OF PLANTS. 63 



shall assume 560,000 species of insects alone, the greater 

 number of which feed on plants, to live and multiply upon 

 the earth. And this is not all, the species of vegetable 

 feeders almost always exceed the animal feeders in in- 

 dividual number. All great herbivora live a social life, 

 forming great herds, and the swarms of insects especially 

 set all control at defiance, replacing, by number and 

 enormous voracity, what they want in bodily magnitude : 

 the oak alone has to support seventy different insects. 



For all these hungry guests, Nature spreads the table 

 when she brings forth plants, and if she would not let 

 one of her worlds, the animal, become extinct, she must 

 provide so surely for the multiplication of plants, that 

 spite of all injurious and destructive influences, a general 

 famine shall be impossible. 



That this may not be effected by a simple, well-defined 

 form of multiplication, as in the higher animals, is in itself 

 evident, and becomes still more so when we observe, that 

 mankind and most animals draw upon those parts of the 

 plants for their nourishment, which we usually consider 

 to be the peculiar organs of reproduction : I mean the seeds. 



The first observation which affords itself to the searching 

 glance of man, is, that most plants form certain organs, 

 out of which; under suitable circumstances, a new plant is 

 produced ; and this may indeed be seen in the larger kinds, 

 already shaped out and enclosed by its proper envelopes, in 

 the seed. The comparison of this with an egg is very close, 

 with an egg in which the germ is already matured into a 

 young animal, the embryo. But we do not stop here. 

 At a very early period, it was noticed that in many species 

 of plants, two different forms of individuals appear, only 

 one of which bears seed, as in the hemp fCannabis 

 sativaj the Date palm fPhcenix dactyliferaj or the 



