39 2 Plants which dissipate Energy. [Sess. 



PLANTS WHICH DISSIPATE ENERGY. 



(Keport from the Microscopical Section.) 



By Mr W. C. CRAWFORD, M.A., F.R.S.E. 



The object of this report, like that of last year, is an attempt 

 to arrive at some generalisations from the facts we have 

 studied in the Microscopical Section during the winter. 

 Have our studies thrown any light on the wider problems 

 which, as field-naturalists, we have always in our minds ? 



If I lift a book from the floor and place it upon the table, 

 I have given the book (as every one knows) a certain amount 

 of energy, a certain power of doing work which it did not 

 possess when it lay on the floor. Instead of being a book, if 

 it were a weight it might drive a clock for a week in conse- 

 quence of being so raised. When the clock weight is pulled 

 up, energy is stored ; when it runs down, the stored-up 

 energy is turned into motion. Now, there are two kinds of 

 very simple plants : the one kind stores up energy — these 

 are the green plants ; the other kind uses the energy which 

 has been stored up — these are the moulds and the yeasts and 

 the mushrooms. 



During the winter before last this Section occupied itself 

 with the study of the cell which stores up energy — the green 

 cell. We studied then the alg?e : during the present winter 

 we have been studying cells which run down energy, — cells 

 without chlorophyll, — the fungi. These are the two simplest 

 of plant forms, and from their very simplicity we can discover 

 much about the fundamental conditions of life which the 

 study of the higher forms would not reveal. 



We began our studies naturally with the moulds, and we 

 cultivated them on hanging drops. If we want to under- 

 stand an organism we must try to grow it. We all, whether 

 we know it or not, carry the spirit of the gardener into the 

 regions of thought, for evolution means the continuous growth 

 of something, be it an organism or a system or a society. So 

 in growing our moulds we lost much time, but I hope that we 



