A plant that drills through several inches of solid ice to bloom in early spring is the blue moonwort of the Swiss Alps. It belongs to the primrose family. In autumn it develops thick, leathery leaves. These lie flat on the ground, expectant of the snow and ice sheet that may cover them to a depth of several feet.
When spring arrives and the hot sun melts most of the snow and some of the ice, water trickles down to the rootlets and arouses growth in the sleeping plant. Internal combustion ensues with the floral tissues. The resulting heat melts the ice about the uprising flower buds and the stem pushes its way upward. More water flows to the roots and finally the plant tunnels a passage to the air and sunshine. So long as the heat given off from the growing stem and buds is sufficient to prevent solid freezing of the parts the plant is indifferent to the surrounding ice cold temperature. It undergoes the usual transformations, is fertilized by early bees and forms many hundreds of wonderful blue flower groups which look as if they were beds over a thick layer of transparent ice. The leaves are now no longer thick and fleshy, but thin and papery. They yield up their carbon compounds as fuel to melt a tunnel through the ice and production of buds and blossoms on a flower stem above the ice mantle.
The Versatile Ant Farmers
There are microscopic “farmers” whose fields are measured in fractions of inches. They are ants—the most widespread fungus-growers in the Western Hemisphere. Their range extends from Florida to Brazil. They are tiny creatures, seldom noticed, who cultivate a species of yeast which is their sole food.
The ways of life of this curious ant with the formidable scientific name of cyphomyrmex rimosus minutus, have been studied throughout their habitat by Dr. Neal A. Weber of Swarthmore College.
“The ant,” says Dr. Weber, “is versatile in the American tropics where the humidity is high and the temperatures uniform. The most common sites are in clay soil on the forest floor. An empty snail shell, a curled dead leaf or a rotted twig may suffice for a colony of these small ants or they may find requisite conditions among roots or in the dead wood high in the rain forest canopy.
“During the rainy season in Panama City there was a nest on a concrete cylinder above ground which protected a gas meter. The cylinder was 17 centimeters high (about 6 inches), by 36 centimeters in diameter and was covered loosely by a concrete cover. In the narrow space on the rim under the cover a colony had walled off an elliptical area 36 by 17 millimeters (about 4 inches by 3/4 of an inch), in which the entire nest with a fungus garden was formed. During drier periods the ants would move down into the soil.
“The workers usually are slow-moving and become immobile at the slightest disturbance. Sometimes, however, they run as rapidly as the average ant when disturbed and seek to escape rather than feign death. In “feigning death” the ants quickly curl up their legs and fold their antennae close to the body so that they appear almost invisible bits of dirt when casually examined.
“The ants spend much time in grooming the forelimbs, antennae and other parts of the body. Regardless of how dusty an ant may become momentarily, it keeps its antenna immaculate by drawing it through its mouth and licking and cleansing it. They also clean one another. In grooming each other the ants may carefully go over a large portion of the body. In one instance a slightly callow worker was watched as it groomed another of the same age. The one being groomed turned over on its side, like a dog or a monkey. The grooming of each other and the cleaning of the brood is a vital part of their activities as it removes alien bacteria and fungi and also may have a nutritive function so far as the brood is concerned.
“The fungus garden consist of masses from a quarter millimeter to a half millimeter in diameter (from about 100th to a 60th of an inch.)”