THE USES OF HAIR ON PLANTS.
M.E.K. writes, in answer to my question in July, that her "Botany" book says, "Hair on plants seems to afford them security against changes of weather, and plants with hair can stand more heat than bare ones." A.W. Ferris says:
"If a plant that needs much moisture is dug up from its native wet home and planted in a dry spot, hairs will sprout on it and try to get from the air the moisture that can no longer be drawn from the earth. But if you put back this plant in its old home, it will lose its hair—becoming bald. Sometimes, plant hairs are connected with glands of poisonous liquid, as with the nettle, whose hairs we say 'sting,' because of the pain the poison gives when the skin is pricked by them."
Frances and Margaret Bagley, also, write on this subject, and I'm much obliged to all four. Besides these letters, I've had word that plant-hair is put to the following uses: On some plants it catches insects and helps to eat them; in others, the hair sends out a kind of juice which keeps away insects that might harm the plant; on the mulleins, the stiff hairs are supposed to prevent cattle from browsing on them; and on yet others, the hairs suck in gases and liquids as part of the food of the plants. And there may be other uses for these hairs that I haven't heard of yet.
DARK SUNS.
Here's something strange,—so strange that, may be, you 'd better inquire further into it. I give you the paragram just as it comes to me:
"The bright star Sirius, itself a vast flaming sun, has a companion which is also a sun,—nearly seven times as large as our own,—but which is dark, and gives no light at all. This dark sun was seen through a very powerful telescope in 1862, and it is thought that there are a great many like it, although no others have been found."