﻿LIVING PLANTS 



fixed objects. They have not been required to 

 learn to move out of the way of danger, or 

 to recoil when hurt, because the character of 

 their structure makes movement difficult, 

 their limbs and organs are not sufficiently 

 plastic, and their attachment to the earth re- 

 strains them, like Prometheus bound. 



This leads me to say, that as a rule we do 

 not expect the right things of plants ; we do 

 not understand them. Our point of view is 

 not well chosen. Animals are free moving 

 beings, with their soft parts in considerable 

 masses, while plants are fixed to one spot all 

 their lives, and have their soft parts infinitely 

 divided, each particle being encased in a 

 rather rigid envelope. How can they act 

 alike? And yet both are organized from the 

 same character of living matter, which is 

 obedient to the same general laws. 



In another respect plants differ widely from 

 animals. They have no nervous organiza- 

 tion, and no co-ordinating centers for deter- 

 mining the character of movements. The 

 movement that follows a stimulus is there- 

 fore confined usually to the near vicinity of 

 the point of stimulation. If they experience 

 pain, as I think they may, it can rarely ex- 

 tend to the wdiole organism, but the injured 

 organ suffers without its fellows being 

 affected. 



