CHAPTER VIII 



THE FLOWER 



THE nutrient substances spent in the building up of 

 the solid parts of the 'plant reach their final destination 

 in the phenomena of growth. Thus the life of a plant 

 resolves itself into nutrition and growth. A plant feeds 

 in order to grow, grows in order to feed, i.e. to enlarge 

 the surface of its food-absorbing organs. These two 

 conjoint processes may last a very long time ; in some 

 plants they last even thousands of years ; yet they 

 always reach a limit, though as a matter of fact we are 

 unable to explain the necessity for such a limit, or to 

 understand why one and the same vegetable organism 

 should not exist for an indefinite length of time. Let us 

 imagine a plant that produces surface runners, like 

 those of the strawberry, or underground stems, so-called 

 rhizomes, like those of the couch-grass (Triticum repens) : 

 these new parts will spread out and cover an ever wider 

 area ; old parts will die away, and consequently the 

 connexion between them and the young parts will 

 break : they will separate, but nevertheless they will 

 continue to be parts of one and the same plant, which, 

 while destroyed at one end, will go on growing at the 

 other. Or let us take another example from among 

 trees : a well-known Indian fig-tree, the banyan tree, 

 produces adventitious roots from its outstretched 

 branches. These roots reach the ground, thicken, and 

 form pillar-like supports to the branches, furnishing 

 them at the same time with necessary food. In this 

 way a single tree may cover whole acres of land. The 

 main trunk may get destroyed here also ; but I do not 

 think this fact would prevent branches which have 



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