The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-10-14

taperlike spears innumerable, but a
proportion of these recurring into the
water. become new plants, while the
branches send down roots which soon
reach the water. then quickly establish
themselves and help TO support the
main plant.
The mangrove is in fact a vegetable
joint-stock company, the vines and
root-shoots being local agencies, max
ing regular remittances to the home
office. Like other corporations, too, 1t
takes good care of its own. for it never
,ets a seed drop until termination has
so far advanced that the seed has be-
come young plant, provided with a
spear-like attachment for root, then
he old one says to it:
Here, youngster. get right out and
DOT for yourself"
SO Mangrove Junior is unceremoni-
ously kicked off his branch, pumps
feet foremost into the mud and wastes
no time growing knees knowing he
must do his share toward retaining
land from the sea.
The cypress and other plants men
toned make the blunder of working
overtime on their roots, but there are
other members of the vegetable world
which show just as little sense by de-
voting too much time to their tops.
The cotton-tree of Brazil and the West
Indies has not sufficient self-respect to
refrain from becoming a freak among
trees, a vegetable laugh ng-stock among
its kind.
Imagine a radish sixty to seventy
feet high, six to eight feet in diameter,
with a little clump of foliage at the
summit, few roots spreading from
the base showing a little above the
surface ere they disappear in the
ground, and you have the cotton-tree.
Sometimes hollow, sometimes solid, it
is always of the same shape, with not
a branch to disturb it's absurd outline.
THE COTTON-TREEs FREAKIsH
GROWTH
The Indians say that their gods knew
how much trouble it was to make a
canoe and SO gave them the cotton
tree. It's wood is lighter than pine
and almost as soft as cork. The shape
adapts the trunk to nautical uses, and
after the tree is felled. with compare
lively little labor, the interior is ex-
cavated, the canoe pitched without and
within and ready for use. One of these
canoes, fifty feet long, will carry a load
of eight to twelve tons, not including
that of the bOatmen.
The cotton fiber grown by the tree
has little utility, being employed by the
Indians and negroes only for filling
bed-ticks and making pillows. How
ever invaluable the trunk of the tree
is to the savage deniZens of the Anna
zon valley, 1t is not to be supposed
that the cotton-tree has any benevo-
lent purpose when growing into its
iS a
that knows no better than to grow a
huge wooden radish when it might
develop as beautifully as the rubber
trees not far away
Speaking of overtime spent on stem
and top, the common garden geraniums
are guilty of the same folly. How an
ordinary geranium with a dozen side
shoots can extract it's nouriShment
from the soil through the little cluster
Of roots at the bottom of the stem is
one of natures marvels. Every flower
grower knows how easily his gerani-
ums are blown over, how they often
fall of their own weight when the
ground is softened by rain, but he
should not blame himself. The gerani-
UNI ought to know enough to grow
more roots or less top.
The Dutch hyacinths, tulips. and
narcissi have vastly more sense. AS
soon as planted, they send roots from
the bottom and strike deeply into the
mold. Even the Gala, although 1t
makes the comical blunder of starting
it's roots from the top instead of the
bottom of the bulb, shows better judg-
ment than all the geraniums on earth,
because both bulb and roots. deeply
sunk and widely spread, help it to up
hold its broad, rich green leaves and
snowy blossoms. It must be admitted
that the bulbs do rather more work
than is necessary on their roots, for
accurate judgment would show them
the advisability of more strength in
their tops, especially in the case of the
narcissi
The sea onion, too, shows small wit
in pushing the entire bulb above
ground, but then, perhaps, it enjoys the
sun more than do other bulbs, for even
the plant world has it's lazy loafers,
who would rather lie in the sunshine
than work, and the sea onion may be
one of this class.
DIFFERENT GRADES OF IDIOTS.
An authority on mental disease says
gravely in one of his books, There are
different grades of idiots" In every
asylum for incurables, there are de-
grees of intelligence or the lack of it,
and so also among pIants-every class
of intellect may be observed, from the
keenest foresight to the most abject
idiocy. There are also plants tempo
rarily idiotic which bethink themselves
of their folly and mend their ways in
time to escape its consequences.
A great philosopher says in sub
stance, that every man has some
where on his brain an idiotic area, on
which an idea alighting makes no i'm
preston. Sometimes, we must confess.
the area spreads over the entire brain
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