Omaha daily bee., 1917-02-27
Principles of
Trees Life
Battle Scientists
BY GARRETT P. SERvISS.

What force is it in nature which makes
water rise in the stem OF plant to the
leaves from the roots7 This is contrary to
gravitation, Is 1t not?-L. +. S, Chicago
You hav. hit upon one of the
head and says 81 am trying 10 find
questions at which science shakes its
out" If trees had hearts the circula-
ton of the sap, which is as blood to
them, could be easily explained; but
nobody, except the poets, has dlscov-
cred heart i'll a tree.
The tree stands before US in its
summer garments and its winter max
cdness, challenging us, like the Spinx,
to guess its secret. We know that 1t
gets practically all OF the water upon
which its existence depends from the
ground. Its whole life is defiance
Of gravitation and continuing vic
tory over that abasing force.
What makes the tree rise straight
up from its buried seed, growing al
ways contrary to the direction of
gravity 1t seems to be the Joy OF
life for a tree to keep its trunk ver-
tical II it happens to spring into
being on the slope of steep hill, what
does ii do but struggle upward into
perpendicularity: 1t simply will
not lie down. The plumb-line is its
ideal
A shrub growing out of the side OF
precipice turn its tiny stem sturdily
upward, away from the center of the
earth and toward the center Of the
sky. A tree is never PROSTATE until it
is dead. There is an invincible oppo-
sition between -gravitation and tree
growth. They resemble the forces OF
opposite poles of magnet; you cam
not make them agree.
In this polarity" may obsc brely lie
the explanation Of the circulation Of
water in a tree-but | cannot clear
up, or fill out, that explanation. 1t
may depend upon the cooperation of
many things, as say the botanists, who
now and then invent a new theory on
the subject, but always add to it, as
auxilaries, some OF the old explana-
tions. There is none of these theories
that is able to stand alone, on its own
bottom.
You will have to study consider
able number of more or less puzzling
subjects, such as capillary. surface
tension, osmosis, root pressure, trans
piration, the tendency of columns of
water of extremely small diameter to
resist tensile strain, so that they can
be lifted bodily, and so on, if you
wish to learn what botanists have
guessed and speculated concerning
this mystery and after you have fin
ished you will be forced to conclude
that nobody knows much about it.
That, OF course, does not make the
speculations and theories any less i'm
portant, because it is only in this way
that we can get any OF natures Sc
crets. Difficulty and mystery should
be to the mind what gravitation is to
the tree-a stimulus to growth.
And what wonderful thing tree
is! How near it stands to an animal
What do you think of the following,
from distinguished botanst; The
body of a vascular plant (any' plant
that has a circulatory system) is de-
veloped, in the first place, by repeated
division of the fertilized egg and the
growth of the products of division"
"Fertilized egg" That is said of
the germ of plant You have, per-
haps, supposed that eggs are exclu-
sively animal affairs. But here is sci
enlist who does not hesitate, in the
plainest language, to recognize the
fact that an egg-that is to say, a re-
productive cells essentially the same
thing, whether it hands on from gen.
Grafton to generation an animal or a
plant.
And another botanist OF rank writes
of the nervous system of plants. Not
long ago we had learned visitor
from India who talked in scientific