CHAPTER II 

 THE DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF PLANTS 



The Universe, wrote the great Linnaeus in the sonorous 

 Latin of the "Systema Naturae," comprises everything which 

 can come to our knowledge through the senses. The Stars are 

 very distant luminous bodies which circle in perpetual motion, 

 and are either Fixed Stars shining by their own light like the 

 Sun . . . or Planets deriving their light from the Fixed Stars. 

 . . . The Earth is a planetary globe, rotating in twenty- 

 four hours, moving in an orbit around the sun once a year 

 . . . and covered oy an immense mantle of Natural Objects 

 the exterior of which we try to know. . . . Natural Objects 

 . . . are divided into three Kingdoms of Nature, Minerals, 

 Plants, and Animals. . . . Plants are organized bodies 

 which live but do not feel (or as we say, are not conscious). 



Such is the place in nature of plants, which the botanist 

 is trying to know. 



Of these plants there are many distinct kinds or species, 

 probably some three hundred thousand, as noted already. 

 Each species, however, consists of thousands, or millions, 

 or perhaps billions, of individual plants. 



Individual plants, of the familiar kinds, are each composed 

 of six primary parts, — leaves, stems, roots, flowers, 

 fruits, and seeds. Each part performs a particular pri- 

 mary function to which it is fitted in structure. In the ex- 

 panded thin green leaves food is made for the plant, under 

 action of sunlight, from materials drawn from the air and 

 the soil. The columnar elastic branching stems spread and 

 support the leaves in the indispensable sunlight. The 

 slender roots, radiating and ramifying through the soil, 



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