ANTS PROTECT A PLANT

Evening Star, Issue 19442, 28 December 1926, Page 1

ANTS PROTECT A PLANT

One of the most interesting places in London, is the Chelsea Physio Garden, tho second oldest botanic garden in the country, hut it is not open to the public. It was founded in 1670 by the Society of Apothecaries. Sir Hans Sloane later bought the freehold from Lord Choyne, and in 1722 conveyed it to the society on condition that it should ho for ever used for the growth of plants for educative purposes, and not for conversion into drugs. Pharmaceutical and medical students go there to study what they have read about in books. The garden contains 170 examples out of the known 200 natural orders, and is known by botanists all over the world. From there one of the curators, Robert Fortune, was sent to transfer the tea plant from China to India; he took tho plants in a case invented by another curator, Benjamin Ward, and-this type of case is still used for transferring plants from country to country. Much research work op plant life is being carried out. At present, for instance, the mosaic disease of the tobacco plant is being investigated. Plants nave been infected with the disease, which causes tho leaves to turn yellow, and unfits them for the manulacturc of tobacco. Among th© plants shown to a ‘ Daily Alail ’ reporter by the curator was one which grows without roots, it hangs from the branches of trees in the tropics, and obtains its food through its leaves, instead of partly from roots in tho earth. In another, tlio Alermocophulus plant,of Nicaragua, little brownish, seed-like bodies are ranged along the edges of the leaves. These contain food which attracts small ants, who live on it. When largo leafeating ants come along the small ants attack them with formic acid and repel them, thus saving the life of tho plant.