The Nature of the Organization of Ilte Plant, and the Relations of the Cell-Membrane and the Protoplasm.This view of the structure of the plant and this method of investigation lead us to a greatly modified conception of its organization, and afford more completely an explanation of the peculiarities of form found in the vegetable kingdom.
It is sometimes forgotten, when discussing questions of animal nutrition, that all the food materials of all living organisms are prepared originally from inorganic substances in exactly the same way, in exactly the same place, and by the same machinery, which is the chlorophyll apparatus of the vegetable kingdom.
Since about 1880 considerable attention has been directed to the question of the supply, distribution and expenditure of energy in the vegetable kingdom.
A survey of the vegetable kingdom indicates that evolution has proceeded, on the whole, from the simple to the complex; at the same time, as has been already mentioned, evidence of reduction or degeneration in common.
Moreover, had the evolution of plants proceeded along the line of adaptation, the vegetable kingdom could not be subdivided, as it is, into the morphological groups Thallophyta, Bryophyta, Pteridophyta, Phanerogamia, but only into physiological groups, Xerophyta, Hygrophyta, Tropophyta, &c.
