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d upon; that which goes to support life by being received within, and assimilated by, the organism of an animal or a plant; nutriment; aliment; especially, what is eaten by animals for nourishment.

The peculiar characteristics of an organism as a type of others; also, the structure of the parts of an animal or plant.

The appropriate action of any special organ or part of an animal or vegetable organism; as, the function of the heart or the limbs; the function of leaves, sap, roots, etc.; life is the sum of the functions of the various organs and parts of the body.

That stage of growth or development in an organism, in which the reproductive elements are generated and matured in preparation for propagating the species.

The tendency of an organism to respond, during its growth, to the force of gravitation.

the germ of a fetus, of a plant or flower, and the like; the earliest form under which an organism appears. In the entire process in which a new being originates . . . two distinct classes of action participate; namely, the act of generation by which the germ is produced; and the act of development, by which that germ…

A cell, of either sex, directly concerned in the production of a new organism.

The theory that living organisms can be produced only by the development of living germs. Cf. Biogenesis, Abiogenesis.

hich long retain color when gathered. -- Globe animalcule, a small, globular, locomotive organism (Volvox globator), once throught to be an animal, afterward supposed to be a colony of microscopic algæ. -- Globe of compression (Mil.), a kind of mine producing a wide crater; -- called also overcharged mine. -- Globe…

ic process; to increase in bulk by the gradual assimilation of new matter into the living organism; -- said of animals and vegetables and their organs.

The general appearance and manner of life of a living organism.

od of reproduction in which the successive generations differ from each other, the parent organism producing offspring different in habit and structure from itself, the original form, however, reappearing after one or more generations; -- opposed to homogenesis, or gamogenesis.

Producing a different type of organism; developing into a different form of tissue, as cartilage which develops into bone. Haeckel.

The science which treats of the complex relations of living creatures to other organisms, and to their surrounding conditions generally. St. George Mivart.

Pertaining to histology, or to the microscopic structure of the tissues of living organisms. -- His`to*log"ic*al*ly, adv.

ly vegetable. Holophytic nutrition (, that form of nutrition, characteristic of vegetable organisms, in which carbonic acid, ammonia, and nitrates are absorbed as food, in distinction from the animal mode of nutrition, by the ingestion of albuminous matter.

Belonging to the same category of individuality; -- a morphological term applied to organisms so related.

A morphological term signifying development, in the case of multicellular organisms, from the same unit deme or unit of the inferior orders of individuality.

erial homology (Biol.), representative or repetitive relation in the segments of the same organism, -- as in the lobster, where the parts follow each other in a straight line or series. Owen. See Homotypy. -- Special homology (Biol.), the correspondence of a part or organ with those of a different animal, as determine…

Developing, in the case of multicellular organisms, from the same embryonic systems into which the secondary unit (gastrula or plant enbryo) differentiates.