II. THE ROOT. 37 



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 inheritance 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 substance). 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 



