Psyche; or, The Romance of Nature [pp. 464-476]

1884.] PSYC~E; OR, TirE ROMAArcE OF NATURE. 465
Ferhaps you would consent to listen, and even to follow him
in his walks, now that spring vegetation is displaying its first
treasures.
If so, we'll profit by the first ray of sunshine and the earliest
conveyance to leave town. An American omnibus will take us
in a few minutes to the most picturesque environs of BrusselsLa Cambre, Schaerbeek, and Lacken, where the varied floras of
wood, hillside, field, and meadow are in full bloom.
~uick) jump in and be off!
Here we are at Lacken. We must notice, in passing, the
dusty relics of La Kermesse, so popular with our forefathers, and
even now one of the liveliest suburbs of Brussels. Here is the
interminable church with its insignificant fa~ade hiding monumental treasures. We'll cross the cemetery, skirting the mausoleum of our kings, and enter the Avenue Sainte-Anne.
Here we are! It is a fit entrance to the kingdom of Flora,
sweet with the freshness and verdure of spring. On our right
are the royal parks with their sombre groups of beeches, chestnuts, acacias, and plane-trees; and on the left white country1~ouses and little villas, nestling amid early foliage, give variety
and cheerfulness to the scene.
Let us pause in this vestibule of the domains of the fruitful
goddess, for strange things already claim our attention.
Look at the foot of the elms that border the avenue. The
ground is strewn with little oval leaves of a tender gre en. Can
there have been a fall of leaves so early? Is this the first vesture cast off by the giants of the vegetable kingdom?
Look closer at the pretended leaves, and you will notice in
the centre of each a little lump masked by the vegetable tissue.
O~~n it and you will find that this is not a leaf, as you supposed,
but a fruit covered with a light, membranous wing which will
float on the wind and so disperse the seeds.
Plants have many a device for scattering abroad their seeds.
"Many plants trust to ffumbers," says a celebrated English
naturalist, Grant Allen, "and produce an incalculable multitude
of germs. Many, like the elm, fasten them to little contrivances;
and wings, nets, feathers, tufts of down, are entrusted to the
winds to carry in all directions the fertilized germs. Some
plants, like the impatient balsam, toss them to a distance; and
there are tropical trees that fire them off with such force as to
give a violent blow. Other plants, again-as, for instance, the
scratch weed and the burdock-use animals for colporteurs, hooking their seeds on to their bodies; or like our apple and plum
VOL. XXXvIIl.-3o