CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



I PROPOSE in this volume to write in brief the 

 history of plants, their origin and their develop- 

 ment. I shall deal with them all, both big and 

 little, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the 

 hyssop that springeth out of the wall. I shall 

 endeavour to show how they first came into exist- 

 ence, and by what slow degrees they have been 

 altered and moulded into the immense variety of 

 tree, shrub, and herb, palm, mushroom, and sea- 

 weed we now behold before us. In short, I shall 

 treat the history of plants much as one treats 

 the history of a nation, beginning w T ith their sim- 

 ple and unobtrusive origin, and tracing them up 

 through varying stages to their highest point of 

 beauty and efficiency. 



Plants are living things. That is the first idea 

 we must clearly form about them. They are liv- 

 ing in just the same sense that you and I are. 

 They were born from a seed, the joint product of 

 two previous individuals, their father and mother. 

 Plants likewise live by eating; they have mouths 

 and stomachs, which devour, digest, and assimi- 

 late the food supplied to them. These mouths 

 and stomachs exist in the shape of leaves, whose 

 business it is to catch floating particles of car- 

 bonic acid in the air around, to suck such par- 

 ticles in by means of countless lips, and to extract 



