342 STUDIES IN LIFE AND SENSE. 



former element is that which the fern covets. It drinks in the gas ; 

 then, through a chemical act, splits the gas into its component carbon 

 and oxygen ; and finally, keeping the carbon to form -the starch and 

 other compounds proper to plant life, liberates and returns the 

 oxygen to the atmosphere. Our green plant also absorbs a little of 

 the oxygen gas of the atmosphere by way of assisting it in the 

 chemical operations of its existence. But it is the carbonic acid 

 which the plant especially demands, and without which ordinary 

 plant life cannot flourish. It is only in the presence of light, how- 

 ever, that the green plant can treat and decompose the carbonic acid. 

 When darkness reigns, the fern and all its green allies literally con- 

 vert themselves into animals in so far as their gaseous transactions 

 are concerned. Then they absorb oxygen and give out carbonic 

 acid ; resuming their more purely plant life and reversing this action 

 when the light dawns and darkness disappears. To plants which, 

 like the mushrooms and their neighbours, are not green, the presence 

 or absence of light makes no difference. These plants habitually 

 and at all times resemble animals, in that they constantly absorb 

 oxygen gas, and emit carbonic acid. Last of all, our fern seems to 

 require a little ammonia by way of dessert, so to speak. Summing 

 up the modest requirements of the plant, we may therefore say that 

 it demands four items in its bill of fare. These items are water, 

 minerals, carbonic acid gas, and ammonia. They are further dead or 

 " inorganic " matters, and the fern becomes a somewhat interesting 

 and curious being in our eyes when we reflect that it forms a type 

 of the wondrous in plant life. From the lifeless materials that form 

 its " food " it is able to build up the living structures which form its 

 frame. The beauty of the leaf, the fuller glory of the flower, and the 

 warmer radiance of the fruit, severally represent to the botanical eye 

 merely the result of the conversion, by the forces of the plant, of the 

 lifeless materials found in the food, into the living substance and 

 beauty which irradiate and brighten the world. 



The fern thus flourishes on the food it absorbs from the soil and 

 the air around it. It therefore converts matter unlike itself into its 

 own tissues and organs. If deprived of this matter (or food) it dies, 

 and the plant presents in this respect the closest possible parallel to 

 the life of the animal, and to that of man himself. So far as the 

 struggle of food-getting is concerned, the lot of the fern may cer- 

 tainly be regarded as of an easier kind than that of the animal. For 

 the fern finds its food at hand, so to speak, whilst the animal, as a 

 rule, requires to search and to struggle for its pabulum. But the 

 analogies of animal and plant life are seen to run in parallel lines 

 when we regard the results of food-getting and of food-deprivation 

 respectively. With food at hand, animal and plant alike flourish and 

 grow ; and through want of food both perish. It remains for us now 



