The forests of the Coal Age--Monkey-puzzle and ginkgo--Wood, its uses, colour, and smell--Lasting properties of wood--Jarrah and deodar--Teak--Uses of birch--Norwegian barques--Destruction of wood in America--Paper from wood pulp--Forest fires--Arid lands once fertile--Britain to be again covered by forests--Vanished country homes--Ashes at farmhouses--Yews in churchyards--History of Man _versus_ Woods in Britain 55 CHAPTER V FLOWERS Man's ideas of the use of flowers--Sprengel's great discovery--Insects, not man, consulted--Pollen carried to set seed--Flowers and insects of the Whinstone Age--Coal Age flowers--Monkey-puzzle times--Chalk flowers--Wind-blown pollen--Extravagant expenditure of pollen in them--Flower of the pine--Exploding flowers--Brilliant alpines--Intense life in flowers--Colour contrasts--Lost bees--Evening flowers--Humming birds and sunbirds--Kangaroo--Floral clocks--Ages of flowers--How to get flowers all the year round--Ingenious contrivances--Yucca and fig--Horrible-smelling flowers--Artistic tastes of birds, insects, and man 68 CHAPTER VI ON UNDERGROUND LIFE Mother-earth--Quarries and Chalk-pits--Wandering atoms--The soil or dirt--Populations of Worms, Birds, Germs--Fairy Rings--Roots miles long--How roots find their way--How they do the right thing and seek only what is good for them--Root _versus_ stones--Roots which haul bulbs about--Bishopsweed--Wild Garlic--Dandelion, Plantain--Solomon's Seal--Roots throwing down walls--Strength of a seedling root 82 CHAPTER VII HIGH MOUNTAINS, ARCTIC SNOWS The life of a cherry tree--Cherries in March--Flowering of gorse--Chickweed's descendants--Forest fires in Africa--Spring passing from Italy to the frozen North--Life in the Arctic--Dwarfs--Snow-melting soldanellas--Highland Arctic-Alpine plants--Their history--Arctic Britain--Edelweiss--An Alpine garden 97 CHAPTER VIII SCRUB Famous countries which were covered by it--Trees which are colonizing the desert--Acacia scrub in East Africa, game and lions--Battle between acacia and camels, etc.--Australian half-deserts--Explorers' fate--Queen Hatasu and the first geographical expedition recorded--Frankincense, myrrh, gums, and odorous resins--Manna--Ladanum--Burning bush--Olives, oranges, and perfume farms--Story of roses--Bulgarian attar of roses--How pomade is made--Cutting down of forests and Mohammed 107 CHAPTER IX ON TEA, COFFEE, CHOCOLATE, AND TOBACCO