Such, for example, is the plant which is found on Parnassus, and
which some call the Epipetrum. This you may hang up on a peg and it
will yet live for a considerable time. Sometimes it is a matter of
doubt whether a given organism should be classed with plants or with
animals. The Ascidians, for instance, and the like so far resemble
plants as that they never live free and unattached, but, on the
other hand, inasmuch as they have a certain flesh-like substance, they
must be supposed to possess some degree of sensibility.
An Ascidian has a body divided by a single septum and with two
orifices, one where it takes in the fluid matter that ministers to its
nutrition, the other where it discharges the surplus of unused
juice, for it has no visible residual substance, such as have the
other Testacea. This is itself a very strong justification for
considering an Ascidian, and anything else there may be among
animals that resembles it, to be of a vegetable character; for
plants also never have any residuum. Across the middle of the body
of these Ascidians there runs a thin transverse partition, and here it
is that we may reasonably suppose the part on which life depends to be
situated.
The Acalephae, or Sea-nettles, as they are variously called, are not
Testacea at all, but lie outside the recognized groups.
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