THE LILY 



It is not a little difficult to think of plants as living beings. 

 They seem so stationary in their positions, their movements 

 so dependent upon external agents, and their various organs 

 and structures so unlike anything we know among animals 

 and human beings, that they seem to belong to the inanimate 

 earth rather than to the living world. Yet plants struggle 

 for their existence just as animals do and exhibit quite as 

 wonderful ways of changing their forms and habits in doing 

 so. They breathe, eat, and drink, protect themselves from 

 enemies, and provide for the union of the sexes and the future 

 care of offspring in ways that would do credit to beings 

 possessed of intelligence. 



Plants have a real Purpose in Life 



The great underlying purpose of every living creature on 

 the earth, as soon as it can make certain of its own existence, 

 is to reproduce itself and thus provide for the next genera- 

 tion. Plants are no exception to the rule. 



After the higher or flowering plant has established itself 

 and succeeded in getting proper food, light, air, and pro- 

 tection, it develops its blossoms. They come late in the life 

 story and are in themselves the center of the life purpose. 

 Their bright colors and their nectar are merely means of 

 realizing this purpose, namely, the preparation of new seed 

 plants. To accomplish this a special set of organs is nec- 

 essary and it is here that we encounter the fundamental 

 character of sex, much as we find it everywhere among the 

 animals and, indeed, in man. There is an organ to produce 

 the eggs which later nourishes and protects the young. There 

 is also another organ to produce the sperm cells. In the plant 

 the two organs may be in the same flower structure, or in 

 different structures, or, again, they may be borne on dif- 

 ferent plants. 



ii 



