CHAPTER IX. 



DECAY AND DEATH. 



Change, waste and repair. Disturbance of the balance. Death of the pro 

 toplasm. Causes of death. Natural death. How plants die : im- 

 paired nutrition, starvation, suffocation, structural injury and para- 

 . lysis. Death beginning at the root. Death beginning at the leaf. 



Decay and Death. Life is one continual series of 

 changes 



" By ceaseless action all that is subsists." 



The result of these changes is gain or loss, waste or repair, 

 now one, now the other ; or occasionally (and indeed gene- 

 rally) hoth simultaneously. "While a proper balance and 

 equitable adjustment between gain and loss exists, the 

 plant lives and is healthy. Directly the balance is dis- 

 turbed the plant may live indeed, but it becomes unhealthy ; 

 and if the disturbance continue if waste overtake repair 

 if nutrition be persistently impaired, still more if it be 

 arrested, the plant inevitably dies. This is that gradual 

 and slow but sure march of destiny which comes sooner or 

 later to all living things at their appointed time. That 

 time comes when the tissues are from that degeneration 

 of their substance which may be a morbid process resulting 

 from injury, or which may be merely the necessary result 

 of the growth and maturation of the plant, or from the 

 failure of supplies no longer able to carry on their life- 



