2 
ON SOME RESEMBLANCES BETWEEN PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 387 
are folded for protection ; and the subject is one that will be found 
very interesting to study and upon which to note down observa- 
tions. 
Then again, plants bear a very close resemblance to animals 
when the period of their life is ended. The causes of death are 
pretty much the same—wearing out of the different organs—some 
dying of disease ; others of sheer old age; and when they have 
‘« shuffled off this mortal coil”’ they ‘‘ return again to their dust.” 
The earth receives them back again, and their remains help to 
make it richer for future generations. 
I have told you now that plants, as well as animals, live, grow, 
eat, digest, breathe, move, sleep, and die. But besides these 
physiological attributes, as I may perhaps call them, it is strange 
to find at every turn that plants actually mimic animals in their 
habits of life. 
We have unsociable animals that lead a solitary life, and others 
that are companionable, and live together in communities. So 
we meet with plants that grow singly, and others that are always 
found in patches ;—solitary and gregarious animals, solitary and 
gregarious plants. Of course this is only a superficial resemblance 
and caused in the plants by external circumstances. For instance, 
if the seeds of a plant are heavy, and when ripe simply fall around 
the foot of the parent plant, they will come up the next year in a 
patch where the old plant stood; but if the seeds are light enough 
to. be blown by the wind, they will be scattered here and there at 
a good distance from the parent, and will spring up, not in patches, 
but singly. Or if a plant makes offsets it will gradually form a 
patch, but a plant that never throws out offsets can never do so. 
Then, again, there are animals that are parasitic upon others, 
and that cannot maintain a separate existence. And there are 
parasitic plants that grow upon others, and that could not grow 
at all if planted in the soil. These parasitic plants, though not a 
very large class, are exceedingly interesting. They become 
attached by means of sucker-like roots to other plants, and being 
quite detached from the soil—or rather, obtaining no nourishment 
from the soil—draw all their supplies from the sap of their foster 
