But to return to plants, Ernest; you say they have nerves ?" "If they have," said Willis, "they do not seem to possess the bottle of salts that most nervous ladies usually have." "No," replied Ernest, "they have no nerves, properly so called; but there are plants, and I may add many plants, which, by their qualities--I may almost say by their intelligence--seem to be placed much higher in the scale of creation than they really are.

The sensitive plant, for example, shrinks when it is touched; tulips open their petals when the weather is fine, and shut them again at sunset or when it rains; wild barley, when placed on a table, often moves by itself, especially when it has been first warmed by the hand; the heliotrope always turns the face of its flowers to the sun." "A still more singular instance of this kind was recently discovered in Carolina," remarked Becker; "it is called the _fly-trap_.

Its round leaves secrete a sugary fluid, and are covered with a number of ridges which are extremely irritable: whenever a fly touches the surface the leaf immediately folds inwards, contracts, and continues this process till its victim is either pierced with its spines or stifled by the pressure." "It is probably a Corsican plant," observed Jack, "whose ancestors have had a misunderstanding with the brotherhood of flies, and have left the _Vendetta_ as a legacy to their descendants." "There is nothing in Nature," continued Ernest, "so obstinate as a plant.

Let us take one, for example, at its birth, that is, to-day, at the age when animals modify or acquire their instincts, and you will find that your own will must yield to that of the plant." "If you mean to say that the plant will refuse to play on the flute or learn to dance, were I to wish it to do so, I am entirely of your opinion." "No, but suppose you were to plant it upside down, with the plantule above and the radicle below; do you think it would grow that way ?" "Plantule and radicle are ambitious words, my dear brother; recollect that you are speaking to simple mortals." "Well, I mean root uppermost." "Right; I prefer that, don't you, Willis ?" "Yes, Master Jack." "At first the radicle or root would begin by growing upwards, and the plantule or germ would descend." "That is quite in accordance with my revolutionary idiosyncracies." "You accused me just now of using ambitious words." "Well, I understand a revolution to mean, placing those above who should be below." "Nature then," continued Ernest, "very soon begins to assert her rights; the bud gradually twists itself round and ascends, whilst the root obeys a similar impulse and descends--is not this a proof of discernment ?" "I see nothing more in it than a proof of the wonderful mechanism God has allotted to the plant, and is analogous to the movements of a watch, the hands of which point out the hours, minutes, and seconds of time, and are yet not endowed with intelligence." "Very good, Jack," said Becker.
"Suppose," continued Ernest, "that the ground in the neighborhood of your plant was of two very opposite qualities, that on the right, for example, damp, rich, and spongy; that on the left, dry, poor, and rocky; you would find that the roots, after growing for a time up or down, as the case might be, will very soon change their route, and take their course towards the rich and humid soil." "And quite right too," said Willis; "they prefer to go where they will be best fed." "If, then, these roots stretched out to points where they would withdraw the nourishment from other plants in the neighborhood--how could you prevent it ?" "By digging a ditch between them and the plants they threaten to impoverish." "And do you suppose that would be sufficient ?" "Yes, unless the plant you refer to was an engineer." "Therein lies the difficulty.

Plants are engineers; they would send their roots along the bottom of the ditch, or they would creep under it--at all events, the roots would find their way to the coveted soil in spite of you; if you dug a mine, they would countermine it, and obtain supplies from the opposite territory, and revenge themselves there for the scurvy treatment to which they had been subjected.