lesson lies in such phenomena! The power that can keep alive and unchanged the cells of a vegetable seed so many centuries is not likely to allow the soul of a man to perish. What an argument for immortality! What a breeder of strange and mysterious thoughts!
There is much mysticism in the plant world. What man does not understand, he either holds in awe or contempt. The plants are too often treated with good-humoured derision, but among higher minds, their unintelligible factors give them a greater fascination—a mystery and a psychic interest which is very alluring.
The plants seem to be closer in tune with Nature than man. They place themselves under her direct tutelage, and are extremely sensitive to her various moods and fancies. They respond to influences of weather and time with remarkable alacrity. The scarlet Pimpernel in particular, is an excellent barometer. At the least indication of rain, it folds its petals together in snug security, and, contrary to human beings, closes instead of opens the umbrella of its body. On a rainy day, it never unfolds at all, so eager is it to keep its petals dry.
“No heart can think, no tongue can tell,
The virtues of the Pimpernell.”
The greatest of all floral barometers is the Weather-Plant or Indian Licorice (Abrus Precatorius). So keenly sensitive to all atmospheric conditions is this plant that it may be used to foretell cyclones, hurricanes, earthquakes, and even volcanic eruptions. Its small, rose-like leaves are in continual motion, which varies noticeably under different electrical and magnetic influences. The Austrian Professor Norwack, working at his Weather-Plant Observatory at Kew Gardens, London, once used it to predict a disastrous fire-damp explosion.
Many flowers show a remarkable appreciation of the passage of time and open and close at regular hours each day. In fact, a close student of floral habits can actually tell the time of day by watching the actions of the flowers around him. It is said that the Swedish botanist Linnaeus once built himself a flower clock, arranged to count the passing hours by the folding and unfolding of different blossoms. One does not really need to go to this trouble. The common flowers of the field and garden are all accurate time-pieces. Long before the rising of the sun their activity begins; in fact even the night hours are all noticed by certain more obscure plants. Along about three in the morning, the dainty Goat’s-Beard wakes from sleep and spreads its petals. Promptly at four o’clock the Dandelion begins its day’s work. The Naked Stalked Poppy, the copper-coloured Day-Lily and the smooth Sow-Thistle are five o’clock risers. The Field Marigold is a slug-a-bed, and does not blink its sleepy eyes at the sun until ten o’clock. The Ice-Plant throws back its downy coverlets exactly at noon.
Shortly after mid-day, the early risers begin to get tired, and prepare to sleep through the heat of the afternoon. Beginning with the Hawkweed Picris shortly after noon, and extending to the bed-time of the Chickweed at ten at night, every quarter hour sees the retirement of some particular flower. After sundown, the night owls make their appearance, and such plants as the Night-Blooming Cereus, the Moonflower, and the Datura check off the fleeting minutes. How can this marvelous acquaintance with the passage of time be explained in terms of cold materialism?
Among plants which show a well-developed sense of direction, the Compass-Plant is probably the most remarkable. Its flowers, and sometimes the edges of its leaves, always point toward the north with the certainty of a magnet. Travelers have been known to use it as a natural guide.
A great many plants perform remarkable acts which can only be explained by the possession of some measure of psychic sense or quality. Thus, a climbing plant in need of a prop will creep along the ground toward the nearest vertical support. If the support is shifted, the vine will promptly change the direction of its progress, and eventually reach the object of its desires.
Inasmuch as it is positively known that plants are sensitive to light, it may be that, in this case, the vine actually perceives the support through a process akin to animal sight; but if a climbing plant finds itself growing between two mounds or ridges, and behind one there is a wall or some other means of support, and behind the other none, it will invariably bend its creeping steps over the ridge hiding the wall. The wall was invisible from the plant’s starting-point, and certainly betrayed its presence through no odour or other manifestation. In some mysterious way, the creeper simply knew that a vital necessity of its life lay in a certain direction. Ordinarily, we associate such phenomena with psychic influences. It is quite evident, that in certain ways, the plants display a very practical knowledge of such mysteries.