Sap (plant)

“ All that goes from the roots to the leaves is called sap. This, when it comes to the leaves and all parts of the plant exposed to the light, transpires, and so keeps the plant cool.
The stem, on which the supreme work, the flower, will be born, is, in the case of our Carnations, divided into nodes and internodes, the nodes being those solid elbows one sees. It is towards the supreme work that our eyes are turned. It is part, if not chief part, of the pleasure of our vigil to look forward to the day when the first faint colour shows in the bursting bud. ”

“ There is no reserved treasure of sap in the root in summer, such as gives it vitality in spring or autumn. If for any reason we must take up a root in summer, let every possible fibre be saved, the plant well watered and sheltered until it begins to grow again.
Raising from Seed.—The origination of new varieties of fruits, flowers and esculent vegetables is one of the greatest rewards of gardening. Almost every seed of the pie-plant will produce a variety. We have thought ourselves repaid for trouble if one in fifty seedling plants were worth saving. ”

“ This fluid is the sap [1093] that goes up in the stalk to nourish the plant. Every thing in the plant—the leaves, the flowers, the fruit—is made, as I have told you before, from the sap that the root sucks up.
Mouths in roots choose what they will suck up.
These mouths do not suck up exactly the same thing in all roots. The sap of one plant differs somewhat from that of another plant. What the root of a pepper-plant sucks up is not the same that is sucked up by the root of a strawberry-plant. The root of the pepper-plant sucks up such sap that the biting peppers can be made out of it. ”

“ This shape is far from being unimportant; it is, on the contrary, very important, since the circulation of the sap and the distribution of the sun’s rays, essential conditions to plant-life, are strictly dependent on it. If the tree is left free to develop by itself and to take its natural form, the sap from the roots will, under the impetus of its ascent, always seek by preference the highest points, where growth will in consequence proceed with vigor, [118] while the lower parts will languish and die out for want of sufficient nourishment. ”

“ Perennials, by acquiring increased vigor, are able better to bear the demand made upon them during fruiting. If large and highly flavored fruit is desired, it is of importance to allow an accumulation of sap to take place before the plant flowers. When a very young plant is permitted to blossom, it seldom brings fruit to perfection. When a plant produces fruit in very large quantities, gardeners are in the habit of thinning it early, in order that there may [277] be an increased supply of sap for that which remains. ”

“ Every spring you may see on the heads of this plant beautiful flowers produced, which are destined in the course of another week to be only flowerless foot-stalks. The flowers break off at a pre-existing joint, just as leaves are shed. The influence which causes them to fall is inability to attract sap, in consequence of inability to proceed to the further stage of producing fruit. The young tubers underground make such overpowering demands upon the sap-furnishing capabilities of the roots that the flowers cannot obtain sufficient for their seed forming. ”

“ Into this the sap continually oozes, and it is removed twice, sometimes thrice a day by a peon, who sucks it into his mouth and then ejects it into the jar he carries on his back. As soon as the plant exhausts all this sap, which was originally intended to give strength and life to the flowering stem, it dies, and is replaced by innumerable suckers from the old root. Great care must be exercised in cutting the plant—if the least too soon or too late, it is the death of it. ”

“ It is removed two or three times a day, the surface being scraped and the cavity slightly enlarged each time, until at last nothing but a thin shell of the trunk remains, the leaves meantime having given up their content of fluid and dried to their hard framework—as happens naturally during the flowering period of all the larger agaves, when the reserve of sap is drawn into the rapidly growing scape and flowers.
For a period of three months or more a good plant yields a gallon or two of sap daily, and its value may be not far from ten dollars on an average ”

“ The leaves in a young state are not glaucous, but sap-green in colour and rough, being very similar to those of the turnip, to which the plant is closely related. Both winter and summer varieties are grown; they are rarely cultivated in Britain. ”

“ Potatoes are swollen portions of rootstock. different structure is apparent. Any lumberman can point out at once “heartwood” and “sapwood” (Figure 78) , and his distinctions are just as good as those of the scientist, for he says in these two words as plainly as can be said that heartwood is the oldest and sapwood the youngest. The sapwood is nearer the bark and is honeycombed with passages which serve to carry the sap from the roots to the tree top, while just under the bark is the bright, green, living layer, known as cambium, which is renewed each year. ”

“ As wood grows older it grows darker, particularly in the center of the stem or heart. This darkening is due to the deposit within the fibers; and when a tree reaches maturity the fibers are so filled as no longer to join in the general circulation. Now, this inner or heart wood is less liable to decay than the outer or sap wood, and sap, as is well known, is the agent of destruction. Sap is water with sugary, saline, albuminous, mucilaginous, and gummy matters dissolved in it, and such solutions ferment easily and rapidly. ”

“ OF THE SAP, AND INSENSIBLE PERSPIRATION.
The sap of trees, as has been mentioned in the last chapter, may be obtained by wounding a stem or branch in spring, just before the buds open, or in the end of autumn, though less copiously, after a slight frost; yet not during the frost. In the Palm-trees of hot countries, it is said to flow from a wound at any time of the year. It has always been observed to flow from the young wood or alburnum of our trees, not from the bark ”

“ The elaborated sap is formed out of the ascending sap. The place where this change takes place is in the leaves and green parts of vegetables; it is generally in the spring season that the ascending sap pushes out the buds into branches, and developes the little scales which had surrounded these organs into leaves; but when these leaves are formed, the sap continues to ascend into them, and there undergoes those alterations from whence the elaborated sap results. ”

“ We can now have a general idea how the nutritious sap, acted upon by all the agents above mentioned during its stay in the cellular substance of the leaf, and returned from thence impregnated with them into the bark, may prove the source of increase, and of peculiar secretions, in the vegetable frame. That portion of sap sent to the flower and fruit undergoes no less remarkable changes, for purposes to which those curious organs are devoted; nor is it returned from thence, as from the leaves, to answer any further end. ”

“ In the month of April, or thereabouts, the sap which flows through the veins of these forest trees, begins to fall, not suddenly, as the sap of the sugar-maple in our northern States, but gradually and slowly, as the live-oak, magnolia, or other evergreens of Florida. The sap descends from the topmost branches first; the leaves begin to sicken for want of nourishment; they wilt, and the first that falls to the ground is from the end of the branch which first lost its sustenance. The tide of sap ebbs a shorter time than is usual in a climate where half the year is wintry. ”

“ When the buds are ready to burst, and the green leaves begin to show themselves beneath their scaly covering, the ground has become drier, the absorption by the roots is diminished, and the sap, being immediately employed in the formation of the foliage, can be extracted from the stem in only small quantities. ”

“ The sap in the tree descends through the bark, and except in early spring is not present in the wood of the tree except in the medullary rays and living tissues in the "sapwood."
What flows through the "sapwood" is chiefly water brought from the soil. It is not pure water, but contains many substances in solution, such as mineral salts, and in certain species—maple, birch, etc., it also contains at certain times a small percentage of sugar and other organic matter. ”

“ The water rises from the roots through the sapwood to the leaves, where it is converted into true "sap" which descends through the bark and feeds the living tissues between the bark and the wood, which tissues make the annual growth of the trunk. ”

“ If a tree be cut into or tapped in some of the upright branches near the top very early in the spring, and be again tapped just below the branches on the trunk, and again just above the surface of the ground, it will be found that the sap will flow from the wound that is nearest to the top first, from the one just below the branches next, and last of all from the one near the ground. The reason for this is, that the light and warmth tell first upon the excitable buds at the extremities of the tree, and therefore the sap is set into an accelerated motion that lies nearest to them. ”

“ For I do not undertake, that the Sap yeilds no relief to sustain the life and growth of the timber ordinarily, and whilst the timber is entire; but I rather conceive, that there is a more immediate and peculiar relation between the Sap and Pulpous fruit, and the like between the Timber or whole stock, and the Root of the Tree, to transmit the same spirit and nature to the Seed of what kind soever it be. ”

“ This occurs naturally in all trees, because they develop themselves in the forms natural to them, but in our gardens and orchards we make our trees assume unnatural forms. The sap flows to the highest parts by a law which is well known, though not so well understood; as a consequence, the lower branches do not receive their needed supplies, and being smothered by those above them, they eventually die and decay, leaving a naked stem supporting a top, or the common form of the natural tree. ”

“ Father said, “I will tell you the story of the sap.
All winter the maple trees were asleep.
When spring came the warm rain ran down to the roots of the trees.{100}
‘Awake!’ said the rain, ‘It is time to grow.’
The bright sun looked down and said to the trees,
‘Awake! It is time for the sap to run.’
Sap helps the little buds to grow.
In the spring the maple tree has more sap than it needs.
So we make a hole in the tree and the sap runs out.
Maple sugar is made from the sweet sap of the maple tree.”
III
Near the maple trees there was a log house. ”

“ On the largest trees two or more buckets may be hung, never one above the other, as the sap flows up or down, never sidewise. The sweetest and best sap comes from the outermost ring of growth, the wood of the previous year. It is sweetest at the height of the run. It flows better by day than by night ”

“ Admitting that the leaves of a fruit-tree have a less current of sap than a sunflower or a grape-vine, yet in the months of May and June, the amount of sap to be exhausted by these very minute brown aphides, would be so great, that if they drank it so suddenly as to cause a tree to die in a day, they would surely augment in bulk enough to be discovered without a lens. ”

“ Why are some clothed with leaves when the others are scarcely budding? Wherefore, in certain genera, do the flowers appear before the leaves?
Some authorities assert,—but facts show it to be a purely gratuitous supposition,—that the flower, which, with the fruit, seems to be the goal or object of vegetation, demands a greater activity on the part of the sap. But, in truth, many trees and shrubs, such as the poplar, the willow, and the hazel, flourish at an epoch when the sap is barely aroused from its protracted lethargy. ”

“ Few plants if grown too vigorously will flower well, if at all. A certain check in their growth is absolutely necessary, [221] and the summer’s sun or winter’s cold, under ordinary circumstances, effects this perfectly in this climate—the former by perfecting and condensing the elaborated sap, and the latter by arresting vegetation altogether. Too much moisture and shade cause those parts intended for flower-buds to be developed as leaves. ”

“ In Europe, and in this country also, root-pruning has been extensively practiced with the effect of partially dwarfing the trees, but more especially with the object of inducing prematurely the fruitfulness we so much desire, and which is a natural result of the diminished supplies of crude sap furnished by the contracted roots of a tree that has been treated in this manner. The balance between the wood-growth by extension, and that which results in fruitful spurs is sooner established, and the sap is directed to the formation and support of the fruit. ”

“ The trees which line the banks begin to bud and blossom, and there is some show of the influence of the new sap, which will soon end in buds that push off the old foliage by assuming a very bright orange color. ”

“ Being surrounded, however, by sap, like a seed in moist earth, it is in a proper situation for growing; the influence of the sun sets in motion the juices of the bud and of the seed, and the first operation in both of them is to send down roots a certain depth into the ground for the purpose of obtaining the necessary moisture. ”