The Prevalence of Green Color in Plants 17 



one after another, it gradually becomes plain that one feature, 

 and only one, does prevail very widely, — and that is the possession 

 of green color. Moreover, a deeper study by aid of microscope and 

 experiment shows that this truth is more nearly universal than 

 appears at first sight, for a good many plants that display other 

 colors, — e. g., the red foliage plants of the gardens and the brown 

 and red seaweeds, — prove to be green in reality, though that 

 color is masked by the presence of the others. 



But although the green color, which is that of a definite sub- 

 stance called chlorophyll, is thus very wide spread among plants, 

 there are some, nevertheless, which really do not have it. Such 

 are the mushrooms, molds, mildews, yeasts and germs, as like- 

 wise the Ghost Plant (or Indian Pipe), of the woods, the twining 

 Dodder of the fields, and a few others. These plants are mostly 

 white to brown, though they often exhibit very brilliant hues of 

 red, yellow, and even a kind of a green, which, however, is very 

 different in shade and nature from chlorophyll. All of these 

 brighter colors are easil}^ removable by chemical means; and when 

 that is done, the tissues are left either white or brown, with never 

 a trace of the chlorophyll. 



There are, accordingly, plants which really are green and 

 plants which really are not. And the reader's first natural 

 thought, that so striking a difference in one feature is probably 

 linked with differences in others, is correct. In the first place, 

 observation at once shows a very fundamental difference between 

 the two lands in habit, for all of those lacking the chlorophyll 

 are dependent for their food upon other beings, either upon liv- 

 ing plants or animals, (in which case they are called parasites), 

 or else upon their decaying remains, (when they are called 

 saprophytes). In sharp contradistinction stand the green plants, 

 practically all of which subsist without aid from other living 

 things, thriving upon materials which they take from the air, 

 the soil and the waters. A second great difference consists in 

 this, that all of the non-green plants are small and of humble 



