Vegetable substances used for the food of man / by Dr. Lankester. With illustrations.

  • Edwin Lankester
Date:
[1850?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vegetable substances used for the food of man / by Dr. Lankester. With illustrations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Did the plant possess within itself no means of re- pairing this injury, the whole previous labour of the husbandman would in this case have been in vain. But this destruction occurring in the spring of the year, when the vegetative power of the plant is in the greatest activity, an effect is produced somewhat analogous to that of heading down a fruit-tree; shoots immediately spring up from the nodes (knots), the plant becomes more firmly rooted, and produces, probably, a dozen stems and ears where, but for the temporary mischief, it might have sent forth only one. Several extraordinary facts have been recorded in connexion with the inherent power of multiplication possessed by these vegetables. Among others, Sir Kenelm Digby asserted, in 1660, that ‘ there was in the possession of the Fathers of the Christian doe- trine at Paris, a plant of barley which they at that time kept as a curiosity, and which consisted of two hundred and forty-nine stalks springing from one root or grain, and in which they counted above eighteen thousand grains or seeds of barley.”’ In the Philosophical Transactions* it is recorded, that Mr. C. Miller of Cambridge, the son of the eminent horti- culturist, sowed, on the 2nd of June, a few grains of common red wheat, one of the plants from which had tillered so much, that on the Sth of August he was enabled to divide it into eighteen plants, all of which were placed separately in the ground. In the course of September and October so many of these plants had again multiplied their stalks, that the number of plants which were separately set out to stand the winter was sixty-seven. With the first growth of the spring the tillering again went forward, so that at the end of March and beginning of April a farther division was made, and the number of plants now amounted to five hundred. Mr. Miller expressed his opinion, * Vol. Iviii,
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