44 OF PLANTS. 



CHAPTER VI. 



OF PLANTS. 



133. Though fixed, and incapable of voluntary motion, 

 and differing from animals in structure and organization, 

 plants proceed from other parent plants, and live, are 

 nourished and die, like animals, and, like them, produce 

 offspring similar to themselves. Plants live and grow. 

 Animals live, grow and feel. Vegetable life, therefore, is 

 a very different thing from animal life. 



134. The simplest of all plants consist of mere bladders 

 or little round cells. These little cells imbibe their nour 

 ishment, in a fluid state, directly through the thin coat 

 by which they are covered. The fluid within moves 

 around in little curves, and changes at last take place 

 in it, by which other smaller cells are formed. These 

 gradually enlarge and finally burst the covering of the 

 original cell, and become new plants, similar to their 

 mother cell, and grow to the same size. Such arc the 

 simplest of all plants ; and the growth of other plants, 

 even of the highest perfection of structure, takes place 

 by the formation, within the cells already existing, or 

 outside of them, of other cells similar in nature but 

 sometimes differing in shape. 



1 } }. Plants, consisting each of a single cell, are found 

 in such numbers as sometimes to give a brilliant red 

 color to whole miles of snow and ice on which they grow. 



136. Other plants, almost as simple, are formed of a 

 thread of single cells, strung together, end to end, like a 

 string of beads. Of this structure are many delicate 

 fresh water plants. And it is a plant of this kind which, 



