Omphalos Part 7

Since every organism, considering it, throughout its generations, as an unit, has been created, or made to commence existence, it is manifest that it was created or made to commence existence at some moment of time. I will ask some kind geological reader to imagine that moment, and to accompany me in an ideal tour of inspection among the creatures, taking up each for examination at the instant that it has been called into existence. Do not be alarmed! I am not about to a.s.sume that the moment in question was six thousand years ago, and no more; I will not rule the actual date at all; you, my geological friend, shall settle the chronology just as you please, or, if you like it better, we will leave the chronological date out of the inquiry, as an element not relevant to it. It may have been six hundred years ago, or six thousand, or sixty times six millions; let it for the present remain an indeterminate quant.i.ty. Only please to remember that the date _was_ a reality, whether we can fix it or not; it _was_ as precise a moment as the moment in which I write this word.

Well then, like two of those "morning stars" who, when "the foundations were fastened," "shouted for joy," we will, in imagination, take our stand on this round world at exactly ---- minutes past ---- o'clock, on the morning of the ----th of ----, in the year B.C. ----. The n.o.ble Tree-fern before us (_Alsophila aculeata_) has this instant been called into being by the creating voice of G.o.d. Here it stands, lifting up its columnar stem, and spreading its minutely fretted fronds all around, in a vaulted canopy above our heads, through the filagree work of whose expanse the sunbeams play in a soft green radiance. It has this instant been created.

But I will suppose, further, that we have the power to call into our council some experienced botanist; who is not acquainted, as we are, with the fact of this just recent creation, and whom we will ask to give us his opinion on the age of this beautiful plant.

_The Botanist._--"You wish to ascertain the age of this _Alsophila_. I know of no data by which this can be determined with precision, but I can indicate it approximately. Let us take it in order. The most recent development is the growing point in the centre of the arching crown of leaves. Around this you would see, if your eyes were above the plane, close ring-like bodies, or, perhaps, more like snail-sh.e.l.ls, protruding from the growing bud; then young leaves, partially opened in various degrees, but coiled up scroll-wise at their tips, and around these the elegant fretted fronds, which expand broadly outwards in a radiating manner, and arch downwards.

"Now every one of these broad fronds was at first a compactly coiled ring; but it has, in the course of development, uncoiled itself, growing at the same time from its extremity, and from the extremity of each of its formerly wrapped-up pinnae and pinnules, until at length it has attained the expanse you behold. This process has certainly occupied several days.

"But let us look farther. The outermost fronds that compose this exquisite cupola, you see, are nearly naked; indeed, the extreme outermost are quite naked, being stripped of their verdant honours, their pinnae and pinnules, and left mere dry and sapless sticks,--the long and taper midribs of what were once green fronds, as graceful as those that now surmount them. Some of them, you see, are hanging downward, almost detached from the stem, and ready to drop at the first breath of wind. Now remember, each of these brown unsightly sticks was once a frond, that had pa.s.sed through all the steps of uncoiling from its circinate condition. This whole process has certainly occupied several months.

"Look, now, below these withered midribs, lifting up the most drooping of them. The stem is marked with great oval scars; and see, this old frond-rib has come off in my hand, leaving just such a scar, and adding one more to the number that were there before. And look down the stem; it is studded all over with these oval scars. There are a hundred and fifty at least; but I cannot count them nearly all, for towards the lower part they become more undefined, and the growth of the stem has thrown them further apart; and besides, there is, as you observe, a matted ma.s.s of tangled rootlets, like tarred twine, which, springing from between the lower scars, increases downwards, till the whole inferior extremity of the stem is encased in the dank and reeking ma.s.s.

"You can have no doubt that every one of these scars indicates where a leaf has grown, where it has waved its time, and whence, after death and decay, it at length sloughed away. The form of the uppermost, which are not distorted by age, agrees exactly with the outline of the bulging base of the candelabrum-like frond; the arrangement of the scars is that of the fronds; and you may notice in every scar marks where the horseshoe-shaped plates of woody fibre have been broken off, which once pa.s.sed into the interior of the stem from the midrib of the frond.

"These scars, then, are ocular demonstrations of former fronds; we may no more doubt that fronds were once growing from these spots, than we may that the green and leafy arches were once coiled up in a circinate vernation. They are the record of the past history of this organism, and they evidently reach far back into time. The periodic ratio of development of new fronds may be, perhaps, roughly estimated at six in the course of a year. Now there are about a dozen unfolded or unfolding, as many withering midribs, and about a hundred and fifty leaf-scars that we can count with ease, not reckoning such as are indistinct, nor such as are concealed beneath the tangled drapery of roots.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LEAF-SCARS OF TREE-FERN.]

"I have no hesitation, then, in p.r.o.nouncing this plant to be thirty years old; it is probably much older, but it is, at least, as old as this."

Such is the report of our botanical adviser; such is his argument; and we cannot but admit that it is invulnerable; his conclusion is inevitable, but for one fact, which he is not aware of. There is one objection, however, to which it is open--a fatal one; you and I know that the Tree-fern is not five minutes old, _for it was created but this moment_.

Here is another act of creation. It may be the same day as that of the Tree-fern, or one as remote as you please from it, before or after. A few moments ago this was a great ma.s.s of rough, naked limestone, but by creative energy it has been suddenly clothed with a luxuriant mantle of _Selaginella_. How exquisitely beautiful the aggregation of flattened branching stems, studded with their tiny imbricated leaflets of tender green, bloomed with blue! and how thick and soft the carpet that thus conceals the angles and points and crevices of the unsightly stone!

Broad as is this expanse of verdure, covering many square yards without a flaw, and rooted as it is at ten thousand points of its creeping stem, we shall yet find that it is one unbroken structure. Our friend the botanist would infer unhesitatingly that every part of this widespread ramification has originally proceeded from one central shoot, and that several years' growth must have concurred to form this compact ma.s.s.

Yet _we_ know that such an inference would be false. The plant has been this instant called into being.

On the summit of this rounded hill is a very different plant from the last. Beautiful it also is, but grandeur and majesty are its leading attributes. It is a dense and ma.s.sive clump of the Tulda Bamboo. How n.o.ble these straight-jointed stems, cylinders of polished green, shooting their points right upwards, and towering to a height of eighty feet! The numerous panicles of tufty blossom are gracefully bending from the summits, and from the tip of every branch, nodding in the breeze.

There are scores of the tall stems, as straight as an arrow, beset at every joint with diverging horizontal branches, crossing and recrossing in inextricable confusion. And see, amidst the crowd, there are others as thick and tall, but without a single side-shoot, clothed, however, to atone for the deficiency, in swaddling-clothes peculiarly their own.

These swathed stems are infant shoots,--vigorous and promising children, indeed; these brown triangular sheaths, covered with down, are the clothing of infancy; they increase in number, and are closer together towards the summit of the shoot, where the growing point is rapidly extending. When the stems have attained their full height, these sheaths will fall off, the polished shafts will stand revealed in their glossy beauty, and the lateral pointed branches will at once start forth from every joint, and pierce horizontally through the dense tangled bush.

Now these young shoots do not bear testimony to so great an age as you would suppose. The whole seventy feet of their alt.i.tude have been attained within thirty days! But then their ma.s.sive size and vigour indicate a mature age in the clump. For all the hundred stems that are crowded together in this dense Bamboo-clump are organically united; they are parts of one and the same plant, the root-stock of which has been creeping to and fro year after year, sending up in constant succession its arrowy stems, until it has attained the present magnificence. Many years must have elapsed between the present condition of the grove, and that of the slender blade that shot up from the tiny seed in this spot.

Yes, so you may think. But it is not so, for the great Bamboo-clump has been created in its pride and glory this very hour!

Yonder is a considerable area of land covered with the green blades of young wheat, and very healthy and strong it looks. No, it is Couch-gra.s.s! The whole green sward which we see is a single plant; the creeping stem of which has spread its ramifications in all directions beneath the surface of the soil; and still the long succulent shoots are extending in every direction, as shewn by the green leaf-blades. This is a rapidly growing plant, it is true; yet still there must be an acc.u.mulated growth of many months here, if not years! No, it was created this morning.

Contrasting with this humble gra.s.s, observe that luxuriant Screw-pine.

See its singular crown of foliage at the summit of its equally singular stem. Its great p.r.i.c.kle-edged stiff leaves grow in long diagonal rows, each sheathing its successor, and alternating with those of the next row. How rich and fragrant an odour is diffused from its crowded blossoms!

Every one of those sword-like leaves is, of course, the record of a period of time. A tree of this size makes a "screw," or imperfect spire, of leaves in about three years; and there are about sixteen pairs of leaves in each screw, which will give us nearly eleven leaves for the development of each season. Now, on the trunk, there are numerous waved lines quite covering its surface, which are the traces of old leaves that have in succession been produced and decayed away;--the trunk is, in fact, composed of these leaf-bases. By counting these, we may obtain then an approximate notion of the age of this plant;--an _approximate_ notion only, because in its young stages the development of leaves probably took place more rapidly than it does now. There are then on this trunk about one hundred and fifty horizontal rows of scars, and each row numbers four leaf-bases, so that the trunk is inscribed with an autographic record of six hundred leaves. If then we reckon eleven leaves as the produce of a single season, and add the four screws which are still flouris.h.i.+ng, we shall obtain a result of about fifty-five years as the age of this _Panda.n.u.s_. This, for the reason just a.s.signed, would probably be considerably too much; perhaps, forty years would be nearer the truth.

There are, however, other marks of age here, though they are less definite. The great hardness of the surface-wood, which we perceive on trying to indent it, is an indication of age, as it is produced by the successive bundles of woody fibre, which, year after year, have pa.s.sed down from each leaf, curving, in their descent, towards the circ.u.mference of the stem, and, therefore, constantly augmenting the density of the outer portions.

Another very curious proof of age is seen in the number of aerial roots which descend from various points of the trunk towards the soil. You would at first be inclined to think them posts, which a carpenter had set to "sh.o.r.e up" the tree, as props to prevent its being blown down.

And truly this is their purpose; but they are natural adjuncts, not artificial. These thick rods, some of which have not yet reached the ground, have been shot forth in turn from the stem, in order to afford it additional support in the loose sandy soil. And mark, by the way, a beautiful contrivance here. Because the growing tender extremity of the root has to pa.s.s through the sun-parched air in its progress towards the earth, there is a curious exfoliation of its extremity, forming a sort of cup, which, collecting the scanty dews, retains sufficient moisture for the refreshment of the spongy rootlet. Now, I say, these supporting roots, since they must have originated from the trunk, after the latter had attained a considerable height, are so many evidences--and c.u.mulative evidences--of age, though their testimony cannot be so well made to bear on a known period as that of the leaf-bases.

Should we not then be amply warranted in a.s.serting this Screw-pine to be many years old, if we were not a.s.sured that, as a fact, it has been this instant created?

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROOTS OF IRIARTEA.]

A phenomenon a.n.a.logous to that which we have just observed is presented by yonder Pas.h.i.+uba Palm (_Iriartea exorhiza_). Its straight arrowy stem has shot up to the height of fifty feet, like a slender iron column. On the summit there is the usual divergent crown of leaves that distinguishes this most graceful and queenly tribe; and at the foot, a tall open cone of roots, strangely supporting the column on its apex.

"But what most strikes attention in this tree, and renders it so peculiar, is, that the roots are almost entirely above ground. They spring out from the stem, _each one at a higher point than the last_, and extend diagonally downwards till they approach the ground, when they often divide into many rootlets, each of which secures itself in the soil. As fresh ones spring out from the stem, _those below become rotten and die off_; and it is not an uncommon thing to see a lofty tree supported entirely by three or four roots, so that a person may walk erect beneath them, or stand with a tree seventy feet high growing immediately over his head."

"In the forests where these trees grow, numbers of young plants of every age may be seen, all miniature copies of their parents, except that they seldom possess more than three legs, which gives them a strange and almost ludicrous appearance."[53]

This tall Pas.h.i.+uba before us, however, is supported on several scores of roots, in various stages of development, some descending through the air, some already fixed in the soil. As the presence of these, moreover, implies the decay and disappearance of earlier ones, their number and height may be accepted as a fair testimony to the age of the tree; independent of what we might have deduced from the trunk and other sources. (My reader will bear in mind, that, throughout this chapter, I am supposing that we have the opportunity of seeing each organism at the moment following that of its creation.) The _Iriartea_ before us, then, notwithstanding its marks of maturity, is but--a new-born infant, I was about to say, rather--a new-made adult.

Another and more ma.s.sive Palm appears, where a moment ago there was nothing but smooth ground and empty air. It is the Sugar Palm (_Saguerus saccharifer_), remarkable in its appearance for the swathes of what looks to be _sackcloth of hair_, in which its stem is enveloped. Each of its great pinnate leaves forms with the dilated base of its midrib a broad sheath, which springs out of a loose fold of this coa.r.s.e cloth that is wrapped around it. And not only the bases of the still flouris.h.i.+ng leaves are swathed in this natural textile fabric, but the dead and dry leaf-bases of the former leaves, which may be traced all down the stem. But let us look at this strange cloth: what is it? It is composed of the exterior fibres of the leaf-bases themselves, which in process of growth have partially separated themselves, and from which the parenchyma and the lamina have decayed away. The appearance of a woven fabric is deceptive; there is no interlacing; but its semblance is produced by the fibres lying in layers one over the other, and by some of them having a direction at right angles to the others. Originally all the fibres were parallel and longitudinal, but as they have been, in the growth of the leaf, pulled out laterally, the main fibres, which are indefinitely divisible, have adhered to each other at various parts, and the result has been that innumerable const.i.tuent fibrillae have been stretched across from fibre to fibre.

Every square inch, then, of this sackcloth tells of the lapse of time; these horse-hair-like fibres were once green and vascular, enclosing a soft pulp; in short, they were a part of a verdant leaf; the reduction of each congeries of veins to this condition was a work of time, and this has been effected by many leaf-bases in succession.

An examination of this _gomuti_, as it is called, does not indeed help us to identify the actual interval lapsed in the history of the plant; but we may arrive at this from other considerations. The great sheathing bases themselves remain in numbers attached to the upper portion of the stem, though the greater portion of the midrib with the pinnae has decayed and fallen; and in the lower part, where even the bases have disappeared, still broad lateral scars are left, marking off the stipe into horizontal rings, which are not less conclusively certain evidences of the former existence of similar bases, and therefore, still earlier, of leaves.

The Sugar Palm developes and matures on an average six leaves every year.[54] On counting the dry leaf-bases, and the scars, I find on this trunk, a hundred and twenty: besides which there are about a dozen expanded leaves, and two visible, which are not unfolded. A hundred and thirty-four leaves then have left proofs of their existence here; which divided by six, gives about twenty-two years as the age of this Palm.

This is the age of this tree, however, since it began to form a stem; but several years of infancy must be added to the sum, during which its fronds sprang in succession from the surface of the soil.

Look at this _Areca_. By-and-by it will grow to the loftiest stature attained by any of its tribe, and its n.o.ble crown of leaves will wave on the summit of a slender pillar a hundred and fifty feet in height. But at present it has no stem at all; the widely arching leaves diverge from a central point which is below the surface of the soil. Here, then, are no dead leaf-bases; here are no old historical scars:--have we any evidence of past time here? Yes, surely. See this fully developed leaf.

It is composed of a stout midrib, along the two opposite edges of which grow, like the beards of a feather, narrow sword-like leaflets, separated from each other by intervals of about two inches. But this pinnate condition,--which is so inseparable from the developed leaf of a great division of the Palm tribe, that our idea of a palm-leaf almost always is that of an enormous feather,--is by no means the original state. Observe this young leaf which is not yet thoroughly expanded; the leaflets are, indeed, separated everywhere, except that the tips of all are connected by a very narrow ribbon of the common green lamina, which runs from one to another. In the fully opened leaves, this has been torn apart and is not distinguishable.

But, let us carefully open this still younger leaf, which is protruding like a thin green rod, or rather like a closed fan, from the centre of the crown. We must handle it delicately, for it is very tender. Now you see it is not pinnate at all; the leaf is as entire as a _Musa_ leaf, which, indeed, it much resembles, except that each half is folded transversely, and then these transverse folds are packed one on another longitudinally, fan-fas.h.i.+on. Each of the transverse folds answers to a future leaflet. It is the development of the midrib in length that tears asunder the divisions of the lamina, and converts them into separate, and by-and-by remote, pinnae.

It is manifest then that every leaflet on the midrib of a pinnate-leaved Palm is a record of past time, as real as the leaf-bases on the trunk, inasmuch as, in each case, there is ocular proof that the conditions of existence are different from what they have been. And yet in this case, the evidences are fallacious, since the _Areca_ before us has even now been created.

Here is an extraordinary plant. Though no thicker than your little finger, it will be found almost a quarter of a mile in length.[55] This is a kind of Cane (_Calamus_); its slender jointed and polished stem is encased in the closely-sheathing and tubular bases of the leaves, which are spiny on their midribs, spiny on their pinnae, and horridly spiny on the long and tough whip-lash in which the point of each leaf terminates.

This lengthened cord is studded, at intervals of a few inches, with whorls of stout and acute p.r.i.c.kles which are hooked backwards, and performs an important part in the economy of the plant. We see how it sprawls along the ground a few yards, then climbs up a tall tree, runs over the summit, descends on the opposite side to the ground, mounts over another tree, and thus pursues its wormlike course. Now as the pinnate leaves are put forth at every joint, the formidably armed flagellum affords a secure holdfast to the climbing stem, which otherwise would be liable to be blown prostrate by the first gust of wind; the recurved hooks, however, catch in the leaves and twigs of the trees, and effectually maintain the domination of the p.r.i.c.kly intruder.

It is obvious that every inch sprawled over by this trailing stem supposes all the previous inches of its lengthening course; that every successive joint implies the existence of all the earlier joints; that every whorl of spines involves the development of every former whorl.

Yet our reasoning is at fault; there has been as yet no succession; the development has been simultaneous, for it is the development, not of growth, but of creation.

Enough of Palms. Look at this _Agave_. Its thick, fleshy, glaucous leaves, with spinous margins and pointed ends, are arranged in many whorls on the summit of a stem, which is scarcely visible, as it barely rises above the soil. From the centre of the crown springs the stately flower-stalk, itself a tree of forty feet in stature, having a cl.u.s.ter of yellow blossoms at the extremities of its candelabra-like branches.

Have we here any clue to the past history of the plant? The tall flower-stalk, it is true, is of rapid growth, its whole stature having been attained within three or four weeks. But those ma.s.sive leaves! Each of these lasts many years, and their development is as slow as that of the flower-stalk is rapid. Certainly we cannot a.s.sign to this individual, in the very vigour of its inflorescence, an antiquity less than half a century, and perhaps it may be considerably more.

You are altogether wrong; for it is but just called into existence.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TRAVELLER'S TREE.]

We pa.s.s on, and pause before a n.o.ble example of one of the stateliest of plants,--the Traveller's Tree (_Urania speciosa_). It is a great Musaceous plant, resembling one of those fans which in the Southern States of America are made by ladies out of the broad tail-feathers of a turkey. Its leaves, of vast size, consist of a broad oblong lamina of the most brilliant green hue, divided equally by a midrib which descends in a smooth cylindrical petiole, much longer than the lamina (which is itself eight feet or more in length). Each leaf-stalk terminates below in a great demi-sheath, out of which springs another, in a zigzag or distichous fas.h.i.+on, the whole diverging, as they rise, in the same plane.

Below the alternately-sheathing leaves, of which there are but eight at present existing, there are the bases of others, now dead, which, when alive, evidently followed the same arrangement; and these give place yet lower to rings, each partly surrounding a ma.s.sive conical stem.

I fear we have no criterion for determining the exact age of such a plant as this from actual observations on its rate of growth. From the fewness of its existing leaves they probably endure a considerable time; but at all events here are indubitable evidences of successive generations of leaves which are now past and gone; some of which are represented by withered rib-bases, while older ones have left but the scars which indicate the positions on the trunk where once they stood.

Here are distinct testimonies to the lapse of a considerable period of time since the magnificent _Urania_, began its existence. Yet we should err egregiously by giving credence to them, since these developments are all _prochronic_.

"What a lovely b.u.t.terfly!" Nay, it is a flower: though it dances in the air with an insect's fluttering flight, and seems to present in its broad wings of yellow and orange, and in its long and slender members, an insect's form and hues, it is but a flower fixed at the end of a lengthened stalk, which hangs from, a ma.s.s of leaves and bulbs, seated in the fork of this huge mahogany-tree.