"If these plants and bushes had tongues," said Jack, "they could
probably give us the information we require."
"Do you think," inquired Ernest, "that plants and bushes are utterly
without sensation?"
"Faith, I can't say," replied Jack; "perhaps they can speak if they
liked--probably they have an idiom of their own. You, that know all
languages, and a great many more besides, possibly can converse with
them."
"I should like to know," said Becker, "why you two gentlemen are
always snarling at each other; it is neither amusing nor amiable."
"Ernest is continually showing me up, father, and it is but fair that
I should be allowed to retort now and then. But to return to plants,
Ernest; you say they have nerves?"
"If they have," said Willis, "they do not seem to possess the bottle
of salts that most nervous ladies usually have."
"No," replied Ernest, "they have no nerves, properly so called; but
there are plants, and I may add many plants, which, by their
qualities--I may almost say by their intelligence--seem to be placed
much higher in the scale of creation than they really are. The
sensitive plant, for example, shrinks when it is touched; tulips open
their petals when the weather is fine, and shut them again at sunset
or when it rains; wild barley, when placed on a table, often moves by
itself, especially when it has been first warmed by the hand; the
heliotrope always turns the face of its flowers to the sun.
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