228 THE STORY OF THE PLANTS. 



gether in popular language under the name of 

 toadstools. Their anatomy and physiology is 

 extremely complex. 



To recapitulate ; Cellular Plants belong to 

 two main types ; those which contain chlorophyll^ 

 and live like plants by eating and assimilating 

 carbon under the influence of sunshine; these 

 are generally grouped together in a rough class as 

 ALG^ : and those which coiitain no chlorophylly 

 but live, like animals, by using up or destroying 

 the carbon-compounds already stored up by 

 green plants ; these are generally grouped to- 

 gether in a rough class as fungi. 



The lichens form a curious mixed group, 

 whose strange habits cannot here be described 

 at any adequate length ; they are not so much 

 separate plants as united colonies of algae and 

 fungi, in which the green alga does the main 

 work of collecting food, while the parasitic 

 fungus, increasing with it at the same rate, eats 

 it up in part, while contributing in turn in various 

 ways to the general good of the compound 

 community. This is therefore hardly a case of 

 pure destructive parasitism, but rather one of 

 a co-operative society banded together on pur- 

 pose for mutual advantage. 



The mosses and liverworts, once more, show 

 us an intermediate stage between the true 

 cellular and the true vascular plants. They 

 have a rudimentary stem, and beginningB of 

 vessels. They have also leaves, or organs 

 equivalent to them ; and they display the first 

 approach to something like flowers. 



