Natural History 003 



Hermon, so a genealogical tree can be constructed for the orders 

 of flowering plants, and for the vegetable kingdom as a whole. 



Common Characters of Plants 



Amid many idiosyncrasies, and in spite of some great ex- 

 ceptions, such as moulds and mushrooms exhibit, there are some 

 important common characters which bind plants together. There 

 is the general possession of the leaf-green pigment called chloro- 

 phyll, conspicuous by its absence in the fungi and in the strange 

 dodder, a flowering plant which victimises others. Then there is 

 the fact that the unit-masses of living matter that build up the 

 plant are boxed in by walls of cellulose a carbohydrate with the 

 same formula as starch (Ce Hio Os). This imprisoning of the 

 living matter within very definite cell-walls which do not occur 

 among animals implies a great restriction in the motor activities 

 of the plant, and determines in great measure the lines of their 

 everyday activity. Another feature of plants is the absence of 

 any method of gettting rid of the nitrogenous waste-products. All 

 living involves the breaking down of proteins, with the consequent 

 formation of nitrogenous waste. This waste is got rid of in higher 

 animals by the kidneys and the skin. But in the plant the deposi- 

 tion, instead of the elimination, of nitrogenous waste must tend to 

 depress vital activity and deepen its slumbers. For a plant is 

 rarely more than half -awake. 



As has been already indicated, it is characteristic of plants to 

 be able to feed at a low chemical level and to be able to effect 

 photosynthesis. But this must be added, that typical plants, as 

 compared with typical animals, are predominantly constructive, 

 accumulating energy progressively, gathering stores in large 

 quantity, often, it would seem, beyond what they can possibly 

 need. Their particular regime or metabolism leads to a great 

 hoarding of reserve products, to which vegetarian animals do 

 justice in their explosive, adventurous life; and it must be re- 

 membered that as plants cannot move about, except in the case 



