Part 14

This order contains some of our finest trees; the Oak, that prince of trees, is of this order. It attains a great age and size, and there are some celebrated specimens existing which have stood many centuries. Oaks constitute the greater part of the forest trees, both on the Continent and in England; great numbers are cut in France for fire-wood, and in both countries for ship-building. The roof-timbers of our old churches and halls are nearly all oak. The bark of the oak is largely used for tanning leather. About 30,000 tons are imported into this country yearly for this purpose, besides the product of our own trees. The bark of the Cork-oak (Quercus suber) is used for making corks, some 2,000 tons of this are imported annually. Moreover, the Gall-nut used in tanning, and also to make black dye, is the product of an oak. The Chestnut is a fine tree, the nuts of which are commonly eaten by the peasantry of Spain and Italy as food; the tree grows to a great age and to an enormous size.

7. EUPHORBIACEÆ (Buxus sempervirens) Box.

Many species of this order are acrid and poisonous, and have been used for poisoning arrows. The Castor-oil plant (Ricinus palma-christi), and the plant that yields that most violent purgative, Croton-oil (Croton tiglium), are of this species; also the Box-tree, from which that useful wood, known as box-wood, is obtained.

8. URTICACEÆ (Urtica urens) Stinging Nettle. (Humulus lupulus) Hops.

The Nettle in Australia grows to the size of a tree; the Hop also belongs to this order, and is largely cultivated in Kent and Sussex for the use of brewers, as it communicates an agreeable bitter to beer which no other plant seems to be able to substitute.

9. SALICACEÆ (Salix alba) White Willow. (Populus nigra) Black Poplar.

The most characteristic of this order are the examples given; the Willows are well-known trees, growing by the margins of water and in damp places. The Poplar is one of our tallest trees, specimens being known 100 feet high; its peculiar tall form distinguishes it from all other trees.

10. BETULACEÆ (Betula alba) Birch. (Alnus glutinosa) Alder.

The Birch and Alder are both well known trees in our plantations, the Alder is often confounded with the Elder. The bark of the Birch tree contains tannin; it is used to tan skins in Russia, and gives to Russian leather its peculiar qualities.

11. ULMACEÆ (Ulnus campestris) Elm.

The Elm is one of our largest and noblest trees, growing to 80 or 90 feet high, it has often a girth of 10 to 11 feet, and forms a very fine tree with a broad crown; the wood is much used for making coffins.

12. PINACEÆ (Taxus baccata) Yew. (Abies larix) Larch. (Laurus nobilis) Bay. (Pinus sylvestris) Scotch Fir.

This order contains the various Pines and Firs, together with the Yew and Bay trees, and is sometimes called the "Coniferæ," as they all bear cones. In their general aspect many of these somewhat resemble endogenous trees, growing perfectly straight in the stem, and giving off branches in whorls at regular distances; some, as the Norfolk Island Pine, form perfectly regular figures by the interlacement of their branches. The Firs have their thin narrow leaves starting off singly from the branch, and always on the upper side, like the teeth of a comb, while the Pines have their leaves grouped together, starting off in fours or fives from the same spot. The Conifera furnish the longest and straightest timber of all trees, they commonly grow to 100 feet high, and in New Zealand and California to more than 300. The Wellingtonia Gigantea is the tallest species known, and the Araucaria Excelsa (Norfolk Island Pine), perhaps, the next. The trees of this order are amongst the most useful to man, supplying a number of useful articles, such as turpentine, resin, &c., besides the most valuable timber. Pines, like the Palms, serve as a screen against the severity of the weather, but, while the palms keep off the burning rays of the sun, the pines defend us from the cold of the mountain blasts; they are indeed used as _nurses_, and as such, in our oak plantations, serve to screen the young saplings which are planted among them from the effects of cold until strong enough to bear exposure; when the pines are cut down, and what before appeared to be a pine-wood, appears as a plantation of oaks. The pine-trees furnish those straight stems largely used by builders under the name of "scaffold poles." They also make the best wood for rending into laths for building purposes, their straight and open grain allowing of their being easily split.

It is from the vegetable kingdom that most of the medicines in use are derived, but many of these, in improper doses, act as violent poisons; indeed, the most rapidly fatal of all poisons, prussic acid, was originally distilled from the Laurel-cherry, and strychnine, which is hardly less rapid, is the produce of the Nux vomica (Strychnos nux vomica).

The following is a list of the principal poisonous plants found growing wild in England:--

* 1. MONK'S-HOOD (Aconitum Napellus). WOLF'S-BANE (Aconitum lycactonum).

All parts of Monk's-hood and Wolf's-bane are extremely poisonous; the root of Monk's-hood has often been mistaken for that of Horse-radish, of which an example is therefore given, to show that it is impossible for this mistake to be made, if the least attention be paid to the leaves, as they are totally dissimilar.

* BRYONY (Bryonia dioica).

The whole of this plant is poisonous, and, as the berries are red and tempting, it is dangerous to trust children with them. The root is large and succulent, and is known by the name of Mandrake; it is very purgative and acrid.

* GREEN HELLEBORE (Heleborus viridus). * STINKING HELLEBORE (Heleborus foetidus).

Both poisonous in every part of the plants.

* MEZERIUM (Daphne mezerium).

The bark of this plant is acrid and poisonous, producing a burning sensation in the throat if chewed, and blistering the skin if applied, for which purpose it was often formerly used medicinally.

* MEADOW SAFFRON (Colchicum autumnale).

The corm (root) and seeds of this plant are poisonous. Meadow Saffron is also called Colchicum, it is much used in medicine, and although a good and useful one in small doses for gouty affections, yet in over-doses it produces violent purging and vomiting.

FOXGLOVE (Digitalis purpurea).

This plant is very poisonous and dangerous, the leaves are the most active part. It is frequently used medicinally, but requires great care, as it lowers the action of the heart, the effect of many small doses accumulating and at last acting like one large one.

* STAVES-ACRE (Delphinium Staphisagria).

The Ranunculaceæ are, most of them, poisonous, and this order includes the Larkspurs, of which the Staves-Acre is a species. The seeds are to a certain extent poisonous, and when ground into meal and mixed with flour have been often used by farmers to destroy vermin of various kinds, such as rats, mice, beetles, &c.

DEADLY NIGHTSHADE (Atropa Belladonna).

The Deadly Nightshade is also called Belladonna. Both leaves and berries are a deadly poison. The berries have been mistaken for black currants by children, as they much resemble them. There are several species, of which the Solanum nigrum, or Common Nightshade, very much resembles the "Deadly."

WOODY NIGHTSHADE (Solanum Dulcamara).

This plant, also called Bitter-sweet, from its taste, produces the bright red berries so often seen in hedges, and which from their pretty appearance frequently tempt children to eat them. They are poisonous, but not so much so as the twigs of the plant, which are very acrid and narcotic.

HEMLOCK (Conium maculatum).

The Hemlock is an umbelliferous plant growing by road-sides and under hedges, and flowers in June and July; it has been mistaken for Parsley, but may be known by the stems being spotted with black; the leaves are of a dark green colour, the upper ones bi-pinnate and the lower ones large and standing on long channelled foot-stalks.

THORN-APPLE (Datura strammonium).

The Thorn-Apple is a native of America, but has become almost indigenous, and is frequently found growing in waste places. The whole of the plant is poisonous, and is narcotic when smoked, like tobacco. It is an annual, bearing a funnel-shaped white flower, the fruit is a four-celled capsule covered with sharp spines or thorns, hence its name.

POPPY, Red (Papaver Rhoeas).

POPPY, White (Papaver somniferum).

The unripe capsules of both of these species of Poppy are narcotic and poisonous, but chiefly those of the White Poppy, from which, the opium of commerce is procured. The leaves are but very slightly narcotic, and the seeds not at all.

HENBANE (Hyoscyamus Niger).

This plant is an indigenous annual growing in waste places, especially in chalky soil, bearing flowers in July, which are of a yellowish green colour and nauseous odour; the stalk, leaves, and indeed the whole of the plant is covered with hairs. It is very narcotic, and is much used medicine; in over-doses it is poisonous.

CAPER (Euphorbia Lathyris).

The Caper is a biennial often found in gardens; the seeds are very purgative, and to some persons poisonous. This plant bearing the name of Caper, many persons have erroneously thought the seeds to be the ordinary "Capers" sold at shops for making "Caper-sauce." These, however, are the flower-buds of quite another plant, known as "Capparis spinosa."

WILD LETTUCE (Lactuca virosa).

The Wild Lettuce is a biennial plant flowering in July and August; it is found growing on the banks of ditches, and is sufficiently narcotic to be called poisonous. The dried juice has been used as a substitute for opium, but by cultivation the narcotic property is nearly or altogether lost.

MUSHROOMS, TOADSTOOLS, AND OTHER FUNGI.

The only kinds of Mushroom which can be eaten with safety are the common Mushroom (Agaricus campestris), the Champignon (Agaricus oreades), and the Morell (Marchella esculenta). Those which are of very bright colours, or have spots on the cap, those with thin caps, or those which are moist--have a film like a cobweb about the stalk, or have the stalk coming from one side of the cap--are poisonous.

Those marked (*) in the foregoing list are _acrid_ poisons, and the remainder are _narcotic_.

* * * * *

Out of these three great families of plants, in their almost endless variety of size, form, and colour, it has pleased the Great Author of Nature to form all the vegetation which beautifies this earth, from the lofty Palm--which, from its grateful freshness and the beauty of its structure, seems almost as if possessed of more than vegetative life, to the Algæ, which form "the pool's green mantle"--from the gigantic and "storm-defying" Oak, with its green foliage spreading out far above, and throwing its welcome shade around, to defend from the sun's rays the gentle deer who pasture on the herbage beneath--to the grass and clover, and the sweet-smelling wild flowers at their feet--

"Daffodils That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty; violets dim But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, Or Cytherea's breath,--pale primroses That die unmarried, ere they can behold Bright Phoebus in his strength"--

form inexhaustible themes on which to exercise our faculties of admiration, and which serve admirably to minister to those wants which, without doubt, were given to us that we might derive pleasure from their being thus beautifully gratified--themes for the pencil of the artist, who "holds, as it were, the mirror up to nature," and the architect, when he designed his vistas of slender columns spreading out into and supporting roofs of tracery, might well be supposed to have had in his "mind's eye" some beautiful recollection of the arcades of Nature's palaces in the sombre forests, where the twisted trunks of the trees, the fretwork of their branches, and the leafy covering formed by their leaves, supply all the requisites of a grand and lofty temple, fit for the worship of that great First Cause who formed them.

THE ANIMAL KINGDOM.

After considering the beautiful covering which a kind Providence has given to the earth in the form of all sorts of vegetation, it will be necessary now to consider for what kind of creatures this most delightful garden was prepared, whether they seek their food in the air, water, or earth, for all these places are abodes of the vegetable tribes, and where there is vegetation there are animated beings; for there is not an animal in existence, but directly or indirectly feeds upon the vegetable kingdom, from the elephant and rhinoceros which devour whole plantations, to the minute animalculæ which float in the air or dwell in every drop of stagnant water, where food in the form of equally minute algæ is found--each possessed of wonderful organs and powers suitable to the kind of existence they lead, for God has often placed life in the most simple as well as complicated forms. Dr. Mantell says:--

"We have been accustomed to associate the presence of vitality with bodies possessing various complicated organs for the elaboration and maintenance of the energies of existence, but here we see perfect and distinct creations in the condition of globules and cells, which live and move and have their being, and increase in numbers with a rapidity so prodigious, and in modes so peculiar, as to startle all our preconceived notions of animal organisation."

And it is in these Protozoa, the lowest of the animal creation, that a perfect similarity of condition exists to those of the vegetable kingdom, they are here upon a level; but arising out of these simple forms, God has created two sets of types or portraits, the members of each resembling those below it in some particular, but having organs which are superior to it; and above these are found members whose organs are of a still higher order, and so on till the one set comprises the highest orders of the vegetable, and the other those of the animal kingdom, in its ranks. But these simple organisms are never developed so as to resemble those placed above them; they each, whether high or low, continue to produce their like, for each grade was a creation of itself and a separate one from God's hands. There have been writers, who would endeavour to make it appear that God only created the lowest and most simple germs, and the circumstances which were necessary to develop them, and then allowed these to act and re-act until a man or an oak tree at last became the result! Were this the case, geology would long before this have shown the "small beginnings" of man; but no! as soon as traces of man's creation are perceived, he is found as perfectly formed and organised as he is now, there are no transition stages of man's existence, nor of any other animal. It is true that the simpler forms of both animal and vegetable existence were created first, but this was in accordance with the state of the earth's surface, which was not at first suitable to the requirements of the higher animals, which were only created when the earth was in a state suitable to receive them.

But when the surface of the earth was still more developed God created man. His last and greatest work; and there can be no doubt that God in His wisdom caused all these changes to precede the creation of man, that he might lack nothing to confer happiness on him, nor objects to exercise his faculties upon.

* * * * *

Animals are divided into two great natural families, the Invertebrate and the Vertebrate, the former having neither spine nor internal skeleton, the latter having both.

The Invertebrate animals are divided into the following sub-families, classes, and orders by Dr. William Carpenter.

Sub-family 1.--RADIATA, having Four classes.

1. Infusoria. 2. Entozoa.

{Hydroida } 3. Zoophyta. {Asteroida } 4 Orders. {Helianthoida } {Ascidioda }

4. Radiaria. {Acalephæ } 2 Orders. {Echinodermata}

Sub-family 2.--ARTICULATA, having Five classes.

1. Annellata. 2. Cerripeda. 3. Crustacea. {Coleoptera } {Orthoptera } {Neuroptera } {Hymenoptera } 4. Insecta. {Strepsiptera} 9 Orders. {Lepidoptera } {Hemiptera } {Diptera } {Aptera } 5. Arachnida.

Sub-family 3.--MOLLUSCA, having Six classes.

ACEPHALA, or Headless. 1. Tunicata. 2. Brachiopoda. 3. Lamellibranchiata.

ENCEPHALA, Having a Head. 4. Pteropoda. 5. Gasteropoda. 6. Cephalopoda.

The Infusoria, the first class of the Radiata, comprise all those microscopic organisms called "Protozoa;" they consist of a membranous cell with fluid contents, and are very nearly allied to the Protophytes or lowest vegetable existences. It is still a matter of discussion amongst physiologists and microscopists as to which kingdom shall claim certain of them, but, according to Dr. Carpenter, it appears that the vegetable cell-beings have two envelopes, the inner one albuminous and the outer one cellulose or starchy, and the following passage occurs in his treatise on the Microscope (which should be in the hands of all enquiring minds):--

"The animal cell, in its most complete form, is comparable in most parts of its structure to that of the plant, but differs from it in the entire absence of the 'cellulose wall' or of anything that represents it, the cell-contents being enclosed in only a single limitary membrane, the chemical composition of which, being albuminous, indicates its correspondence with the primordial utricle. In its young state it seems always to contain a semi-fluid plasma, which is essentially the same as the protoplasm of the plant, save that it does not include chlorophyll granules, and this may either continue to occupy its cavity (which is the case in cells whose entire energy is directed to growth and multiplication) or may give place, either wholly or in part, to the special product which it may be the function of the cell to prepare. Like the vegetable cell, that of animals very commonly multiplies by duplicative sub-division, it also (especially among Protozoa) may give origin to new cells by the breaking up of its contents into several particles."

Some of these creatures are so exceedingly minute that hundreds of millions may be contained in a drop of water. They have no organs of any kind, but consist of single cells of a soft substance called "sorcode;" there is no distinction of sexes, and generation takes place by sub-division, each cell separating into two, and these again into two more, and so on with marvellous rapidity; this is the usual method of increase, but occasionally an act of conjugation takes place, two cells blending into one at the points of contact, the result of which is a nucleus or cell within the original one. These animated cells are of all forms, having prolongations which appear to be thrown out to absorb any particle of organic matter within reach, which then enters within the soft substance of the animalcule and is digested or dissolved, such are the Amboeba, the Actinophrys, &c. (see fig. 1); a step or two higher from these, the very lowest, infusoria are found to possess the first rudiments of organs in the form of cilia, which consist of minute elongations having a constant vibratory motion, for the purpose of causing a current in the water in which they live and bringing food into their vicinity.

Some very curious and complicated changes take place in the lowest of the animals, very similar to those in the lowest vegetables; and what has been called the life-history of these beings, often embraces a great number of forms before the circle of their metamorphoses comes round to the starting-point. Some of these phases of existence are quite different from those going before and after them, and as the vegetable free-cell at one time is capable of motion, it has long been mistaken for an active living animalcule (the Protococcus pluvialis, &c.), and there can be no doubt but that it will be found that many of the lower forms of animated life described by Ehrenberg and others, and still considered as such, will prove to be merely different stages of the metamorphosis of the same protozoon; or it may be not an animal at all, but a simple vegetable or protophyte.

Dr. Carpenter says, "It is quite certain that the Desmidiaceæ, like the confervoid plants in general, grow at the expense of the inorganic elements which surround them, instead of depending upon other living beings for their subsistence, and that they decompose carbonic acid and give off oxygen under the influence of sunlight. They have the power of generating from these materials the organic compounds which they require for their own development, and these are such as are formed by other undoubted protophytes, as is proved by the application of the appropriate tests." These "Desmidiaceæ" were long considered to belong to the animalculæ, as were the "Diatomaceæ," "Volvox globator" (fig. 2), &c.