THE HIGHER PLANTS 



(Alossworts, Fernworts and Seed Plants) 



In striking contrast with the algce, the higher plants 

 live mainly on land, and the aquatics among them 

 are restricted in distribution to shoal waters and to 

 the vicinity of shores. There is much in the bodily 

 organization of nearly all of 

 them that indicates ancestral 

 adaptation to life on land. 

 They have more of hard parts, 

 more of localized feeding 

 organs, more of epidermal 

 specialization, and more dif- 

 erentiation of parts in the 

 body, than life in the water 

 demands. 



They occupy merely the 

 margins of the water. A few 

 highly specialized genera, 

 well equipped for with- 

 standing partial or complete 

 submergence occupy the 

 shoals and these are backed 

 on the shore line by a 

 mingled lot of semi-aquatics that are for the most part 

 but stray members of groups that abound on land. 

 Often they are single members of large groups and are 

 sufficiently distinguished from their fellows by a name 

 indicating the kind of wet place in which they grow. 

 Thus w^e know familiarly the floating riccia, the bog 

 mosses, the brook speedwell, the water fern and water 

 cress, the marsh bell flower and the marsh fern, the 

 swamp horsetail and the swamp iris, etc. All these 



145 



Fig. 58. The marsh mallow, 

 Hibiscus MoscheiUos. 



