II. THE KOOT. 



science, though 1 believe it to be demonstrable. But 

 you are to examine into it, and think of it for yourself. 



There are some plants which appear to derive all their 

 food from the air which need nothing but a slight grasp 

 of the ground to fix them in their place. Yet if we were 

 to tie them into that place, in a framework, and cut them 

 from their roots, they would die. Not only in these, but 

 in all other plants, the vital power by which they shape 

 and feed themselves, whatever that power may be, depends, 

 I think, on that slight touch of the earth, and strange in- 

 heritance of its power. It is as essential to the plant's life 

 as the connection of the head of an animal with its body 

 by the spine is to the animal. Divide the feeble nervous 

 thread, and all life ceases. Nay, in the tree the root is 

 even of greater importance. You will not kill the tree, as 

 you would an animal, by dividing its body or trunk. The 

 part not severed from the root will shoot again. But in 

 the root, and its touch of the ground, is the life of it. My 

 own definition of a plant would be "a living creature 

 whose source of vital energy is in the earth " (or in the 

 water, as a form of the earth ; that is, in inorganic sub- 

 stance). There is, however, one tribe of plants which 

 seems nearly excepted from this law. It is a very strange 

 one, having long been noted for the resemblance of its 

 flowers to different insects ; and it has recently been proved 

 by Mr. Darwin to be dependent on insects for its existence. 

 Doubly strange therefore, it seems, that in some cases 



this race of plants all but reaches the independent life of 



2* 



