WHAT A TREE IS 



died. There is more than mere poetry in this idea. It has a 

 very substantial basis of fact. The cells which, united together, 

 form the structure called a tree, are alive, and the corporate 

 life called a tree is also alive. 



The cells themselves are very small, indeed, microscopic 

 in size, and the nucleus the brain and intelligence, so to speak, 

 of the cell is so exceedingly minute that it can only be ob- 

 served in any detail when a very high microscopic power is 

 employed. Yet these minute nuclei possess wonderful powers. 

 Face to face with them, unable 

 to account for their origin or 

 their activity, or to give any 

 reasonable explanation, science 

 has to suspend payment. It is 

 no explanation of protoplasm 

 to state that there are in it 

 proteins, fats, granules of starch, 

 water and small quantities of 

 certain mineral salts. In a living 

 cell there is life and there is in- 

 telligence, two things a chemist 

 cannot analyse. 



While it is true that a tree 

 is produced from a germinated 



seed, yet it is only a half truth FIG. i. illustration of a Ceil in a 

 at most. Growth would not 

 take place did not the living 

 cells of the tree continually give 

 birth to new cells. All plants 

 and all animals resemble each other in this respect that 

 with the exception of the very lowest forms of life they 

 are built up of aggregates of cells. Growth in the case of 

 both takes place only by the increase in size and subsequent 

 subdivision of existing cells. 



The world-celebrated scientist, Dr Alfred Russel Wallace, 

 who announced his discovery of the law of natural selection 

 simultaneously with Darwin, in an article upholding the 

 spiritual nature of life, makes remarks of which the effect, 

 with some modification, is as follows: Professor A. Weismann, 

 perhaps the greatest of living biologists, describes the wonderful 



Stem, highly magnified, showing 

 Nucleus in centre, the Protoplasm 

 containing Vacuoles (spaces) and 

 Chloroplasts (the numerous dark 

 bodies), the Cell-wall outside. 



