Eye (plant)

“ Opposite each other, making a cross, are four leaves, like a carnation leaf at first, but broadening and lengthening till it is two inches at the base and eight or ten long. Rising out of the axil of each leaf are buds, of graduated size and development up to the open [Pg 55] blossom. That one stem, therefore, is prepared to open fresh flowers every day for a long time.
The plant is exquisitely beautiful, for the whole thing, from the stem to the flower petals, is of a delicate, light pea-green. The blossom opens like a star, with four stamens and four petals. ”

“ From the numerous magenta flowers strange, yellowish, cup-shaped fruits develop, seeming to spring one out of the other in a haphazard way, hanging in long chains, awkward but rather ornamental, and remaining on the plants for several years without change, except that they grow slightly larger. The distant effect of this plant is a pale, fuzzy mass, attractive in color, giving no hint of its treacherous character—more like a wild beast than a plant! ”

“ Small-leaved deciduous trees can be at their most attractive best with spring’s budding new growth, summer’s airy foliage, fall’s brilliant color, or with the silhouette of a naked trunk in winter.
With flowering trees and shrubs the choice of varieties narrows even more. Large flowers with brilliant color and overpowering fragrance may destroy balance and proportion, and detract from the beauty of the plant itself. More delicate plants are more likely to enhance the picture. ”

“ Its large leaves, of a rich polished green, arrange themselves symmetrically around the short stem, seeming to come from the ground—and so fine are they, that if no blossom appeared, we should feel the plant had fulfilled its mission of beauty. ”

“ A charming woodland plant, its airy flower cluster, which has much the effect of an Alum-root, in beautiful contrast to the crisp, evergreen foliage. The large leaves are all from the root, with wiry, purplish leaf-stalks and beautifully-shaped leaflets, each an inch or more broad, pale on the under side, the older leaves dark, rich green, leathery and very glossy and the younger ones bright apple-green and thinner in texture. ”

“ A few small bracts occur at the base of the flower-head, which droops on a small stem. The heads are arranged in little clusters springing from the angles of the branches and leaves.
As the flower-head matures, there may be found within its nodding cup a bunch of fine reddish hairs, like a sable paint brush,—later this opens into a downy seed tassel. The fine stalk gives the plant a distinguished appearance. ”

“ When well grown the leaves are often more than a yard long, and present a vivid and most striking coloration. Their midribs are 4 ins. or more across, and vary from a dark deep waxy orange to vivid polished crimson. The splendid hue of the lower part of the leaf-stalk flows on towards the point, and spreads in smaller streams through the main veins and ramifications of the great soft blade of the leaf, which is often 1 ft. and even 15 ins. in diameter, if the plant be in rich ground. The under sides of the leaves are most richly coloured, and the habit such that these sides are well seen. ”

“ Almost within reach of our hand we easily count a dozen varieties of blossoms, while at the back of the little field are masses of a tall plant gone to seed. This departed bloom must have resembled our elder in shape and size, and now it makes a wonderful display of seeds in all shades of green, yellow, and golden brown, according to the various degrees of ripeness. It is very effective, almost more beautiful than blossoms, certainly more harmonious. ”

“ A striking plant, though dull in color, from one to one and a half feet tall, with a rough, rather slanting stem, dull green, roughish, rather leathery leaves, and clusters of slightly sweet-scented, queer-looking flowers, each over half an inch across, with greenish-yellow petals, the hoods white inside and maroon outside, their tips curved in, a green stigma and brown anthers. ”

“ Leaves.—Alternate; the lower oblong or lanceolate, partly clasping, sometimes sharply incised; the upper reduced to bracts. Flower-heads.—Bright blue; sessile; two or three together in the axils of the leaves or terminal; of ray-flowers only. Rays.—Ten lines long; about two wide; notched at the tip. Bracts of the involucre in two series; green. Hab.—Escaped from cultivation in many places.
The most careless observer will some day have his attention startled into activity by a certain tall, fine plant growing along the roadside, bearing beautiful, ragged blue flowers closely set to its stem. ”

“ Some plants have perfect flowers, an inch or more across, often very pale pink, and others have only rudimentary stamens and smaller flowers, usually deep pink in color, but the plant is very variable. ”

“ In this country it is seldom seen more than 10 ft. high. The stem is tree-like, simple or divided at the top, and often, when old, becoming{127} much branched, each branch terminated by a crowded head of lanceolate-linear entire leaves of a glaucous green colour. The flowers form a large terminal panicle, and are individually small and of a greenish-white colour. This plant is more graceful and effective when in a young state, in which it usually occurs in our gardens, than when old and branched. ”

“ In fact, one has only to watch the Sun-Flower follow the orb of day across the heavens to realize that there must be something vital in sunlight for the plants. What interests us is that they have the instinct or the knowledge to so present their surfaces to the light that they receive a maximum benefit from its influences. From the aristocratic indoor potted plant to the wild trees and shrubs on the edge of a thicket, we notice a vigorous straining toward the light. ”

“ Each leaf rises from the crown on the root like a short, delicate, pale-green or yellow fibre, gradually unfolding its feathery sides, and increasing in size as it spreads beneath the water. It is scarcely possible to imagine any object of the kind more curious and attractive than a full-grown plant, with its dark green leaves forming the limit of a circle two or three feet in diameter, and exhibiting in the transparent water within that circle leaves in every state of development, as regards brightness, colour, and variation of size. ”

“ It is a plant which affords a most beautiful contrast, a cool, watery sheet of leaves with bright, warm flowers, yellow and orange, dancing over the leaves like meteors over a marsh. The leaves look full of watery sap, which is the life blood of plants and prime source of all their freshness, just as the tissues of a healthy child look plump and rosy from the warm blood circulating within. ”

“ The large leaves have their veins red, which distinguishes it from any other species. It has a large and deep-feeding root, black on the outside, and yellow within. The flowers are very small, of a yellowish white. It comes up somewhat later than the common kinds, and is not by any means common, though it may be found in botanic gardens and nurseries where collections of herbaceous plants are formed. It may, like all the species, be increased by division, but a young plant should not be disturbed for several years after being planted. ”

“ They frequently bloom all blush, which appears rather curious on the same plant; shape one or two rows of guard or outside petals; those of the inside are short, stubby, and generally irregular, continues long in flower, yellow anthers among the short petals, and seeds when the female organ is perfect; foliage narrower than any of the others, a very fast grower, and flowers freely. ”

“ A magnificent plant, one or two feet high, with five or six, exceedingly handsome, glossy, rich green leaves, very conspicuous and sometimes a foot long, and a tall, slightly downy flower-stalk, usually with a few flowers scattered along it, and crowned with a large, roundish cluster of beautiful flowers. They are about three-quarters of an inch long, very rich in color, a deep shade of warm reddish-pink, or crimson, not common in flowers. ”

“ Even the aspect of the rooms in which we pass most of our time, and the number and extent of their windows, is perceptible, by the trained eye, in the complexion and features of those that occupy them. So in the vegetable world—the bright and endlessly varied hues of flowers, and their sweet perfumes—even their very production—depend on sunlight. In obscure light plants grow lanky and become pale and feeble. They seldom produce flowers, and uniformly fail to ripen their seeds. ”

“ The leaves of the root are large and stalked, oval, lance-shaped, and wrinkled; those of the stems are stalkless, and so attached as to give the stems a winged appearance near their junction.
The plant will thrive in any kind of soil, but it likes shade and moisture, and a specimen grown under such conditions will be found to be much superior in every way. A position under fruit trees suits it admirably, and for such thoughtful planting it will well repay the lover of flowers for vase decoration. ”

“ The flowers and leaves are usually in pairs, the seed-vessels on the tips of slender stems, curving around and toward each other, as if the plant were stretching out its little hands, and opening its little blossoms only in bright weather and closing them at night. ”

“ It is well known to all who have arranged flowers for the table that the green of the leaves of different plants varies greatly in its shade and tint. Many greens do not match special flowers at all, but it is the fact that the green of any one plant is always quite harmonious, and agrees well with its own flowers!
Besides varied and beautiful colours, sweet or strong scents and supplies of honey or nectar are provided for insects. ”

“ This glorious plant, than which even a poet’s imagination could conceive nothing more beautiful of its kind, is of the Papillonaceous order, a trifle too symmetrical perhaps to be artistic; it grows to the height of about thirty feet, and on the dense mass of light green, pinnate foliage rest large racemes of bluish-purple flowers in great profusion. ”

“ Flowers.—Greenish or pinkish, in racemes. Calyx.—Five-parted, with colored margins. Corolla.—None. Stamens.—Usually eight. Pistil.—One, with three stigmas. Seed-vessel.—Green, three-angled, winged, conspicuous in autumn.
In early summer this plant, which clambers so perseveringly over the moist thickets which line our country lanes, is comparatively inconspicuous. The racemes of small greenish flowers are not calculated to attract one’s attention, and it is late summer or autumn before the thick clusters of greenish fruit composed of the 84winged seed-vessels arrest one’s notice. ”

“ You see, plants are a [222] good deal like ourselves, and live much in the same way. Some leaves have only one strong rib through the center—a sort of a backbone. Some have as many as six or seven."
They talked about these things, and looked at the different leaves and stems. Then they spoke of the stalks of different plants, and the Chief Gardener explained how the tender stalk of the lowliest plant, that of the tall twining vine, and the trunk of the giant oak, were all one and the same, only different in kind. Each came at some time from a tiny seed. ”

“ A pretty little desert plant, from four to eight inches tall, with a slender, downy flower-stalk, springing from a cluster of roughish, light dull green leaves, more or less hairy and bearing a single handsome flower, nearly two inches across, with a downy involucre and three-toothed rays of an unusual and pretty shade of dull light yellow, finely veined with brown on the back, surrounding a darker yellow, fuzzy center. ”

“ Found during July and August in rocky soil, along roadside thickets; in damp shade, or on exposed and barren uplands.
The stems of this lovely plant are very slender, like leafy wands, from 10 to 16 inches in height; they are firm and fine in fibre, smooth and shining, and bronzy-green.
The grass-like leaf is about an inch long, fine and thin and smooth; its color betrays the violet hues that temper all the green parts of the plant. ”

“ Leaves, as being the most directly involved in the matter of utmost exposure to light, show the greatest amount of response to it, by their shape sometimes, by their position nearly always, and very often by the character of their leafstalks. In many herbs the first young leaves are relatively short-stalked, while as the plant grows upward the lower leaves are progressively longer stalked, which is a direct response to the fact that the upper leaves take their full share of light, leaving little or nothing for the lower ones. ”

“ Then delightful effects may be obtained with masses of grey foliage, such as Lavender, Lavender-cotton, and Stachys, and white Pink, with flowers that have colourings of tender pink, white, lilac and purple. To acquire a colour eye is an education in itself, founded on the needful natural aptitude, a gift that is denied to some people even if they are not actually colour-blind. ”

“ The leaf-green changes color if it gets too much oxygen. In the autumn the plant does not throw out so much oxygen. What it keeps turns the leaf-green from green to red, yellow, or brown.
The bright color in plants is not in the flower alone. You have seen that roots and seeds have quite as bright colors as blossoms. What flowers are brighter than many fruits are? ”

“ In bulbs reduction in length is carried still farther, the stem forming a broad cone from the surface of which spring a number of modified leaves, forming fleshy scales swollen with food material; these surround and protect the bud, which when it grows produces green leaves and a terminal flower-shoot; growth is continued by axillary scale-leaved shoots situated among the scale leaves, which in due course themselves produce green leaves and flowers. ”

“ Hence this plant, by the expansion and contraction of its leaves, appears no less to honour the sun, than men by the gesture of their eyelids, and the motion of their lips. But this imitation and certain participation of supernal light is not only visible in plants, which possess nothing more than a vestige of life, but likewise in particular stones. ”