THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.
A new and scientific view of the language of plants is te be presently set forth in graphic form by the biologists ot Rothamsted. The idea is quaint, but likely to be fruitful: It has been found that no analysis or even microscopical investigation is quite so eloquent as the colour and what may be called, without undue metaphor, the mien and gesture of a plant. It grows pale or is "jaundiced o'er" or has hectic patches, or it writhes and doubles up and twists; not necessarily because of any genuine disease, but under the stress of some definite lack or excess of food or drink or light. Some of these changes in complexion or attitude are easily interpreted Every gardener knows why the young cabbages he has just transplanted "lay their cheek to mire," like Meredith's frozen crocus. But only the loudest and most insistent phrases of this plant language are rightly interpreted. What the Rothamsted authorities have set their hand to (as a result of long investigation) is exactly and precisely to correlate the visual language with the inner need. They will tell us, say, that, in Coleridge's phrase, a peculiar tint of yellow-green indicates a certain degree of nitrogen starvation. The plant always expresses itself visually ; and there may be as many as a hundred different words expressing a hundred varieties of need.
Previous page
