(7) Some seed fell on stony ground where it had not much earth: and immediately it sprang up, because it had not much deepness of earth:

(13) From this root there grow and ripen the fruits of birth, of the life-span, of all that is tasted in life.

(16) The first forms of real plant life are described by the old teachers as having been a now-extinct lowly form of plant-life scarcely more than a crystal in appearance, and yet manifesting the characteristics of plant life. Then appeared the ancestors of what are now known as the "chlomacea" which are a strange group of lowly creatures, comprising the characteristics of both plant and mineral life, and being found even today in the deposits upon damp rocks, the bark of trees, etc. From this and simpler creatures evolved the ancestors of what are now known as the "angiospores," or lowest forms of plant-life; and later, the ancestors of the "gymnospores," which are probably the lowest forms of animal-life known to science today.

(25) It is concerning plants that every single kind with a drop of water on a twig (teh) they should hold four finger-breadths in front of the fire; Most of all it is the lotos (kûnâr) they speak of.

(14) But the question was, whether the embryo is already an animal, or still a plant. And then the name animal was reduced to definition, for the sake of perspicuity. But having discovered that it is distinguished from what is not an animal by sensation and motion from appetency; we again separated this from its adjuncts; asserting that it was one thing for that to be such potentially, which is not yet possessed of the power of sensation and motion, but will some time be so, and another thing to be already so actually; and in the case of such, it is one thing to exert its powers, another to be able to exert them, but to be at rest or asleep. And this is the question.

(28) In the case of seeds, the presence of consciousness and mental operations are manifested. Not only in the process of sprouting, but also in other processes, does the seed show signs of life and mind. Certain seeds are carried to their future abode by means of running streams along which they work their way to congenial soil by means of tiny projecting filaments which they move as legs, and thus propel themselves to shore. A botanist has said regarding a certain species of these "swimming seeds:" "So curiously lifelike are their movements that it is almost impossible to believe that these tiny objects, make good progress through the water, are really seeds and not insects." Certain plants prey upon other plants, twining bands around another plant or tree, which bands work their way through the outer covering of the bark and thus act as suckers through which the parasitic plant draws nourishment from the larger plant, the latter succumbing in time and being literally killed for food by the clinging plant. In South America there are varieties of these climbers which will mount to the top of a tall tree in this way, and after killing their support they will wave long tendrils in the breeze until they fasten hold of another tree which in turn is depleted of its vitality and nourishment, and so on until the parasite is surrounded by a large circle of ruined victims. Other parasites content themselves with boring into a tree trunk and then absorbing enough of the sap of the latter to enable them to live without other work on their own part. In some species, the habit of parasitism is known to have been acquired during the history of the plant, just as some animals (and human beings) have acquired similar habits.

(3) When the seeds of all these plants, with those from the primeval ox, have arisen upon it, every year the bird strips that tree and mingles all the seeds in the water; Tîstar seizes them with the rain-water and rains them on to all regions.

(11) Whatever sweet-scented blossom arises at various seasons through the hand-labour of men, or has a perennial root and blossoms in its season with new shoots and sweet-scented blossoms, as the rose, the narcissus, the jasmine, the dog-rose (nêstarûn), the tulip, the colocynth (kavastîk), the pandanus (kêdi), the kamba, the ox-eye (hêri), the crocus, the swallow-wort (zarda), the violet, the kârda, and others of this genus, they call a flower (gûl).

(5) From that same germ of plants the tree of all germs was given forth, and grew up in the wide-formed ocean, from which the germs of all species of plants ever increased.

(5) Let him, then, say what he wants to learn. Is it whether what is in the womb grows and is nourished, or is it whether it possesses any sensation or movement by impulse? For, according to Plato, the plant is animate, and an animal; but, according to Aristotle, not an animal, for it wants sensation, but is animate.

(9) The tree of many seeds has grown amid the wide-formed ocean, and in its seed are all plants; some say it is the proper-curing, some the energetic-curing, some the all-curing.

(15) Above and below spread its branches, nourished by the gunas. Sense-objects are its buds; and its clustering roots spread downward in the world of men, giving rise to action.

(4) The branches either stand as the symbol of the first food, or they are that the multitude may know that fruits spring and grow universally, remaining a very long time; but that the duration of life allotted to themselves is brief. And it is on this account that they will have it that the branches are given; and perhaps also that they may know, that as these, on the other hand, are burned, so also they themselves speedily leave this life, and will become fuel for fire.

(4) Now, on the man who proposes the question denying that plants are animals, we shall show that he affirms what contradicts himself. For, having defined the animal by the fact of its nourishment and growth, but having asserted that a plant is not an animal, it appears that he says nothing else than that what is nourished and grows is both an animal and not an animal.

(2) In like manner even as the animals, with grain of fifty and five species and twelve species of medicinal plants, have arisen from the primeval ox, ten thousand species among the species of principal plants, and a hundred thousand species among ordinary plants have grown from all these seeds of the tree opposed to harm, the many-seeded, which has grown in the wide-formed ocean.

(2) "Creator of grain and plants," "who caused [the green herb to spring up]!"

(19) The concept that all life originates from seeds caused grain and various plants to be accepted as emblematic of the human spermatozoon, and the tree was therefore symbolic of organized life unfolding from its primitive germ. The growth of the universe from its primitive seed may be likened to the growth of the mighty oak from the tiny acorn. While the tree is apparently much greater than its own source, nevertheless that source contains potentially every branch, twig, and leaf which will later be objectively unfolded by the processes of growth.

(20) That Life is present in plant-life scarcely anyone is disposed to question, though there seems to be a desire to deny Consciousness and intelligent activity in the case on the part of the orthodox scientist. But the more advanced of the workers in the ranks of modern science do not hesitate to positively assert the presence of conscious intelligent activity in plant-life, and vigorously support their contention by logical argument backed up by incontrovertible facts gleaned in their laboratory experiments. These scientists hold that the presence of the phenomena of nutrition, reproduction, and of physical and chemical change due to adaptation is proof positive of the presence of vital intelligence within the organism in which the former are manifested.

(5) So, also, the growth of plants is connected, in this manner, strongly with the root; so, likewise, the blessings (âfrîn) which the righteous utter, come back, in this proportion, to themselves.

(17) The chief distinction between the intelligence and consciousness of Plants and Animals is that the former manifest almost entirely along the lines of instinctive or unconscious mentation, while the latter manifest in a steadily increasing degree purpositive and deliberate conscious activity. In the processes of the human body we find a large proportion of those performed clearly along the lines of the instinctive, unconscious vegetable kingdom. These processes come under the control and direction of the Plant Soul. They are performed on the Plane of Plant Consciousness just as truly as are the processes of the ordinary types of plant life. Some of these processes are very complex—but so are the processes involved in the life of the ordinary plant.