They will grow both in my sandy garden, under a rainfall of
only 23 inches, more luxuriantly than in their native mountains
under a rainfall of 50 or 60 inches. Then how is it that S.
hypnoides cannot get down off the mountains; and that S. umbrosa,
though in Kerry it has got off the mountains and down to the sea-
level, exterminating, I suspect, many species in its progress, yet
cannot get across County Cork? The only answer is, I believe, that
both species are continually trying to go ahead; but that the other
plants already in front of them are too strong for them, and
massacre their infants as soon as born.
And this brings us to another curious question: the sudden and
abundant appearance of plants, like the foxglove and Epilobium
angustifolium, in spots where they have never been seen before. Are
there seeds, as some think, dormant in the ground; or are the seeds
which have germinated, fresh ones wafted thither by wind or
otherwise, and only able to germinate in that one spot because there
the soil is clear? General Monro, now famous for his unequalled
memoir on the bamboos, holds to the latter theory. He pointed out
to me that the Epilobium seeds, being feathered could travel with
the wind; that the plant always made its appearance first on new
banks, landslips, clearings, where it had nothing to compete
against; and that the foxglove did the same.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25