To get at the answer to this question, we should pick out one kind of plant like the creeping ivy vine. If we examine same as it climbs a brick wall, we find that it sends out little shoots which attach themselves around the little rough places in the bricks of the wall which, if examined under a microscope are quite large apparently--at least they are large enough for the tiny creepers of the ivy to hold on to. Of course, if there were only one little “shoot” to reach out and take hold of the rough spots in the wall, the vine could not cling to the wall, but the vine puts out a great many of these shoots--which it would perhaps be best to call “clingers” and as each helps a little to hold on, the great number all holding on together enable a quite heavy vine to hang on to an apparently smooth wall. Some vines have actually the ability to send out little suckers which are made on the same principle as the boys’ sucker (a circular piece of leather with string attached to the middle with which a boy can pick up stones) and such plants can cling to and climb up an almost perfectly smooth wall. What Are the Thorns on Roses and Other Plants Good For? The thorns of roses and other plants which have thorns originally grew for the purpose of enabling the plants to fasten themselves on to other things thus helping them to climb. Many plants with thorns are permitted to grow now in places where they can use their thorns for climbing but many others with thorns are cut down by the gardener to make the plants shapely and to make them produce more flowers and less branches, but they keep on growing their thorns just the same. Do Plants Breathe? Yes, indeed, plants do breathe. To breathe is just as important to the life of a plant as it is to a boy or girl. Plants do not have lungs like boys and girls and grown up people, but they find it necessary to breathe. You know, of course, that fishes breathe, but they haven’t any lungs either, even though they belong to the animal kingdom. Fishes do not, however, breathe the air in the same form as we do because they must use the air which they find in the water. That is why we say fishes drown when on the land. They cannot breathe air in the form in which we are able to use it any more than people can breathe the air in the water. Breathing, however, is necessary to all living things and the gas which we take in when breathing is oxygen. There is oxygen in the water as well as in the air. Things which live in the air take their oxygen out of the air and things which live in the water get their oxygen out of the water. For this purpose it is necessary for plants and animals that live under the water to have a breathing apparatus especially adapted for getting oxygen out of the water. What Happens When Breathing Occurs?