Personality of plants

CHAPTER VI
Marriage Customs of Plants
"Vale primroses
That die unmarried."—Shakespeare
ffl OVE consumes the plants" once wrote
1 J Linnaeus, and the observation of every
student of Nature goes to confirm his state-
ment. The plants marry and are given in mar-
riage. Reproduction is undoubtedly their chief
end in life.
The simplest and most primitive plants have
no sex but produce new individuals by split-
ting their single cells in two. It is in the thread-
like bodies of Pond Weeds that we find the
first beginnings of the principle of generation
by union. These lowly creatures consist of sin-
gle cells strung end to end like beads in a necklace.
When two of the living chains happen
to find themselves parallel to each other, cer-
tain of the cells reach out and join those op-
posite them to form new cells. Such a mixture
of life forces is always beneficial to the race.
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