. The elements of botany for beginners and for schools. Botany. SECTION IG.] MOVEMENTS. 149 they restore an equal bulk of life-sustaining oxygen needful for the respiration of animals, — needful, also, in a certain measure, for plants in any work they do. For in plants, as well as in animals, work is done at a certain cost. § 6. PLANT WORK AND MOVEMENT. 458. As the organic basis and truly living material of plants is identical with that of animals, so is the life at bottom essentially the same; but in animals something is added at every rise from the lowest to highest organ- isms. Action and w
. The elements of botany for beginners and for schools. Botany. SECTION IG.] MOVEMENTS. 149 they restore an equal bulk of life-sustaining oxygen needful for the respiration of animals, — needful, also, in a certain measure, for plants in any work they do. For in plants, as well as in animals, work is done at a certain cost. § 6. PLANT WORK AND MOVEMENT. 458. As the organic basis and truly living material of plants is identical with that of animals, so is the life at bottom essentially the same; but in animals something is added at every rise from the lowest to highest organ- isms. Action and work in living beings require movement. 459. Living things move; those not living are only moved. Plants move as truly as do animals. The latter, nourished as they are upon or- ganized food, which has been prepared for them by plants, and is found only here and there, must needs have the power of going after it, of collect- ing it, or at least of taking it in; which requires them to make spontaneous movements. But ordinary plants, with their wide-spread surface, always in contact with the earth and air on which they feed, — the latter every- where the same, and the former very much so, — might be thought to have no need of movement. Ordinary plants, indeed, have no locomotion; some float, but most are rooted to the spot where they grew. Yet probably all of them execute various movements which must be as truly self-caused as are those of the lower grades of animals, — movements which are over- looked only because too slow to be directly observed. Nevertheless, the motion of the hour-hand and of the minute-hand of a watch is not less real than that of the second-hand. 460. Locomotion. Moreover, many microscopic plants living in water are seen to move freely, if not briskly, under the microscope; and so Uke- wise do more conspicuous aquatic plants in their embryo- like or seedling state. Even at maturity, species of Oscillaria (such as in Pig. 488, minute worm-shaped plant
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