_PERSONALITY OF PLANTS_ [Illustration: The Fuchsia has a Distinctive and Esthetic Manner.] PERSONALITY OF PLANTS _By_ ROYAL DIXON _and_ FRANKLYN E. FITCH [Illustration] New York BOULLION-BIGGS 1923 Copyright, 1923, by BOULLION-BIGGS, Inc. _All Rights Reserved_ PRINTED IN U. S. A. CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION 11 ORIGIN OF PLANTS 17 LIFE OF A PLANT 27 MIGRATIONS OF PLANTS 39 COMRADES OF THE PLANT WORLD 57 ALLIES OF THE PLANT WORLD 69 MARRIAGE CUSTOMS OF PLANTS 83 ART IN THE PLANT WORLD 95 MUSIC IN THE PLANT WORLD 110 SCIENCE IN THE PLANT WORLD 122 RELIGION IN THE PLANT WORLD 141 PLANT MYTHOLOGY 154 MYSTICISM IN THE PLANT WORLD 167 PLANT INTELLIGENCE 186 THE HIGHER LIFE OF PLANTS 204 PLANTS & MEN 215 To EDWIN MARKHAM and ANNA CATHERINE MARKHAM who live their poetry. “That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroyed; Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete; “That not one worm is cloven in vain; That not a moth with vain desire Is shrivel’d in a fruitless fire, Or but subserves another’s gain.” --_Tennyson._ INTRODUCTION “The natural world, so to speak, is the raw material of the spiritual. Therefore, ere man can understand the spiritual, he must understand the natural,” writes Thomas Gentry. The authors of this book would go a step further and say that the natural world _is_ the spiritual. Soul and body, ephemeral and material, on this plane of existence are ineffably bound together. If you would climb to sublime heights of ghostly exaltation, study first the grass at your feet. If you would unravel the mysteries of the universe, desert the cloistered hearth for the wonders of woods and meadows. Slow-thinking man will never understand the secret of his own existence, until he thoroughly understands the plants outside his window. For one to examine dead, withered specimens and hope to understand Nature is as if a person should analyze hundreds of Egyptian mummies in order to acquaint himself with the human race. You must seek the flowers on their native heath and treat them as friends and equals. Too often is the human creature inclined to look upon members of the vegetable kingdom as things apart from the world of life--insensate beings which can be cut down and trampled without offense--mere “growths,” more akin to earth and stone than to himself.