: Aspects of plant life; with special reference to the British flora by Praeger R Lloyd Robert Lloyd - Plants Great Britain

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PREFACE 3

INDEX 208

FRONTISPIECE.--Desert types:

FIG. PAGE

PLANT LIFE

ON FARLETON FELL

Travelling from Scotland by the London and North-Western Railway, as the train roars down the long incline which leads from Shap to the coastal plain of Lancashire, the eye catches, on the left-hand side, a strange grey hill of bare rock rising abruptly, the last outpost of the mountains. It is so different in appearance from the Westmorland fells which have just been traversed, that one looks at it with curiosity, and desires an opportunity of a nearer acquaintance. During the preceding half-hour we have been passing through country of the type that is familiar in the Lake District and in Wales--picturesque ridgy hills with rocky or grassy slopes, and fields and trees occupying the lower grounds. But over much of the surface of this grey hill there appear to be scarcely any plants. A dense scrub of Hazel and other small trees clings to its screes in patches, but the continuous mantle of vegetation is lacking.

The train speeds on through fertile ground with ripening crops and woods standing dense and green, and now on the right, where the low land merges with the sea, we view salt-marshes, which display yet another type of plant growth. Here trees and shrubs are absent, and the low-growing grey and green plants look fleshy and stunted.

In the last thirty miles, indeed, since the train left the summit of Shap, we have seen a number of very different types of vegetation, which appear associated with different types of landscape--the moory uplands, the naked limestone, the deep woods, the desolate salt-marsh. Let us in imagination climb the steep scarp of Farleton Fell, the grey hill of our opening sentence, and consider at leisure some aspects of this teeming plant world and its relations to the Earth on which it grows.

Clambering through a wilderness of stony screes we emerge at length on a bare grey tableland on which, in contrast to the rich country below, vegetation is strangely sparse, and bare rock is everywhere in evidence. If we let the eye sweep round the horizon, we note a similar contrast displayed on broader lines. On the one hand is the mountain-land, with its carpet of grass and heather extending to the very summits; on the other hand the broad expanses of bare sand and mud fringing Morecambe Bay, apparently devoid of any vegetation. And it occurs to us that, before we ponder over the variety and distribution of plant life on this world, we are faced at once with a more profound problem. On this breezy summit, with our minds expanded and stimulated by the sunlight and the breeze, and the broad and beautiful panorama spread around, we must for a moment try to take a wider outlook than

Him that vexed his brains, and theories built Of gossamer upon the brittle winds, Perplexed exceedingly why plants were found Upon the mountain-tops, but wondering not Why plants were found at all, more wondrous still!

I trust the paraphrase may be pardoned. Why, indeed, should there be plants at all? This great globe, with its whole land surface covered, save at the Poles and in desert regions, with green plants in ten thousand forms, is indeed something to be wondered at. One fascinating question that arises is this: How far is our "lukewarm bullet" unique in its possession of a green plant mantle? Have we any evidence for the supposition that plants exist on the Moon, or on any planets of the solar system other than the Earth?

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