Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1893-06-07
ANIMAL AND PLANT PARTNERS.

karasitical GroWths That BeOefft the OBJ
Jects on Which They Live.
The principle of partnership. which
makes so great figure in the CONNER
cial world, is found in operation in both
the plant and animal Kingdoms under
the name of symbiosis In fact, what
Prof Weiss has well described as part
nership" sometimes exists between
plants and animals for their future
benefit and defense. There is . group
of plants in the tropics called 'ant-lov-
ing" or myrmecophilous plants, which
allow swarms of ants to feed upon the
nectar secreted on the surface of their
leaves and to dwell in their hollow
stems
The return which the plants receive
for this hospitality is protection against
another species of ants which are fond
of eating their leaves Other plants
suffer greatly from the ravages of the
leaf-eaters, but the latter are driven off
from the myrmecophiious plants by
their ant friends.
In recent address on this subject
Prof Weiss pointed out many instances
of similar relations both between plants
and animals and between different
plants The minute green bodies found
on the fresh water poiyp have been
shown to be vegetable cells which fur
nish sugar for the animal, while the
latter in turn provides them with nour-
ishment
The threads of fungus which flourish
upon the roots of oaks and beeches sur
rounded by decaying leaf mold turns
the latter into nourishment for the
trees, and the seedlings of the trees are
unable to grow amid such surroundings
without the aid of the fungi
One of the most interesting of these
partnerships has been discovered by
Prof Marshall Ward among the organ
isms of the 'ginger-beer plant" Two
such organisms are principally con-
cerned in the fermentation of ginger
beer, yeast and bacterium.
The yeast produces waste product
which, If allowed to accumulate, would
arrest the process of fermentation; but
this product is precisely what the bac-
terium needs for food, and thus it is alb
sorbed by the one partner as fast as it
is produced by the other, and the re-
suit Is that the fermentation goes on
for the benefit of both, and finally for
the delectation of a third, all-devour-
ing partner-man.
Still another instance of this sort of
combination for mutual benefit would
appear to be furnished by those strange
members of the vegetable kingdom
known as ''carnivorous plants" Some
OF these plants are aquatic, and feed
upon young fish They possess a pc
culiar peptonic power which enables
them to digest their animal food. Re-
Gently it has been shown that this di-
gestive ability is due to the presence in
their sap of certain micro-organisms
which flourish upon the food that the
carnivorous plants devour
In view of such facts as these, we
must learn not to be too hasty in as
suming that parasitical growths exist
only at the expense of the plants or
animals on which they are found A
little investigation may show, as in the
case of the oaks and the fungi, that
what we behold is not battle for life
between the two parties concerned. but,
on the other hand, friendly union
of their interests in the broader strug-
gle for existence in which all living
things are engaged Youths Com.