BOTANY 
CHAPTER [, 
ORGANS OF FLOWERING PLANTS. 
All living things, whether plants or animals, must 
do work and earry out certain processes in order that 
they may continue to live and remain healthy and 
vigorous. Consider for a moment one of the higher 
animals such as the horse or sheep. It must eat, 
breathe, digest its food, and carry out a hundred other 
processes necessary to its welfare. Each part of its 
body is built to suit exactly the particular kind of 
work required of it: the lungs do the breathing, the 
stomach helps in digestion, and the heart pumps the 
blood to every part of the animal. Such special parts 
of a living thing which thus do special work, or, in 
other words, carry out special functions, are ealled 
organs, and the individual to which they belong is an 
organism. 
Plants no less than animals-are organisms, for they 
too have their organs, each adapted to its particular 
work. The root obtains food from the soil and the leaf 
secures food from the air, while the stem forms a 
highway of communication between the two. 
It must not be supposed that every organism has a 
variety of organs, for the term embraces everything 
that carries out the functions of life, and thus includes 
even the lowliest plants and animals. Bacteria, for 
instance, among plants, and the ameba among animals 
consist of but a single cell. This cell breathes, gathers 
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