Flowers and Insects. 75 



elements it needs, — nitrates, potash, lime, magne- 

 sia, silica, or what not, — and it will grow as merrily 

 as though standing root-deep in the earth. Con- 

 tentedly it will fall upon these intractable, lifeless 

 substances, and persuade them to combine in ways 

 new to their habit, until they find themselves no 

 longer cold mineral elements or compounds, but a 

 vital combination, with new and wonderful powers. 

 These tissues, formed thus from the rocks and gases, 

 are the reliance of the animal for subsistence, so 

 that all or nearly all animal life is sustained by this 

 vast store of food made ready by plant life. 



To a very limited extent only can the animal 

 convert minerals and gases into living tissue ; that 

 power it has lost, and relies upon the vegetable 

 world to stand between it and annihilation. 



The vegetable world is the benign providence, 

 the never-failing nurse of the animal world. And 

 all the life of the animal world it shares. It is 

 born, waxes, wanes, reproduces, dies. 



In spirogyra we saw the dawning of love in the 

 life of the plant, and higher in the vegetable world 

 we find life depending upon the union of two. 



Like the animal, the plant passes through all 

 stages of complexity in its reproductive life. 



Here as elsewhere reproduction is but a budding 

 off of a portion of the parent, — a discreet budding 

 of such a cell or cells as in some mysterious way 

 bears the impress of the whole personality of the 

 plant. 



