86 WHY PLANTS GROW, 



also absorbed by the leaves, either from drops of rain or dew, or from the vapor of 

 water in the air. Air is largely absorbed by the leaves, and some also by the roots, 

 either as dissolved in water, or else directly from the crevices and pores of the 

 soil, which are filled with air. ' 



264. Plants absorb their food by their surface. Animals have an internal cavity, 

 — a stomach, — to hold tlieir food ; and from the stomach it is taken into tlie 

 system. Plants have nothing of this kind. They absorb their food by their sur- 

 face, — by the skin, as it were ; and when very young and with the whole sur- 

 face fresh and thin, by one part almost as much as another. But as they grow 

 older and the skin hardens, they absorb mostly by their fresh rootlets and the tips of 

 the roots, and by the leaves, — the former spread out in the soil, the latter spread 

 out in the air. For while the skin or bark of the older parts of the roots is hard- 

 ening, new tips and rootlets are always forming in growing plants, with a fresh sur- 

 face, which absorbs freely. And as to the leaves, they are renewed every year 

 (even evergreens produce a new crop annually, and the old ones fall after a year 

 or two) ; and the skin of every leaf, especially that of the under side, is riddled 

 with thousands of holes or little mouths (called Breathinff-pores), which open into 

 the chambers or winding passages of the pulp of the leaf, so that the air may cir- 

 culate freely throughout the whole. 



265. Plants absorb their food cdl in the fluid form. Tiiey are unable to take 

 in anything in a solid state. They imbibe or drink in all their food, in the form of 

 water, with whatever the water has dissolved, and of air or vapor, by one or both 

 of which their leaves and roots are surrounded. The reason they imbibe only fluid 

 is this. The roots, leaves, and all the rest of the plant, under the microscope, are 

 seen to be made up of millions of separate little cavities, each cut off from the 

 surrounding ones by closed jtartitions of membrane. All that the plants take into 

 tjieir system has to pass through these partitions of membrane, ■ — which fluid (air 

 or moisture) alone can do. 



266. The common juices of plants are called Sap. Wliat they take in from the 

 soil and the air, not being digested or made into vegetable matter, is called Crude 

 Sap. All that the roots imbibe has to be carried up to the leaves to be digepted 

 there. So while the roots are absorbing, the stem is 



267. Conveying tlic Crude Sap to the Leaves. There is no separate set of vessels, 



and no open tubes or pipes for the sap to rise through in an unbroken stream, in 

 the way people generally suppose. The stem is made up, like the root, of cavities, 



