Freaks and marvels of plant life; or, Curiosities of vegetation / by M.C. Cooke.

  • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
Date:
[1881]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Freaks and marvels of plant life; or, Curiosities of vegetation / by M.C. Cooke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    cryptogamia cannot be less than 50,000, and probably considerably exceed that number. Here, then, we have somewhat of an approximate idea, at what may be regarded a very low estimate, of the number of species of plants scattered over the face of the earth. It is always best in such calcu- lations to under-estimate rather than over-estimate, and if we feel confidence in asserting that there are not less than 500,000 distinct and different species of vegetable organisms distributed over the globe, including land and water, it is because we feel satisfied that we have good grounds for believing that the number is in excess even of that which we have permitted ourselves to affirm. Another “ curiosity ” is in respect to the relative sizes of plants; some we know to be very large, and others are very small, what then is the average size ? It has been calculated, in the animal world, that between the largest living animal known on the one hand, and the smallest which the microscope has revealed, the middle place, between both extremes, is occupied by the common house-fly. If we pursue a similar plan with plants, and estimate the smallest flowering plant to be the little Duckweed (Lenina minor), and the largest a Eucalyptus tree of 420 feet, the intermediate form will be, as respects length, some such an herbaceous plant as a St. John’s Wort, about 20 inches high. But if we include, as in the
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