THE FLORIST S JOURNAL, 
and vegetable kingdoms form separate and connecting links, in 
what may be termed the universal chain of nature, and by which 
all created things are brought into endless connection. Such a 
view is not, however, a correct one ; it is much more philo¬ 
sophical to regard the organised kingdoms of nature as meeting 
at their lowest point, and simultaneously rising side by side, the 
perfect forms of each being more widely separate, as well as 
more easily distinguishable from each other 
A plant is a member of the vegetable kingdom ; it is imbued 
with a mysterious vitality, by means of which it is enabled to 
perform the offices of respiration, assimilation, and secretion. 
A plant is individually originated by a seed, borne on its 
parent plant, and is destined in its turn to give rise to a similar 
progeny ; these seeds, or germs, possess the peculiarity of re¬ 
taining their vitality for a considerable length of time, in a per¬ 
fectly inert and latent condition, even when detached from their 
originating source. A plant grows by taking up food from the 
soil in which it is placed, through the spongioles of the root, and 
by absorption from the atmosphere through the leaves ; this 
aliment is then assimilated in the laboratory of the vegetable 
structure, and by a process of deposition of matter, the fabric is 
increased : this goes on until, in the fulness of time, the plants 
arrive at maturity, developing a succession of leaves, which are 
succeeded by the flowers, and ultimately by the seeds. A 
plant is multiplied by division of its axis, as well as by seed ; 
thus if a portion containing a bud is removed, and placed in fa¬ 
vourable circumstances, it will form a new jflant of the same 
nature and properties as its parent. 
These are general truths, which it requires no great exertion 
of the mind to assent to ; but how all this is accomplished is a 
point of which we are ignorant. Science may and has con¬ 
structed theories, by the help of which much light has been 
thrown on the subject, and by means of which the progression 
of a plant through its several stages up to maturity, and thence 
to decay, may in some degree be explained ; but science can¬ 
not divest the vital principle of its tabernacle of matter, and show 
us of what it consists. The mystery, like that of our own ex¬ 
istence, is unfathomable, and, to use the words of Sir J. E. Smith, 
“ we can know it only as we know its Omnipotent Author — by 
its effects. This vital energy is stupendous in every organised 
bod}', from our own elaborate frame to the humblest moss or 
