BOTAN Y. 
Botany, from the Greek botfané, an herb, is the science which treats 
‘of plants or the Vegetable Kingdom. That part of the science which 
relates to the processes of plant-life is called VreanTaBLE PHysroLoey. 
The life of a plant is very different from that of an animal. Plants 
and animals, however, agree in having a limited term of existence—they 
are born, being produced from seed; they grow, become old, and die, 
having during their life produced others of their own kind to replace 
them. 
Organs—Cells.— Plants and animals agree also in being entirely composed 
of organs. These organs are made up of other organs, and every plant or 
animal ultimately consists of cells, which are at first little globules, but 
often become extended into very various forms. The cells of a plant have 
at first a thin skin like a little bladder, containing a fluid substance, in 
which a kind of motion is kept up. Everything in plants and animals 
is formed from these cells, even the wood of plants and the bones of 
animals. A plant or an animal grows by adding cell to cell, changes also. 
taking place in the cells already formed. One cell is added to another, 
or grows from another in a determinate manner, according to the nature 
of each particular kind of plant or animal, and of each particular part of it. 
Earliest Stages of Plant-life—Germination of Seed—A plant in the 
earliest stage of its existence, as it is formed in the parent plant, consists 
of a single cell, which is gradually developed into a seed. As the seed 
is matured, in all the higher kinds of plants, such as trees and flowering- 
plants, many cells are formed in it. In a flower, we find the rudiment of 
the sced-vessel, containing the rudiments of the seeds, which are called 
ovules,! from their resemblance to little eggs—The rudimentary seed- 
vessel itself is called the ovary or germen; the term ovary signifying 
that it contains the little eggs or ovules, and germen, a Latin word, 
indicating its purpose as that part of the plant from which new plants are 
1 Latin ovula, a little egg. 
