THE SCENT OF PLANTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22505, 25 February 1935, Page 17

THE SCENT OF PLANTS

EXCRETORY GAS OR VAPOUR GENERAL BENEFIT TO ATMOSPHERE. _____ it The scent of eome plants ia not perceptible until after they are cut down, and exposed to the influence of either the sun or artificial heat. Grass, while growing, possesses no particular smell, but, when made into hay, it scents the country around; this may probably proceed from no particular plant, but a mixture of the various herbage of the crops. The wood of the ash-tree, burned in a green state, will emit a, ffagrance like that of the violet, and this it will diffuse to a considerable distance. The gland of the fraxinella, from which it exhales its scent, are large enough to be seen by the naked eye, and the vapour is so combustible that it will burn when a light is placed within its influence. The garden nightshade has the property of causing sleep to overpower those who may inhale its odour; and all have heard of the upas tree, which possesses harmful quality of vapour. The odour of plante and flowers is considered by naturalists to be an excretory Secretion, forming a gas or vapour, which" in eome is supposed to proceed from the petals transmitted from the plant by the claws at its base, and escaping through orifices on their surface, at others from the nectaries or various parts which compose their blossoms. .■. _, Although the effect produced by this gas or vapour is known, yet as far as regards a knowledge of its nature, all we can conjecture is that it must be a body possessing a power of affecting the senses of animals in a manner peculiar to itself. The object which Nature had in view in bestowing this property on flowers and plants is also unknown, but it is not improbable that it may be tor the purpose of informing the multifarious tribes of the earth where the supply of necessaries for their sustenance may be found. , . , Different plants have various and opposite qualities; some' possessing nutritous ingredients, others containing deadly poinsons; and while some nave the power of tainting the air to a certain extent with their harmful odours, all have a tendency to purify it of certain particles which are injurious to animal existence. Animals, by the use of vegetables for food, consume a large quantity of carbon, or charcoal, a part of which is only necessary for the wellbemg of the individual; and the superfluous part is therefore exhaled by the breath, which consequently contaminates the surrounding atmosphere. The vegetable world, on the contrary, far from being injured by an over quantity of carbon, is ever requiring an augmentation of its stores, and plants, therefore, absorb from the air, when it comes in contact with the sap at the apertures or stomas situated on the surface of their leaves, that part which would otherwise be so detrimental to animal life.