INTRODUCTION. 13 
bodies. Plants may be thus designated—the pioneers of the 
organic creation—the first links in the great chain of life. 
30. Plants, then, occupy a station, intermediate between 
inorganic matter and animals ; differing from the former in 
possessing Lirr (18), and from the latter in being destitute 
of the higher and more complex vital functions with which 
animals are endowed. 
31. Generally speaking, a plant may be defined as a living 
being, destitute of sensation and any power of voluntary 
- motion, arising from the growth of a sEED or BUD, consist- _ 
ing of a tissue of CELLS, or CELLS and TuBEs, which contain 
and circulate fluids, fixed to one spot by a Root, from 
which a stalk or stem grows upwards, which bears and 
spreads out to air and light, Leaves and rtowers, from 
the latter of which proceeds the rrurr, containing the sEED, 
similar to that from which the plant sprung, and capable, 
_ when placed in a fit situation, of becoming a similar plant. Ss 
= This general description, while it includes most of the fami-- 3 
% ~ Tiarly known tribes of plants, still excludes a certain class of 
vegetables. But it applies to the best known—the flower- 
ing plants. 
