ABSTRACT
The surface of leaves in forests and prairies is tens of times larger than the area of the ground they cover. The leaves in meadows in our latitudes are 22 to 38 times larger in area; those of a field of white lucerne are 85.5 times larger; of a beech forest, 7.5 times; and so on, even without considering the organic world that fills empty spaces rapidly with large-sized plants. In Russian forests, the trees are reinforced by herbaceous vegetation in the soil, by mosses and lichens which climb their trunks, and by green algae, which cover them even under unfavorable conditions. Only by great effort and energy can man achieve any degree of homogeneity in the cultivated areas of the Earth, where the green weeds are constantly shooting up (Vladimir Vernadsky, The Biosphere (1998), p. 78).
