82 WONDERS OF ORGANIC LIFE. 



from its spreading branches, which on touching 

 the ground become rooted. Many of the lower 

 animals, as we have seen, such for instance as 

 the planaria, the sea-anemone, the sea-star, or 

 asterias, become multiplied by artificial division. 

 In like manner numerous plants may be simi- 

 larly multiplied. Take, as familiar examples, 

 the willow, the myrtle, the scarlet geranium, 

 (or pelargonium,) the cactus, the pink, and 

 others, which will suggest themselves to the 

 mind of our reader. The difference is this, 

 that plants require to be rooted into the moist 

 earth, whence they chiefly derive their nutri- 

 ment ; while the animals to which we have 

 alluded have a self-healing power, as well as 

 the power of developing new organs, provided 

 only that they be not removed from their 

 natural element. No animals are ever rooted ; 

 and yet the plant-like corallines which we see 

 attached to stones or shells seem as if they 

 were rooted, but in these instances the root is 

 only a root in appearance. When the minute 

 germ became attached to the stone or shell, it 

 began immediately to send out fibrils of attach- 

 ment, and attachment only ; not for the pur- 

 pose of taking up the nutriment, for this is to 

 be effected by the polypes, as the stem with its 

 external or internal support becomes developed. 

 In those large species from the warmer seas, in 

 which a thick, firm, granular gelatine invests, 

 like a rind, the calcareous or horny support, 

 this rind spreads out at the base, over the stone, 

 or madrepore, on which the whole is fixed, 



