Abstract
Current botanical textbooks usually say little or nothing about the inorganic constituents of epiphytes, and tend to leave the impression in the student's mind that most of these plants derive their nutriment entirely from air and rain, and therefore consist wholly of gaseous elements and carbon (whose oxides are gases).* But every living organism contains protein, and every molecule of protein contains about 2% of phosphorus, none of whose compounds are vapors at ordinary temperatures, so that they are not found in the atmosphere. Furthermore, chlorophyll contains a small amount of iron, and the presence of potassium in small amounts is supposed to be necessary for the formation of starch, so that every green plant must contain some of these two metals, if not others.
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