450 The Living Plant 



damp rotting wood in dark places, in a way so like to some animals 

 that zoologists lay even stronger claim than do botanists to their 

 possession, and, (d) the most important of all, the Algae. 



So, the Algae evolved probably from Eoprotista, and by a 

 method which was somewhat like this. Among the variations or 

 mutations (or whatsoever else it is that our chapter on Evolution 

 concluded does originate innovations in living Nature) arising 

 in the Eoprotista, must have been many new chemical com- 

 pounds, among which, in time, appeared chlorophyll. This sub- 

 stance happening to possess such properties that sunlight falling 

 upon it dissociates carbon dioxide, enabled its possessors to make 

 their food far more rapidly and easily than by the old chemosyn- 

 thetic method; and therefore those plants were enabled to grow, 

 increase, develop, and expand immensely until they filled the 

 lighted seas of the world. Thus the little chlorophyll-bearing 

 branch of our tree, the one that happened to be thus fruitful 

 among so many that were barren, expanded so greatly that 

 gradually it became the main trunk of the tree, which fact we 

 may express by swinging it around into the main line of ascent as 

 has been done in our diagram. Thus arose the Algae, the char- 

 acteristic group of the waters, in which they have persisted right 

 down to the present, giving origin in time to Red and Brown 

 branches as the tree represents. It is interesting to know that 

 our living Algae have an ancestry so ancient, so ancient indeed 

 that they have doubtless had time to evolve everything of which 

 they are capable, and have consequently reached a condition of 

 comparative evolutionary stability. 



The Fungi. — These are, so to speak, the degraded and criminal 

 classes of plants, which prey upon good plant society, or eke out 

 an unenviable existence as scavengers of its offal. Expressed 

 more precisely, in the manner of science, they are parasites which 

 take all their food ready-made from living green plants or from 

 animals, causing, incidentally, damage, disease, or death; or else 

 they are saprophytes whch consume and destroy dead animal or 



