﻿LIVING PLANTS 



evolution by assuming that plants are won- 

 derfull}^ degenerate, having little cause for 

 exertion, and behave in this respect like para- 

 sites. "We can understand," he says, "how 

 by parasitism or other mode of getting a live- 

 lihood without exertion, the adoption of new 

 and skillful movements would become unnec- 

 essary, and consciousness itself would be sel- 

 dom aroused. Continued repose would be 

 followed by subconsciousness, and later by 

 unconsciousness. Such appears to be the 

 history of the entire vegetable kingdom" (I.e. 

 509). The writer believes that such opinions 

 as just quoted are the outcome of ignorance 



^ . . of the present status of botanical science; 

 Action 01 , ' . 1 i^ j^ 1 t, v i , 



plants difficult not the botany that teaches about plants— 

 to interpret their names, and the ways of identifying the 

 different kinds— but the botany that intro- 

 duces the learner to a knowledge of their 

 modes of living, their habits and their physi- 

 ology. Plants are more difficult to study and 

 understand than animals, because they are 

 so much more unlike ourselves. Vegetable 

 activities are very different from animal ac- 

 tivities; they have been developed along dif- 

 ferent lines. It is only recently that we have 

 begun to understand them at all. And yet 

 alreadv, the elucidation of plant movements 

 is providing a key to the study ol animal 

 movements. Recently an investigator at the 



