CHAPTER VI 



THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF PLANTS 



THE functions which we studied in chapter iii are 

 concerned directly with the life of the plant it- 

 self, and are termed vegetative functions. But we 

 learnt that there is another work that a plant 

 together with every kind of living thing must do, 

 and that is to reproduce its own kind. The ordi- 

 nary mode of reproduction is by seeds, and these 

 are produced only in the flowers. So that while 

 the roots and leaves are concerned with the vege- 

 tative functions, the reproductive functions belong 

 properly to the flowers. 



The proper performance of the vegetative functions 

 benefits the individual plant itself : the more water 

 and mineral salts the roots can absorb, the more light 

 and air the leaves can obtain, the more food-material 

 will be made and the larger and stronger will the plant 

 become, so that it will be the less likely to be damaged 

 by grazing animals or hurt by the hot, dry winds of 

 summer. The production and scattering of the seeds 

 are of no benefit whatever to the plant itself they 

 are on the contrary a tax, for the more seeds are 



