Personality of plants

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS
seem to be largely instinctive and mechanical,
but that is probably because we have not investi-
gated them sufficiently. The Persian poet
Osmai believed that the plants had affairs of
the heart as real as those recorded in the human
world. Here is his account of one:
"I was possessor of a garden in which was
a Palm Tree, which had every year produced
abundance of fruit; but two seasons having
passed away without its affording any, I sent
for a person well acquainted with the culture
of Palm Trees, to discover for me the cause of
the failure.
—
" 'An unhappy attachment,' observed the
man, after a moment's inspection, 'is the sole
cause why this Palm Tree produces no fruit.'
"He then climbed up the trunk, and looking
around, discovered another Palm at no great
distance, which he recognized as the object of
my unhappy tree's affection; and he advised me
to procure some of the powder from its blos-
soms and to scatter it over the branches. This
I did; and the consequence was my Date Palm,
whom unrequited love had kept barren, bore
me an abundant harvest."
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