BOTANY FOR BEGINNERS— V 



By Willard N. Ci.ute 



■f A 7l{ take the plants and animals of this world so much as a 

 '' '' matter of fact that we seldom pause to consider the im- 

 portant and remarkable differences that separate them from 

 all other members of creation. When we do investigate the 

 matter, however, we^ discover tliat plants and animals are the 

 only things we know that are alive. But when we ask our- 

 selves what this aliveness means, or in what it consists, we may 

 be i)uzzlcd for an answer. As regards the fundamental sub- 

 stances out of which all living things are made, they do not 

 differ in any essential way from the substances found in life- 

 less material elsewhere. A little carbon, oxygen, hydrogen 

 and nitrogen and still smaller quantities of sulphur and phos- 

 phoius are all that Nature needs to form li\ing matter, while 

 1(1 carry on the business of living, such matter requires only 

 minute amf)unts of iron, calcium, magnesium, potassium and 

 o.xygen. 



But life does not consist of these elements or of any com- 

 bination of them. Life is far subtler. Its grosser manifesta- 

 tions are indicated chiefly in theability of the organism" to 

 take to itself additional particles of the substances mentioned, 

 to build them uf) into new combinations useful to it, and to 

 excrete or throw out matter no longer of value. Moreover, 

 wiicn ilie elements are comf)iiiet.l in the form of animals or 

 [)lants, they are affected by time and have a youth, maturity 



