362 LUMINOSITY IN PLANTS. 



tree bark or in the wood, is luminous. The luminous fungus threads 

 growing in phosphorescent wood produce, as a rule, no fruit-bearing 

 organs whatever. If the idea of this light of the myceleum were to 

 allure insects or maggots, the result would be simply the destruction 

 of the fungus, for by attracting these animals it would not be dis- 

 seminated, but fed upon, and thereby destroyed, so that its light 

 would be its ruin. Or if the light of the plant were to serve the 

 jnirpose of enticing animal forms at night, it is not easy to under- 

 stand why the plant is not luminous merely at night instead of unin- 

 terruptedly by day and by night — that is, at times when the light is 

 wholly imperceptible to these animals. In the case of plants the 

 question is a radically different one from that in the case of ani- 

 mals, and under these circumstances it seems to me better to forego 

 speculations and simply to rest on the fact that at the present time we 

 are unable to give any plausible teleological explanation of luminous- 

 ity in the Fungi ; perhaps, indeed probably, because it is nothing more 

 than an inevitable consequence of the transforming of substances in 

 the luminous Fungi. 



If, in conclusion, we glance at our problem from the standpoint of 

 dynamics, it is seen that, in company with various forms of energy 

 in the plant, as heat, electricity, and chemical energy, radiant energy 

 can also be produced in the form of light. A wondrous factor ! The 

 green cell in its minute microscoi)ic laboratory, the chlorophyl 

 grain, lays hold upon the energy emanating from the sun and trans- 

 forms the living force of the light ray into cheuiical energy. Thereby 

 is produced from the carbonic-acid gas of the atmosphere, with lib- 

 eration of oxygen, organic matter — a storehouse of potential force. 

 This organic matter enters as food into luminous animals and 

 luminous plants, and there by transmutation produces once more 

 heat and light. 



Truly a cycle from light to light in the plant! In fact, the light 

 of the living organism is governed l)y the energy of the sun. When 

 the light of the glowworm, hidden in the grass, pours forth, direct- 

 nig by its lantern the way for its amorous mate; when the NoctUiica 

 or Pei'klinece, disturbed by the ship's keel or whipped by the waves, 

 suddenly gleam forth ; when the sea crabs on the floor of the ocean 

 illuminate the darkness with their organs of light, or when luminous 

 bacteria in decaying flesh or shining nnishrooms in old forests flood 

 their surroundings with magic twilight, this light of the organism is 

 fundamentally nothing other than the radiating energy of the sun 

 caught up by the plant and transformed into light. It is the new- 

 born sunlight of the plant. 



