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Updated: June 27, 2025
In the zoophyte branch, class Alcyonaria, one finds the order Gorgonaria, which contains three groups: sea fans, isidian polyps, and coral polyps. It's in this last that precious coral belongs, an unusual substance that, at different times, has been classified in the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms.
But when we come to creatures that are either fixed, or while moving, severally preserve a definite attitude, we no longer find uniformity of surface. The gemmule of a Zoophyte, which during its locomotive stage is distinguishable only into outer and inner tissues, no sooner takes root than its upper end begins to assume a different structure from its lower.
We will take some tufts of Corallina, however, for that is temptingly fine. What a curious plant it is! Its root, a mere crustaceous disk, and its fronds, depositing shelly matter upon their surface, bear so strong a resemblance to the true Corals, that, until recently, naturalists have thought it a zoophyte. Here the plants are of a dull brick-red; but in less exposed situations they are purple.
We may consider the polypi in a zoophyte, or the buds in a tree, as cases where the division of the individual has not been completely effected. Certainly in the case of trees, and judging from analogy in that of corallines, the individuals propagated by buds seem more intimately related to each other, than eggs or seeds are to their parents.
Suffering has been the lot of all living things, from the giant of the primeval swamps down to the smallest zoophyte. It is far more so with man. Some favored classes in every age may furnish forth a few individuals who may perhaps lead lives of self-indulgence and luxury; but to the mass of mankind life has ever been, and must ever be, a prolonged scene of labor intermingled with suffering.
But if my hand approached these living flowers, these animated, sensitive plants, the whole colony took alarm. The white petals re-entered their red cases, the flowers faded as I looked, and the bush changed into a block of stony knobs. Chance had thrown me just by the most precious specimens of the zoophyte.
The ground, of course, on which the proof rested in this case was, that if the coralline were, as had often been thought, a zoophyte, the water would become corrupt, and poisonous to the life of the small animals in the same jar; and that its remaining fresh argued that the coralline had re-oxygenated it from time to time, and was therefore a vegetable. In 1850, Mr.
Vavasour kept his eyes fixed on the zoophyte, and said, "I shall be only too delighted, if you wish it." "You will wish it yourself a second time," chimed in Campbell, "if you try it once. Perhaps you know nothing of him but professionally. Unfortunately for professional men, that too often happens." "Know anything of him I! I assure you not, save that he attends Mrs.
In all cases of compound zoophytes, however, there is one great point which they have in common with the worm, viz., that there is an association of distinct lives acting unanimously; or, rather, to the same end. Plainly as this is seen in the worm, it is still more obvious in the zoophyte.
But for the physiologist, who knows that every individual being is so evolved who knows, further, that in their earliest condition the germs of all plants and animals whatever are so similar, "that there is no appreciable distinction amongst them, which would enable it to be determined whether a particular molecule is the germ of a Conferva or of an Oak, of a Zoophyte or of a Man;" for him to make a difficulty of the matter is inexcusable.
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