Chapter LI: Appendix: C (2)

One half of the problem of the circulation, however, has been left out of sight. Thus far our inquiry has been, how the ascending current of sap is produced. There remains the rationale of the descending current. What forces cause it, and through what tissues it takes place, are questions to which no satisfactory answers have been given. That the descent is due to gravitation, as some allege, is difficult to conceive, since, as gravitation acts equally on all liquid columns contained in the stem, it is not easy to see why it should produce downward movements in some while permitting upward movements in others--unless, indeed, there existed descending tubes too wide to admit of much capillary action, which there do not. Moreover, gravitation is clearly inadequate to cause currents towards the roots out of branches that droop to the ground. Here the gravitation of the contained liquid columns must nearly balance that of the connected columns in the stem, leaving no appreciable force to cause motion. Nor does there seem much probability in the assumption that the route of the descending sap is through the cambium layer, since experiments on the absorption of dyes prove that simple cellular tissue is a very bad conductor of liquids: their movement through it does not take place with one-fiftieth of the rapidity with which it takes place through vessels.[72]

Of course the defence for these hypotheses is, that there must be a downward current, which must have a course and a cause; and the very natural assumption has been that the course and the cause must be other than those which produce the ascending current. Nevertheless there is an alternative supposition to which the foregoing considerations introduce us. It is quite possible for the same vascular system to serve as a channel for movement in opposite directions at different times. We have among animals well-known cases in which the blood-vessels carry a current first in one direction and then, after a brief pause, in the reverse direction. And there seems an _à priori_ probability that, lowly-organized as they are, plants are more likely to have distributing appliances of this imperfect kind than to have two sets of channels for two simultaneous currents. If, led by this suspicion, we inquire whether among the forces which unite to produce movements of sap, there are any variations or intermissions capable of determining the currents in different directions, we quickly discover that there are such, and that the hypothesis of an alternating motion of the sap, now centrifugal and now centripetal, through the same vessels, has good warrant. What are the several forces at work? First may be set down that tendency existing in every part of a plant to expand into its typical form, and to absorb nutritive liquids in doing this. The resulting competition for sap will, other things being equal, cause currents towards the most rapidly-growing parts--towards unfolding shoots and leaves, but not towards adult leaves. Next we have evaporation, acting more on the adult leaves than on those which are in the bud, or but partially developed. This evaporation is both regularly and irregularly intermittent. Depending chiefly on the action of the sun, it is, in fine weather, greatly checked or wholly arrested every evening; and in cloudy weather must be much retarded during the day. Further, every hygrometric variation, as well as every variation in the movement of the air, must vary the evaporation. This chief action, therefore, which, by continually emptying the ends of the capillary tubes, makes upward currents possible, is one which intermits every night, and every day is strong or feeble as circumstances determine. Then, in the third place, we have this rude pumping process above described, going on with greater vigour when the wind is violent, and with less vigour when it is gentle--drawing liquid _towards_ different parts according to their degrees of oscillation, and _from_ different parts according as they can most readily furnish it. And now let us ask what must result under changing conditions from these variously-conflicting and conspiring forces. When a warm sunshine, causing rapid evaporation, is emptying the vessels of the leaves, the osmotic and capillary actions that refill them will be continually aided by the pumping action of the swaying petioles, twigs, and branches, provided their oscillations are moderate. Under these conditions the current of sap, moving in the direction of least resistance, will set towards the leaves. But what will happen when the sun sets? There is now nothing to determine currents either upwards or downwards, except the relative rates of growth in the parts and the relative demands set up by the oscillations; and the oscillations acting alone, will draw sap to the oscillating parts as much from above as from below. If the resistance to be overcome by a current setting back from the leaves is less than the resistance to be overcome by a current setting up from the roots, then a current will set back from the leaves. Now it is, I think, tolerably manifest that in the swaying twigs and minor branches, less force will be required to overcome the inertia of the short columns of liquid between them and the leaves than to overcome the inertia of the long columns between them and the roots. Hence during the night, as also at other times when evaporation is not going on, the sap will be drawn out of the leaves into the adjacent supporting parts; and their nutrition will be increased. If the wind is strong enough to produce a swaying of the thicker branches, the back current will extend to them also; and a further strengthening will result from their absorption of the elaborated sap. And when the great branches and the stem are bent backwards and forwards by a gale, they too will share in the nutrition. It may at first sight seem that these parts, being nearer to the roots than to the leaves, will draw their supplies from the roots only. But the quantity which the roots can furnish is insufficient to meet so great a demand. Under the conditions described, the exudation of sap from the vessels will be very great, and the draught of liquid required to refill them, not satisfied by that which the root-fibres can take in, will extend to the leaves. Thus sap will flow to the several parts according to their respective degrees of activity--to the leaves while light and heat enable them to discharge their functions, and back to the twigs, branches, stem, and roots when these become active and the leaves inactive, or when their activity dominates over that of the leaves. And this distribution of nutriment, varying with the varying activities of the parts, is just such a distribution as we know must be required to keep up the organic balance.

To this explanation it may be objected that it does not account for the downward current of sap in plants that are sheltered. The stem and roots of a drawing-room Geranium display a thickening which implies that nutritive matters have descended from the leaves, although there are none of those oscillations by which the sap is said to be drawn downwards as well as upwards. The reply is, that the stem and roots tend to repeat their typical structures, and that the absorption of sap for the formation of their respective dense tissues, is here the force which determines the descent. Indeed it must be borne in mind that the mechanical strains and the pumping process which they keep up, as well as the distention caused by osmose, do not in themselves produce a current either upwards or downwards: they simply help to move the sap towards that place where there is the most rapid abstraction of it--the place towards which its motion is least resisted. Whether there is oscillation or whether there is not, the physiological demands of the different parts of the plant determine the direction of the current; and all which the oscillations and the distention do is to facilitate the supply of these demands. Just as much, therefore, in a plant at rest as in a plant in motion, the current will set downwards when the function of the leaves is arrested, and when there is nothing to resist that abstraction of sap caused by the tendency of the stem- and root-tissues to assume their typical structures. To which admission, however, it must be added that since this typical structure assumed, though imperfectly assumed, by the hothouse plant, is itself interpretable as the inherited effect of external mechanical actions on its ancestors, we may still consider the current set up by the assumption of the typical structure to be indirectly due to such actions.

Interesting evidence of another order here demands notice. In the course of experiments on the absorption of dyes by leaves, it happened that in making sections parallel to the plane of a leaf, with the view of separating its middle layer containing the vessels, I came upon some structures that were new to me. These structures, where they are present, form the terminations of the vascular system. They are masses of irregular and imperfectly united fibrous cells, such as those out of which vessels are developed; and they are sometimes slender, sometimes bulky--usually, however, being more or less club-shaped. In transverse sections of leaves their distinctive characters are not shown: they are taken for the smaller veins. It is only by carefully slicing away the surface of a leaf until we come down to that part which contains them, that we get any idea of their nature. Fig. 1 represents a specimen taken from a leaf of _Euphorbia neriifolia_. Occupying one of the interspaces of the ultimate venous network, it consists of a spirally-lined duct or set of ducts, which connects with the neighbouring vein a cluster of half-reticulated, half-scalariform cells. These cells have projections, many of them tapering, that insert themselves into the adjacent intercellular spaces, thus producing an extensive surface of contact between the organ and the imbedding tissues. A further trait is, that the ensheathing prosenchyma is either but little developed or wholly absent; and consequently this expanded vascular structure, especially at its end, comes immediately in contact with the tissues concerned in assimilation. The leaf of _Euphorbia neriifolia_ is a very fleshy one; and in it these organs are distributed through a compact, though watery, cellular mass. But in any leaf of the ordinary type which possesses them, they lie in the network-parenchyma composing its lower layer; and wherever they occur in this layer its cells unite to enclose them. This arrangement is shown in fig. 2, representing a sample from the Caoutchouc-leaf, as seen with the upper part of its envelope removed; and it is shown still more clearly in a sample from the leaf of _Panax Lessonii_, fig. 3. Figures 4 and 5 represent, without their sheaths, other such organs from the leaves of _Panax Lessonii_ and _Clusia flava_. Some relation seems to exist between their forms and the thicknesses of the layers in which they lie. Certain very thick leaves, such as those of _Clusia flava_, have them less abundantly distributed than is usual, but more massive. Where the parenchyma is developed not to so great an extreme, though still largely, as in the leaves of Holly, _Aucuba_, _Camellia_, they are not so bulky; and in thinner leaves, like those of Privet, Elder, &c., they become longer and less conspicuously club-shaped. Some adaptations to their respective positions seem implied by these modifications; and we may naturally expect that in many thin leaves these free ends, becoming still narrower, lose the distinctive and suggestive characters possessed by those shown in the diagrams. Relations of this kind are not regular, however. In various other genera, members of which I have examined, as _Rhus_, _Viburnum_, _Griselinia_, _Brexia_, _Botryodendron_, _Pereskia_, the variations in the bulk and form of these structures are not directly determined by the spaces which the leaves allow: obviously there are other modifying causes. It should be added that while these expanded free extremities graduate into tapering free extremities, not differing from ordinary vessels, they also pass insensibly into the ordinary inosculations. Occasionally, along with numerous free endings, there occur loops; and from such loops there are transitions to the ultimate meshes of the veins.

These organs are by no means common to all leaves. In many that afford ample spaces for them they are not to be found. So far as I have observed, they are absent from the thick leaves of plants which form very little wood. In _Sempervivum_, in _Echeveria_, in _Bryophyllum_, they do not appear to exist; and I have been unable to discover them in _Kalanchoë rotundifolia_, in _Kleinia ante-euphorbium_ and _ficoides_, in the several species of _Crassula_, and in other succulent plants. It may be added that they are not absolutely confined to leaves, but occur in stems that have assumed the functions of leaves. At least I have found, in the green parenchyma of _Opuntia_, organs that are analogous though much more rudely and irregularly formed. In other parts, too, that have usurped the leaf-function, they occur, as in the phyllodes of the Australian Acacias. These have them abundantly developed; and it is interesting to observe that here, where the two vertically-placed surfaces of the flattened-out petiole are equally adapted to the assimilative function, there exist two layers of these expanded vascular terminations, one applied to the inner surface of each layer of parenchyma.

Considering the structures and positions of these organs, as well as the natures of the plants possessing them, may we not form a shrewd suspicion respecting their function? Is it not probable that they facilitate absorption of the juices carried back from the leaf for the nutrition of the stem and roots? They are admirably adapted for performing this office. Their component fibrous cells, having angles insinuated between the cells of the parenchyma, are shaped just as they should be for taking up its contents; and the absence of sheathing tissue between them and the parenchyma facilitates the passage of the elaborated liquids. Moreover there is the fact that they are allied to organs which obviously have absorbent functions. I am indebted to Dr. Hooker for pointing out the figures of two such organs in the “Icones Anatomicæ” of Link. One of them is from the end of a dicotyledonous root-fibre, and the other is from the prothallus of a young Fern. In each case a cluster of fibrous cells, seated at a place from which liquid has to be drawn, is connected by vessels with the parts to which liquid has to be carried. There can scarcely be a doubt, then, that in both cases absorption is effected through them. I have met with another such organ, more elaborately constructed, but evidently adapted to the same office, in the common Turnip-root. As shown by the end view and longitudinal section in figs. 6 and 7, this organ consists of rings of fenestrated cells, arranged with varying degrees of regularity into a funnel, ordinarily having its apex directed towards the central mass of the Turnip, with which it has, in some cases at least, a traceable connexion by a canal. Presenting as it does an external porous surface terminating one of the branches of the vascular system, each of these organs is well fitted for taking up with rapidity the nutriment laid by in the Turnip-root, and used by the plant when it sends up its flower-stalk. Nor does even this exhaust the analogies. The cotyledons of the young bean, experimented upon as before described, furnished other examples of such structures, exactly in the places where, if they are absorbents, we might expect to find them. Amid the branchings and inosculations of the vascular layer running through the mass of nutriment deposited in each cotyledon, there are conspicuous free terminations that are club-shaped, and prove to be composed, like those in leaves, of irregularly formed and clustered fibrous cells; and some of them, diverging from the plane of the vascular layer, dip down into the mass of starch and albumen which the young plant has to utilize, and which these structures can have no other function but to take up.

Besides being so well fitted for absorption, and besides being similar to organs which we cannot doubt are absorbents, these vascular terminations in leaves afford us yet another evidence of their functions. They are seated in a tissue so arranged as specially to facilitate the abstraction of liquid. The centripetal movement of the sap must be set up by a force that is comparatively feeble, since, the parietes of the ducts being porous, air will enter if the tension on the contained columns becomes considerable. Hence it is needful that the exit of sap from the leaves should meet with very little resistance. Now were it not for an adjustment presently to be described, it would meet with great resistance, notwithstanding the peculiar fitness of these organs to take it in. Liquid cannot be drawn out of any closed cavity without producing a collapse of the cavity’s sides; and if its sides are not readily collapsible, there must be a corresponding resistance to the abstraction of liquid from it. Clearly the like must happen if the liquid is to be drawn out of a tissue which cannot either diminish in bulk bodily or allow its components individually to diminish in bulk. In an ordinary leaf, the upper layer of parenchyma, formed as it is of closely-packed cells that are without interspaces, and are everywhere held fast within their framework of veins, can neither contract easily as a mass, nor allow its separate cells to do so. Quite otherwise is it with the network-parenchyma below. The long cells of this, united merely by their ends and having their flexible sides surrounded by air, may severally have their contents considerably increased and decreased without offering appreciable resistances: and the network-tissue which they form will, at the same time, be capable of undergoing slight expansions and contractions of its thickness. In this layer occur these organs that are so obviously fitted for absorption. Here we find them in direct communication with its system of collapsible cells. The probability appears to be, that when the current sets into the leaf, it passes through the vessels and their sheaths chiefly into the upper layer of cells (this upper layer having a larger surface of contact with the veins than the lower layer, and being the seat of more active processes); and that the juices of the upper layer, enriched by the assimilated matters, pass into the network-parenchyma, which serves as a reservoir from which they are from time to time drawn for the nutrition of the rest of the plant, when the actions determine the downward current. Should it be asked what happens where the absorbents, instead of being inserted in a network-parenchyma, are, as in the leaves of _Euphorbia neriifolia_, inserted in a solid parenchyma, the reply is, that such a parenchyma, though not furnished with systematically arranged air-chambers, nevertheless contains air in its intercellular spaces; and that when there occurs a draught upon its contents, the expansion of this air and the entrance of more from without, quickly supply the place of the abstracted liquid.

If then, returning to the general argument, we conclude that these expanded terminations of the vascular system in leaves are absorbent organs, we find a further confirmation of the views set forth respecting the alternating movement of the sap along the same channels. These spongioles of the leaves, like the spongioles of the roots, being appliances by which liquid is taken up to be carried into the mass of the plant, we are obliged to regard the vessels that end in these spongioles of the leaves as being the channels of the down current whenever it is produced. If the elaborated sap is abstracted from the leaves by these absorbents, then we have no alternative but to suppose that, having entered the vascular system, the elaborated sap descends through it. And seeing how, by the help of these special terminations, it becomes possible for the same vessels to carry back a quality of sap unlike that which they bring up, we are enabled to understand tolerably well how this rhythmical movement produces a downward transfer of materials for growth.

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The several lines of argument may now be brought together; and along with them may be woven up such evidences as remain. Let me first point out the variety of questions to which the hypothesis supplies answers.

It is required to account for the ascent of sap to a height beyond that to which capillary action can raise it. This ascent is accounted for by the propulsive action of transverse strains, joined with that of osmotic distention. A cause has to be assigned for that rise of sap which, in the spring, while yet there is no considerable evaporation to aid it, goes on with a power which capillarity does not explain. The co-operation of the same two agencies is assignable for this result also.[73] The circumstance that vessels and ducts here contain sap and there contain air, and at the same place contain at different seasons now air and now sap is a fact calling for explanation. An explanation is furnished by these mechanical actions which involve the entrance or expulsion of air according to the supply of liquid. That vessels and ducts which were originally active sap-carriers go completely out of use, and have their function discharged by other vessels or ducts, is an anomaly that has to be solved. Again, we are supplied with a solution: these deserted vessels and ducts are those which, by the formation of dense tissue outside of them, become so circumstanced that they cannot be compressed as they originally were. A channel has to be found for the downward current of sap, which, on any other hypothesis than the foregoing, must be a channel separate from that taken by the upward current; and yet no good evidence of a separate channel has been pointed out. Here, however, the difficulty disappears, since one channel suffices for the current alternating upwards and downwards according to the conditions. Moreover there has to be found a force producing or facilitating the downward current, capable even of drawing sap out of drooping branches; and no such force is forthcoming. The hypothesis set forth dispenses with this necessity; under the recurring change of conditions, the same distention and oscillation which before raised the sap to the places of consumption, now bring it down to the places of consumption. A physical process has to be pointed out by which the material that forms dense tissue is deposited at the places where it is wanted, rather than at other places. This physical process the hypothesis indicates. It is requisite to find an explanation of the fact that, when plants ordinarily swayed about by the wind are grown indoors, the formation of wood is so much diminished that they become abnormally slender. Of this an explanation is supplied. Yet a further fact to be interpreted is, that in the same individual plant homologous parts, which, according to the type of the plant, should be equally woody, become much thicker one than another if subject to greater mechanical stress. And of this too an interpretation is similarly afforded.

Now the sufficiency of the assigned actions to account for so many phenomena not otherwise explained, would be strong evidence that the rationale is the true one, even were it of a purely hypothetical kind. How strong, then, becomes the reason for believing it the true one when we remember that the actions alleged demonstrably go on in the way asserted. They are ever operating before our eyes; and that they produce the effects in question is a conclusion deducible from mechanical principles, a conclusion established by induction, and a conclusion verified by experiment. These three orders of proof may be briefly summed up as follows.

That plants which have to raise themselves above the earth’s surface, and to withstand the actions of the wind, must have a power of developing supporting structure, is an _à priori_ conclusion which may be safely drawn. It is an equally safe _à priori_ conclusion, that if the supporting structure, either as a whole or in any of its parts, has to adapt itself to the particular strains which the individual plant is subject to by its particular circumstances, there must be at work some process by which the strength of the supporting structure is everywhere brought into equilibrium with the forces it has to bear. Though the typical distribution of supporting structure in each kind of plant may be explained teleologically by those whom teleological explanations satisfy; and though otherwise this typical distribution may be ascribed to natural selection acting apart from any directly adaptive process; yet it is manifest that those departures from the typical distribution which fit the parts of each plant to their special conditions are explicable neither teleologically nor by natural selection. We are, therefore, compelled to admit that, if in each plant there goes on a balancing of the particular strains by the particular strengths, there must be a physical or physico-chemical process by which the adjustments of the two are effected. Meanwhile we are equally compelled to admit, _à priori_, that the mechanical actions to be resisted, themselves affect the internal tissues in such ways as to further the increase of that dense substance by which they are resisted. It is demonstrable that bending the petioles, shoots, and stems must compress the vessels beneath their surfaces, and increase the exudation of nutritive matters from them, and must do this actively in proportion as the bends are great and frequent; so that while, on the one hand, it is a necessary deduction that, if the parts of each plant are to be severally strengthened according to the several strains, there must be some direct connexion between strains and strengths, it is, on the other hand, a necessary deduction from mechanical principles that the strains do act in such ways as to aid the increase of the strengths. How a like correspondence between two _à priori_ arguments holds in the case of the circulation, needs not to be shown in detail. It will suffice to remind the reader that while the raising of sap to heights beyond the limit of capillarity implies some force to effect it, we have in the osmotic distention and the intermittent compressions caused by transverse strains, forces which, under the conditions, cannot but tend to effect it; and similarly with the requirement for a downward current, and the production of a downward current.

Among the inductive proofs we find a kindred agreement. Different individuals of the same species, and different parts of the same individual, do strengthen in different degrees; and there is a clearly traceable connexion between their strengthenings and the intermittent strains they are exposed to. This evidence, derived from contrasts between growths on the same plant or on plants of the same type, is enforced by evidence derived from contrasts between plants of different types. The deficiency of woody tissue which we see in plants called succulent, is accompanied by a bulkiness of the parts which prevents any considerable oscillations; and this character is also habitually accompanied by a dwarfed growth. When, leaving these relations as displayed externally, we examine them internally, we find the facts uniting to show, by their agreements and differences, that between the compression of the sap-canals and the production of wood there is a direct relation. We have the facts, that in each plant, and in every new part of each plant, the formation of sap-canals precedes the formation of wood; that the deposit of woody matter, when it begins, takes place around these sap-canals, and afterwards around the new sap-canals successively developed; that this formation of wood around the sap-canals takes place where the coats of the canals are demonstrably permeable, and that the amount of wood formation is proportionate to the permeability. And then that the permeability and extravasation of sap occur wherever, in the individual or in the type, there are intermittent compressions, is proved alike by ordinary cases and by exceptional cases. In the one class of cases we see that the deposit of wood round the vessels begins to take place when they come into positions that subject them to intermittent compressions, while it ceases when they become shielded from compressions. And in the other class of cases, where, from the beginning, the vessels are shielded from compression by surrounding fleshy tissue, there is a permanent absence of wood formation.

To which complete agreement between the deductive and inductive inferences has to be added the direct proof supplied by experiments. It is put beyond doubt by experiment that the liquids absorbed by plants are distributed to their different parts through their vessels--at first by the spiral or allied vessels originally developed, and then by the better-placed ducts formed later. By experiment it is demonstrated that the intermittent compressions caused by oscillations urge the sap along the vessels and ducts. And it is also experimentally proved that the same intermittent compressions produce exudation of sap from vessels and ducts into the surrounding tissue.

That the processes here described, acting through all past time, have sufficed of themselves to develope the supporting and distributing structures of plants, is not alleged. What share the natural selection of variations distinguished as spontaneous, has had in establishing them, is a question which remains to be discussed. Whether acting alone natural selection would have sufficed to evolve these vascular and resisting tissues, I do not profess to say. That it has been a co-operating cause, I take to be self-evident: it must all along have furthered the action of any other cause, by preserving the individuals on which such other cause had acted most favourably. Seeing, however, the conclusive proof which we have that another cause has been in action--certainly on individuals, and, in all probability, by inheritance on races--we may most philosophically ascribe the genesis of these internal structures to this cause, and regard natural selection as having here played the part of an accelerator.

EXPLANATION OF PLATE.

Fig. 1. Absorbent organ from the leaf of _Euphorbia neriifolia_. The cluster of fibrous cells forming one of the terminations of the vascular system is here imbedded in a solid parenchyma.

Fig. 2. A structure of analogous kind from the leaf of _Ficus elastica_. Here the expanded terminations of the vessels are imbedded in the network-parenchyma, the cells of which unite to form envelopes for them.

Fig. 3. Shows on a larger scale one of these absorbents from the leaf of _Panax Lessonii_. In this figure is clearly seen the way in which the cells of the network-parenchyma unite into a closely-fitting case for the spiral cells.

Fig. 4. Represents a much more massive absorbent from the same leaf, the surrounding tissues being omitted.

Fig. 5. Similarly represents, without its sheath, an absorbent from the leaf of _Clusia flava_.

Fig. 6. End view of an absorbent organ from the root of a Turnip. It is taken from the outermost layer of vessels. Its funnel-shaped interior is drawn as it presents itself when looked at from the outside of this layer, its narrow end being directed towards the centre of the Turnip.

Fig. 7. A longitudinal section through the axis of another such organ, showing its annuli of reticulated cells when cut through. The cellular tissue which fills the interior is supposed to be removed.

Fig. 8. A less developed absorbent, showing its approximate connexion with a duct. In their simplest forms, these structures consist of only two fenestrated cells, with their ends bent round so as to meet. Such types occur in the central mass of the Turnip, where the vascular system is relatively imperfect. Besides the comparatively regular forms of these absorbents, there are forms composed of amorphous masses of fenestrated cells. It should be added that both the regular and irregular kinds are very variable in their numbers: in some turnips they are abundant, and in others scarcely to be found. Possibly their presence depends on the age of the Turnip. Judging from the period during which my investigations were made, namely winter and early spring, I suspect that they are developed only in preparation for sending up the flower-stalk.

Let me add that experiments on circulation in plants made during the state of inactivity, when it is to be presumed that the vessels and tissues contain but little gap, are much more successful than those made in the summer. It would seem that when the tissues are fully charged with sap the taking up of dyes is comparatively slow and the above-described effects are not so easily demonstrable.

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[An expert writes concerning this essay:--“I have not attempted to annotate critically this paper. There is no doubt that many of your conclusions are perfectly sound, particularly those relating to the passage of crude sap through the _cavities_ of the elements of the wood, though the opinion that the actual passage was through the walls very generally held till about 12 years ago.”]