PLANT-LIFEFORMATION. 201 



Process of the Plant, which is always taking 

 place in a constituted Form, usually named 

 its organism. This is what we shall now 

 study more specially. 



1. The Plant Organism as a tvliole. Before 

 we begin viewing its separate parts, it is 

 well to look at the Plant as a whole. In its 

 highest forms it has the tendency to stand 

 erect, perpendicular to the Earth in its stem, 

 as if showing a certain degree of independ- 

 ence and self-assertion. On the other hand 

 many plants crawl, and others droop, unable 

 to support themselves fully in separation 

 from their source. Thus there is a long line 

 of Plants from lowest to highest in a gra- 

 dation of excellence, it would seem. Hence, 

 at this point rises the query: What is the 

 criterion of such excellence? How shall we 

 order and grade the Plant Organism before 

 us, belonging as it seems, somewhere in the 

 vegetal hierarchy? 



Of the animal kingdom, the king is mani- 

 fest and generally acknowledged: Man's or- 

 ganism is the highest; it has evolved to the 

 supremacy, even if it be no longer evolving, 

 as some say. Supposing that the Plant and 

 Animal start together far back somewhere 

 in the Protobioticon, they begin soon to bifur- 

 cate and each starts developing on its own 

 line of ascent. The Animal in many ways 



