THE CHEMICAL BASIS OF PLANT FORMS 
The boundary between the mineral and vegetable kingdom 
is not a definite line. The individual of the one encroaches upon 
the dominion of the other. The terms “non-living” and “living 
matter” are only relatively accurate. “Nature in all its mani¬ 
festations constitutes a unity,” . . . and “all matter is in a 
sense living.” 1 2 
Through chemical evolution a condition of matter obtains 
favorable for functional activity or life. This state may be de¬ 
scribed 3 “as a colloidal albuminoid united with more or less 
water.” Its simplest expression is found in the low forms of 
plants, slime-mould for example. This colloidal basis of life 
is protoplasm, a chemical compound of complex constitution, 
very unstable, and manifesting when alive certain properties 
called vital, or “biotic.” 4 
Active chemical changes are inseparably associated with both 
living and dead protoplasm. Synthetical or progressive pro¬ 
cesses prevail in life, analytical or retrogressive in death. 
Absorption, metabolism, excretion, reproduction, contrac¬ 
tility, automatism, and irritability are the properties of living 
matter; disorganization and dissociation those of dead matter. 
Chemists have to discover the subtle differences between the 
chemical equation of living and dead protoplasm. 
I wish to speak of some of the chemical compounds of plants, 
or more properly the chemical forms, since the structure of all 
plants is built up of chemical constituents. This subject is as 
extensive as the genera and species of the vegetable kingdom. 
Last August, I read a paper on “ Certain Chemical Con- 
1 A lecture delivered before the Franklin Institute, January 24, 1887. 
Printed in the Journal of the Franklin Institute, September, 1887; also re¬ 
printed in pamphlet form, Philadelphia, 1887. 
2 Mineral Physiology and Physiography, by T. Sterry Hunt. Boston, 1886, 
p. 18. 2 Ibid. * Dr. T. Sterry Hunt. 
