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.