Proceedings of the Seminar on Prakrit Studies 1973

Author(s): K R Chandra, Dalsukh Malvania, Nagin J Shah
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 50

The green plants are the primary producers of the living world. Without green plants, life except for a few chemosynthetic bacteria would disappear from the eartb.
Plants have no specialized digestive system. An embryo plant cannot make its own food until the seed bas sprouted and the embryo has developed a functional root, leaf and stem system.o3 Prakrit literature makes an implicit suggestion that the nutrients of the plants are made within the cells of the plants or absorbed through the cell membrances.84 Water or nutrient is absorbed by the epidermal cells of the roots containing bacteria85 and moved to all parts of the plant. There takes place respiration in plants-cellular respiration in plants as explained by modern Biology.
The authors of Prakrit literature differentiate the several parts of a plant, such as, root, stem, leaf, etc.97 The obvious function of root is to anchor the plant, to absorb water and minerals from the soils and to conduct these substances to the stem and to store99 food in it. The stem and its branches support the leaves, flowers and fruits.100 Each leaf is a specialized nutritive organ whose function is to carry on photosynthesis 101 Plants are of two types 102 : Subtile and gross ones and both of them are either fully developed or undeveloped. Either many have one body in common or each has its own body. Those who severally have their own body are of many kinds : trees, shrubby plants, shrubs, big plants, creeping plants, grass, paims, plants of knotty stems or stalks, mushrooms, waterplants, annual plants, and herbs. 103 The subtile plants are of one kind as there is no variety. They are distributed all over the world, gross plants are found in a part of the world only.104 Some of subtile plants are identical with bacteria, algae and fungi.
An evolutionary sequence in plant reproduction appears to be evident ranging from subtile plants which reproduce largely by asexual means. The higher plants105 may produce no more than a few scores of seeds per plant, but each seed has a fairly good chance of growing into a natural plant. In plants only asexual reproduction106 takes place according to the Prakrit literature. But modern Biology shows that there take place both asexual and sexual reproductions in plant life.
The life of some higher plants exists within the cover of seeds in a state of dormancy to be awakened at a proper time and season under the favourable conditions. The viability of the cereals, if preserved in a well protected granary, lasts in the maximum upto-three years, five years and seven years.107 A number of evolutionary trends appear to be evident in the plant kingdom. One of these is a change from a population that is mostly baploid individuals to one that is almost entirely diploid-an evolutionary trend toward a greater size and importance of the sporophyte ang a reduction in the size of the gametophyte generation,