The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1891-11-05
What Plants Live Upon.

Trees and plants don't grow out of the
ground, as most people vainly talk, but
directly out of the cir aid when they
die or get consumed, they return once
mere to the atmosphere from which to y
were taken. Trees undeniably eat car.
bon. or course, therefore, all the ordi-'
nary, upscentifc conceptions of how
plants feed are absolutely erroneous.
Vegetable physiology, indeed, got beyond
these conceptions a good hundred years
ago. But it usually takes hundred
years for the world at large TO make np-
itsleeway.
Trees don't suck up their nutriment by
the roots, they don't derive their food
from the soil, they don't need to DO fec,
like babies through tube, with terres-
trial solids. The solitary instance of an
orchid being hung up by a string in a
conservatory on riece fbark, ought to
be sufficient to at orce dispell forever this
strange illusion-if people ever thought;
but, Of course they don't think. The true
mouths and stomachs of plants are not to-
be found in the roots, bat in the green
leaves; their true food is not to be suck:
ed from the soil, but inhaled through
tiny channels from the air; the mass of
th cir material is carbon, and that carbon
the leaves themselves drink in, by
thousand small green mouths, from the
atmosphere around them.
Blu. how about the juice, the sap, the
qualities ofthe soil, the manure required?
is the incredulous cry of the people.
What is the use Of the roots, especially
ofthe rootle:s, if they are not the mouths
and supply tubes of the plants?
The plant requires drink as well as food
and the roots are the mouths that sup
ply it with water. They also suck up 8
few other things as well, which are ne.
cessary indeed, but far from forming the
bulk of the nulriment. That is to say
some parasitic plants are practically to
all intents and purposes, animals.
To put it briefly, every plant has one
set Of serial mouths to suck in carbon, and
many plants have another set of subter-
ranean mouths as well, to suck up water
and mineral constituents The young
plants being supplied with water by their
roots, and with carbon By the air around,
have al! the little they need below, ard
grow and thrive in these conditions won
dcrfully. Bu, ifyou we're to cover them
up with an aif light glass case, so as to
exclude fresh air, they'd shrivel up at
once for want of carbon, which is their
solid food, as the water is their liquid.
The way the plant really eats is little
known to gardeners, but is very interes-
ting. All over the surface of the green
leaf lie scattered dozens Of tiny mouths or
apertures, each Of them guarded by two
small parsed Up lips, which have a re-
diculous human appearance when seen
through simple microscope. WheSza
conditions Of sir aud moisture +
sS:e, these lips open visibly
rasses, then the tiny >uouta 3
IN carbonic acid in abundance from g.e
air around them. a series of pipes con-
ycvs the gaseous food thus supplied to the
upper surtisca Of the leaf, where the sun.
lib. falls upon it. When the sunlight
plays upon This mysterious chlorophyll
i sewers the oxygen from the carbon
That is the whole process of feeding IN
p!auts they eat carboaic acid, digest Il
in their leaves, get rid of the oxygef
with which it vas formerly, combined
end keep the carbon stored ufeaOr theS,
own purposes.-Co CornhW. &