Excerpt from The First Book of Plants Plants grow almost everywhere in the world around us in all sizes and shapes. Some are so small that they can be seen only with a microscope. Others, like the redwood trees of Cali lornia, tower high in the sky. Plants grow not only in well watered soil, but in oceans, rivers, lakes and swamps, in deserts, on rocks, far above the ground on branches of trees, on old pieces of wood, even on such unlikely things as crusts of bread, old shoes, or on top of arctic snow. Some strange plants eat insects, and others steal food from their neighbors. Plants and animals are the living, growing things of the earth. Most animals move around, and many of them have sound apparatuses, for making noises. Most plants spend their whole lives silently in one place. Because they live so quietly, we sometimes forget that during their growing seasons they work hard all day long. For plants are just as alive as animals, and they have the same problems: finding and keeping a place to live, getting food, fighting animal enemies and plant rivals. This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.