psorospermioe

Updated: May 8, 2025

And seeing that the whole progress of modern investigation is in favour of the doctrine of continuity, it is a fair and probable speculation though only a speculation that, as there are some plants which can manufacture protein out of such apparently intractable mineral matters as carbonic acid, water, nitrate of ammonia, metallic and earthy salts; while others need to be supplied with their carbon and nitrogen in the somewhat less raw form of tartrate of ammonia and allied compounds; so there may be yet others, as is possibly the case with the true parasitic plants, which can only manage to put together materials still better prepared still more nearly approximated to protein until we arrive at such organisms as the Psorospermioe and the Panhistophyton, which are as much animal as vegetable in structure, but are animal in their dependence on other organisms for their food.

Thomas Henry Huxley - Discourses: Biological and Geological Essays