CHAPTER II 
THE FACTORS OF LIFE—THE LIFE AND PRESERVATION 
OF THE INDIVIDUAL—RESPIRATION, NUTRITION, 
AND GROWTH 
T may be said, I believe, without exaggeration 
that only a few of the many persons who love 
flowers have ever grasped the fact that a plant is 
alive, that it really lives in the sense of breathing, 
being nourished, growing up, and having its children ; 
but we must realize all this and a great deal more if 
we want to have an accurate and a reasonably complete 
mental picture of the life of a wild plant. 
If we look, for example, at a grass, a dahlia, or an 
oak tree, and then at ourselves, we may very naturally, 
but withal erroneously, think that it is absurd to 
suggest that life, even in its essentials, means very 
much the same for all living things. 
I am, however, quite sure that we shall commence 
studying Nature’s wildlings to very much _ better 
effect if we realize once and for all the universal truth 
of that fact. 
Let us think of our own life, what we mean by 
the word stripped of all that is unessential, and then 
let us compare it, factor by factor, with the life of a 
plant. 
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