CLASSIFICATION. 



71 



dreds, and even thousands of years, as in the case of the 

 great dragon tree of Oratava, which has lately paid the debt 

 of nature common to animal and plant life. After having 

 withstood the vicissitudes of five thousand years, it was 

 blown down by a storm in September, 1867. Man and' 

 animals have the power and instinct to fly from threatened i 

 danger, but plants cannot help themselves. Therefore,' 

 from their aggression upon each other, the limited area 

 occupied by some species, the prey they are to animals, to 

 the hand of man, forest fires, the elements of the atmo- 

 sphere and natural convulsions of the earth, many species 

 become extinct, of which known instances have occurred 

 within the last hundred years. 



IV. CLASSIFICATION. 



Every plant that differs from another, whose seed is 

 in itself after his kind," is called a species, being an 

 organized structure endowed with an essence or quality 

 peculiar to itself, and possessing the power of multiplying 

 and transmitting its type and qualities without change, 

 from generation to generation. That such is, and has 

 been, through all historic periods the law by which 

 nature perpetuates the different forms of plants upon the 

 earth under ordinary life, is evident from the remains 

 of plants of past ages agreeing with the present race. 

 For instance, our cultivated corn and fodder plants are 

 the same as those cultivated in the time of the Pharaohs. 

 The remains of flax and hemp fibre, wheat, barley, and 

 apples which have recently been discovered in the deposits 

 of the lake cities of Switzerland, point to the same con- 

 clusion ; while the flint implements found with them seem 

 to give them a date anterior to Egyptian record. 



