CHEMICAL BASIS OF PLANT FORMS 245 



many classes of resins, and in my paper it was pointed out that 

 saponin may serve mechanical purposes in the plant as well as 

 those of nutrition. 



The succession of plants from the lower to the higher forms 

 will be reviewed superficially, and chemical compounds noted 

 where they appear. 



When the germinating spores of the fungi, Myxomycetes, 

 rupture their walls and become masses of naked protoplasm, 

 they are known as plasmodia. The plasmodium jEthalium 

 septicum occurs in moist places, on heaps of tan or decaying 

 barks. It is a soft, gelatinous mass of yellowish color, some- 

 times measuring several inches in length. 



The plasmodium l has been chemically analyzed, though 

 not in a state of absolute purity. The table of Reinke and Ro- 

 dewold gives an idea of its proximate constitution. 



Many of the constituents given are always present in the liv- 

 ing cells of higher plants. It cannnot be too emphatically stated 

 that where "biotic" force is manifested, these colloidal or 

 albuminous compounds are found. 



The simplest form of plant life is an undifTerentiated indi- 

 vidual, all of its functions being performed indifferently by all 

 parts of its protoplasm. 



The chemical basis of plasmodium is almost entirely com- 

 posed of complex albuminous substances, and correlated with 

 this structureless body are other compounds derived from them. 

 Aside from the chemical substances which are always present 

 in living matter, and are essential properties of protoplasm, we 

 find no other compounds. In the higher organisms, where these 

 functions are not performed indifferently, specialization of tis- 

 sues is accompanied by many other kinds of bodies. 



The algae are a stage higher in the evolutionary scale than 

 the undifferentiated non- cellular plasmodium. The simple Alga 

 protococcus 2 may be regarded as a simple cell. All higher plants 

 are masses of cells, varying in form, function, and chemical com- 

 position. 



1 Studien uber das Protoplasm, 1881. 



2 Vines, p. i. Rostafinski, Mem. de la Soc. des Sc. Nat. de Cherbourg, 1875. 

 Strasburger, Zeitschr., XII, 1878. 



