The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1893-06-28
A CURIOUS PLANT PARTNERSHIP

gen that mas once al ledSG OeeH uSeu anu |
has already linked itself to the cOmplica-
ted chain of organic life. There remains
still unanswered the great question how
it originally gets into plants? Here too
as before the answer is bacteria. In all
the wonderful facts which modern sci
ence has disclosed, | know of nothing
more marvellous than the strange part
nership which in the business of taking
nitrogen from the atmosphere, Hellrigel
and Wolfarth have shown to exist, be-
tween bacteria and one Of the largest and
most widely distributed families of
plants.
The order leguminosH is one of the
most important known to botanists. 1t
includes not only the familiar pea and
bean, the vetch and the clovers but an
immense number of seemingly the most
diverse trees, shrubs and plants. A SIM
pie enumeration of the known orders and
species would fill a volume. Among
drugs, we may mention cassia, cOpaiva,
tOlu, catechu, gum arabic, tragacanth,
the tamarnd, sandal wood and liq
uorice, among dyes and dye stuffs, in
digo, logwood and Brazil wood, among
trees the locust, rose wood, etc. Indeed
with possibly the single exception of the
order Rosoceae this family of plants is
probably the largest and most widely
distributed on the earth.
JVbi1O ic too oon1v, I,ot 10 Y>ronO11noo
positively it would seem that this whole
world covering family of plants is at
work, with the bacteria, they harbor in
the business Of gathering nitrogen from
the atmosphere for their own and others
USE Indeed it would seem, as nitrogen
is an essential link in the chain of being,
that, if it were not for the leguminosa
among plants with the humble micro
organisms they harbor, that all life on
this planet would be impossible.
Not the least remarkable thing about
this whole marvellous process is the man
ner in which these micro-Organis ms as
sist leguminous plants in the accumula-
ton of nitrogen. Where they are pres
tion of peculiar swellings or tubercles
upon the roots of such plants. Upon
microscopic examination of these eX
creScencieS the cellular tissue is found to
be filled with the ramifying growths of
these bacterOids, together with what are
perhaps minute spores of the same.
Stranger still if possible, it would seem
that each kind of leguminous plant has
it's own particular bacterOid which is
much more potent in the formation of
these tubercles upon the roots of the |
species, on which it is native than under |
other conditions. Prof. Noble, of Thar |
rand has made some very instructive |
experiments upon this very point. He |
has shown that if pure cultures of bac- |
teroids from the pea are inoculated into |
the roots of pea there is a greater |
growth, and more nitrogen is taken up, |
than if it is inOculated with pure cultures |
of the bacterOids from the tubercles of |
lupin or locust. And so in every case |
when the matter has been investigated, |
it would seem that while all these nitro
gen assimilating heterogeneous retain |
modified power away from the partic- |
ular plant, upon which they naturally |
are produced that their fullest efficiency |
depends upon their development in con-
nection with the very species upon
which they originally grow.
Those who have most carefully inves-
tigated the matter, do not claim to I'M
derStand the exact manner in which at
mOSpheric nitrogen is thus aSSimilated |