CHAPTER XLl 

 NON-GREEN PLANTS 



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The term "non-green plants" is ordinarily used by botanists to refer to 

 all species of plants that lack the inherent potentiality of synthesizing 

 chlorophyll. It is a hereditary characteristic of species. For example, no 

 chlorophyll is synthesized in any individual plant of the meadow mush- 

 room, or of the common bread mold, under any environmental condi- 

 tions. On the other hand, chlorophyll is synthesized in most corn plants 

 in the light, but not in the dark. The meadow mushroom is a species of 

 the non-green plants. Corn is a species of the green plants, even though 

 some individual corn plants are albinos. These albinos cannot survive 

 and reproduce in nature as non-green plants. Likewise coleus is a species 

 of the green plants, though certain varieties of it contain so much 

 anthocyanin that the plants appear pui-ple. Green-colored molds are not 

 species of green plants because the pigment in them is not chlorophyll. 

 The green color of frogs, snakes, insects, and birds is due to other kinds 

 of pigments or to the refraction of light. Some of the flatworms and 

 smaller animals are green because green algae live within their bodies. 

 The terms chlorophyllous plants and non-chlorophyllous plants may be 

 used in preference to green plants and non-green plants. 



Nearly 80 per cent of the known species of plants are green, but there 

 are fewer individual green plants on the earth than non-green ones. Most 

 non-green plants are small and inconspicuous. Many of them are one- 

 celled plants which cannot be seen unless they are magnified by means 

 of a microscope. Among the larger fungi are the familiar molds, puffballs, 

 mushrooms, toadstools, and bracket fungi. Most non-green plants are 

 either fungi or bacteria, but there are also a few species of non-green 

 algae and several dozen species of non-green seed plants. Among them 

 are Indian pipe, dodder (Fig. 219), beechdrop, snow plant (Plate 3), 

 squaw-root (Fig. 220), "pine sap" and broom-rape (Fig. 221). 



Certain species of algae can live in the light as green plants, and also 

 in the dark as non-green plants if an external supply of sugar or of 

 some of its derivatives is available. 



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