How Nature Protects Herself.

Otago Witness, Issue 2572, 1 July 1903, Page 80

How Nature Protects Herself.

Gather a sycamore bud just before it burstt? and look at if; closely. You will notice that it is -tnv.'loped in tough scales. There aro either 12 or 14- of these scales, which nvake a close and complete covering around every single individual bud. Strip them off, nnd m the very heart you come upon two pairs of what will eventually be leaves tightlj folded together.

Some of these i-ycamoie Luds are larger tlian other*. Tho-^e, on examination, will bo found to contain bunches of flowers ao well as i'.eavc(=.

Sycamores, hko all other trees, take a long time to make their buds for the following season. They b3s;in nrw growth indeed just as scon as th^y have got rid of their old loav-e-? in tho autumn, and go on quietly working all through tho winter. Hard fio^t would, of course, kill the buds at once were they not protected; while, even if there were no frost the cold rains and fogs of winter would rot the tender beginnings of the new leaf. Bud-scates therefore are grown by the sycamore and other trew simply to protect tho buds from fiost end damp. They are, in fact, a sort of combinitiou overcoat and macintosh. When tho leaves break forth in spring- the syramore" buds shed their overcoats, which fall off. and may be se-en littering the ground he-neat h the tree

P^vcry tree of the kind known as deciduouc — thnt is. the trees which lose their leaves in wint-er — acts vi much the fame way as the sycamore ; but the form of overcoat is ciot always the fame. Bee-eh buds have very tough little brown overcoats fringed with white, silky hairs The white willow ami some other Itc^s have also hairy or furry coats for their young leaves and flower bud«. These silky hairs entangle air just «c animal fur does, and «o keep the budi? from the cold winds of spring.

All trees do not net rid of their bud protections. Tho hawthorn, for instance, keeps them on all the summer. They oven into small green Jeaves, which do not fall until the other leaves do.

Trees are very careful, as a rule, not to dispense with their ovoreoats too soon; but yet they are occasionally caught napping. In 1891. for inrfance, thorp wrs a terribly eharp frost over most of England on the night of Whit Sunday, and the beech leaves, which were almost fully out, were caught and nipped. For weeks afterwards the beech trees had a brown and withered look ; but lry the end of June fresh leaves pushed out from younger buds. Regular oilskins are worn by tho liorsechestnut. Anyone who has handled the bursting- lnaf-buds of this tree knows how gummy and sticky tihey are. The use of the gum which the coverings of ehesimut buds exude is to protect them from moisture as well as from cold

Later on in tho year plants need protection against the sun, which would otherwise take up all the moisture in thejr leaves and wilt them. The leaf of a cabbage ha.s a mealy look about it — almost as if it had been dusted with flour. Many grasses have a similar appearance, and so have the leaves of the Australian gum-tree. All these leaves, if examined under the microscope, will be found to be covered with a bloom consisting of tiny needles of wax. This, stuff' ha« been exuded from the > kafporro in order to save the water contained. The tree which holds the record for this method of protection is the Peruvian waxpalm, which has so thick an encrustation of wax over itu ntcrn that it is able to grow and flomUh in one of the most rainlccs reg i 01.*! in the world.

Miners in the Australian desert erect boueli (-heels to live in. These have roofs riled a couple of feet thick of matted scrub. When the <=uns heat ib so tremendous that life in !> canvas tent would be< unbearable "thefe bouirh bheds are comparatively cool. In ijust the same way the cactus — a true desert plant — protects itself with a very thick leathery <ikin.

Pine tress also protect themselves against drought. Init^ad of leaves, like the oak or elm. they grow needles covered with a touch Jrin, through which water cannot easily la*.