BOTANY. 
Puates 54—73. 
Introduction. 
Borany makes us acquainted with plants, or the vegetable kingdom. 
Plants are organized productions of nature, possessing neither sensation nor 
voluntary motion. 
The vital actions of the plant have for their object, solely, the nourishment 
of the individual and the continuation of the species. In animals, on the 
other hand, life is exhibited in a more complicated manner: since we not 
only find actions occur which are directed to same special purpose, or 
produced by some inward impulse, but the faculty of sensation here presents 
itself for the first time ; that is, the power of bringing home to consciousness 
by means of the senses, the impressions of the external world. Hence we 
term the animal animate, the plant tnanimate ; and for the same reason the 
functions of nutrition and reproduction possessed by both plants and animals 
are said to be expressions of the vegetable, while those of sensation and 
voluntary motion peculiar to the animal, belong to the animal life. 
The motions of the so-called sensitive plants, as the clover (Hedysarum 
gyrans), venus Fly-trap (Dionea musipula), various mimosas (Mimosa 
pudica, sensitiva, and others), are not spontaneous or innate, but . rather 
dependent on external influences, or else are the result of purely mechanical 
operations, as exemplified in the bursting of seed capsules. Even if in the 
above-mentioned movements of plants, as well as in the sleep of plants and 
similar phenomena, it be impossible to deny a certain sensibility to light, air, 
cold, heat, &c., yet we need never confound such manifestations of vitality 
with the conscious perceptions of the animal. 
Striking as is the difference between a plant and an animal, as seen in the 
higher organizations of both kingdoms, yet individual cases do occur in which 
the line of distinction is very difficult to draw; where the entire structure 
is so simple, that the same object has been referred now to one kingdom, 
and now to another. It must also be noted, that this difficulty of separation 
lies not between the highest plant and the lowest animal, but between the 
lowest of these ; the distinctions and distance widening between the two as 
we ascend in the scale of structure. 
Essentials to the Existence of Plants. 
Plants in general require for their existence: 1, a soil into which they 
may root, and from which they may derive certain materials necessary to 
ICONOGRAPHIC ENCYCLOPADIA.—VOL. IL. 1 1 
