CHLOROPHYLL—OR NONE 181 
chlorophyll, or green colouring-matter of the leaves, 
possesses the remarkable power in the presence of 
sunlight of breaking up and recombining these sub- 
stances into the compounds which go to build up the 
plant-body. As has been pointed out, it is this power 
of forming organic out of inorganic matter that 
especially distinguishes plants from animals. But not 
all plants manufacture their food in this way. A large 
number feed like animals, finding their sustenance 
sometimes in living, more often in dead, organic 
material, either animal or vegetable. The whole 
enormous group of the Fungi do not possess chloro- 
phyll, and in consequence are dependent on organic 
materials for their food. Some of the most familiar 
of the lower Fungi live on cheese, leather, bread, or 
any other damp animal or vegetable material. The 
higher forms, which decorate our woods and pastures, 
find their sustenance largely in leaf-mould. The 
groups of the Mosses, Hepatics, and Ferns, which are 
more highly organized than the Fungi, possess chloro- 
phyll, and manufacture their own food; and it is with 
some little surprise, therefore, that when we come to 
the Seed Plants, the highest group of all, we find, 
though in relatively few cases, a reversion to the 
animal trait of using organic food. Some of our 
woodland plants have taken so entirely to a diet of 
leaf-mould that they have discarded the apparatus 
which would enable them to manufacture their own 
food. Chlorophyll, the magic wand by means of 
which the inorganic is transformed into the organic, 
and also leaves, the mills wherein the transformation 
takes place, are absent from these plants. For 
instance, the Bird’s-nest Orchis (Neottia Nidus-avis), 
