ENDLESS CHAIN OF VEGETABLE LIFE. 229 



common birth wort of our woods and thickets. 

 With these humble, and comparatively unimportant 

 tribes, I conclude my task, and release you from a 

 subject in which I must confess you have been more 

 interested than I could have hoped or expected." 



" Dear papa," said Mary, " I am sure we are all 

 sorry, and not glad, to be released from the sub- 

 ject ; and I am very much disappointed that you 

 are come to the end so soon, for I thought we 

 should go on hearing of plants that were more and 

 more beautiful and curious, until we came to some- 

 thing quite grand and wonderful at last." 



" Instead of which," said her father, " it is here 

 that the two extremities of the chain meet ; so that 

 at the very place where you expected the highest 

 and most perfect forms, there is, on the contrary, a 

 return towards the earliest and simplest. For in- 

 stance, the last tribe I have mentioned is one 

 which declines so much from the structure of an 

 exogen towards that of an endogen, that it seems 

 just fitted to occupy that point where we may 

 suppose the chain to return into itself, making up 

 the endless series of vegetable forms. And what- 

 ever arrangement we follow, the same thing must 

 to a great extent take place." 



