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 noble Tree-fern before us (_Alsophila aculeata_) has this instant been called into being by the creating voice of God. 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-shells, 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 passed through all the steps of uncoiling from its circinate condition. This whole process has certainly occupied several months.